Daniel Hannan‘s wonderful review of America 3.0 is entitled “America’s greatest days lie ahead provided she is true to herself.” This is a sentiment with which we heartily agree.
Mr. Hannan understands and concurs with the both the letter and the spirit of our book. For example, he shares our fundamental optimism:
A generation from now, Americans will be richer, more leisured, healthier and longer-lived than ever. That sentence could have been written at any time since the Mayflower landed (at least of the settlers; it was a different story for the indigenous tribes). It would always have prompted scepticism; and it would always have been true.
These days, it is a sentiment we rarely hear, which is all the more reason to pay attention when we do. In America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the Twenty-First Century, James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus begin by conjuring a cheerful vision of the United States in 2040.
… such a vision may look naïve. But when we ponder human history up to the present, it’s entirely plausible.
Mr. Hannan also agrees with our argument regarding the critical importance of the absolute nuclear family.
The point of the book is not to laud or criticise the Anglosphere’s nuclear family, but to show why it is immediately responsible for the individualistic culture that we share with only a handful of lands (notably the Nordic countries and the Netherlands). It made possible capitalism, because economic relationships were primarily mediated through cash rather than family obligations. It facilitated the industrial revolution, because people did not feel tied to their family plots. It opened up vast new landmasses to settlement, as children set out to establish their own nuclear families. It encouraged the assimilation of immigrants, who could make their way as individuals (though some first-generation Americans understandably struggle to adjust to the unfamilial attitudes of their children). It explains why we hanker after our own little plots, instead of living in neatly stacked apartments or, to flip it about, it explains the suburbs that foreign visitors find so ugly and vulgar.
And go ahead and preorder Mr. Hannan’s forthcoming book, Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World. Mr. Hannan tells he draws on many of the same sources we do, and we are eager to see his take on the history.
Much congratulations are in order. Your book has gotten the attention of an international freedom warrior like Daniel Hannon (can we run him for president?) and then, on top of that, being written up in the Telegraph! Well done, Lex.
The question here, of course, is can the ideas make an impact? We are this week getting a massive new obligatory entitlement program rammed down our collective throats despite its enduring unpopularity, you’re seeing the Great Haircut coming. The Left is laying the foundation for an ever expanding and ever more oppressive and resource consuming state, you’re seeing a small, limited, framework government. Maybe the two are intertwined, the one bringing about the other.
Michael, they are imposing something that cannot be paid for or sustained.
It can’t work and it can’t be paid for. We will dismantle it and move on.
This is the blow-out peak of liberalism / progressivism, and they cannot even get it out of the factory gate before it falls apart.
Yeah, it is mind-blowing to have Dan Hannan’s support. Very happy about that.