Burdens of Freedom: Cultural Difference and American Power

by Lawrence Mead

Overview

Burdens of Freedom presents a new and radical interpretation of America and its challenges. The United States is an individualist society where most people seek to realize personal goals and values out in the world. This unusual, inner-driven culture was the chief reason why first Europe, then Britain, and finally America came to lead the world. But today, our deepest problems derive from groups and nations that reflect the more passive, deferential temperament of the non-West. The long-term poor and many immigrants have difficulties assimilating in America mainly because they are less inner-driven than the norm. Abroad, the United States faces challenges from Asia, which is collective-minded, and also from many poorly-governed countries in the developing world. The chief threat to American leadership is no longer foreign rivals like China but the decay of individualism within our own society.

The great divide is between the individualist West, for which life is a project, and the rest of the world, in which most people seek to survive rather than achieve. This difference, although clear in research on world cultures, has been ignored in virtually all previous scholarship on American power and public policy, both at home and abroad. Burdens of Freedom is the first book to recognize that difference. It casts new light on America's greatest struggles. It re-evaluates the entire Western tradition, which took individualism for granted. How to respond to cultural difference is the greatest test of our times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641770408
Publisher:	Encounter Books
Publication date:	04/23/2019
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lawrence M. Mead is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University. His many previous books defined the theory behind the radical welfare reform of the 1990s, which for the first time required many welfare recipients to work as a condition of aid. His works also include close studies of how to implement work requirements. Since the 1980s, he has been an influential advisor to social policy makers in Washington, at the state and local level, and in several foreign countries.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments ix

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Part 1 History and Culture

Chapter 2 History 25

Chapter 3 The End of History 49

Chapter 4 Cultural Difference 69

Chapter 5 The Origins of Difference 95

Part 2 Other Roots of Power

Chapter 6 Geography 117

Chapter 7 The Market 131

Chapter 8 Good Government 153

Part 3 Challenges at Home

Chapter 9 Freedom as Obligation 181

Chapter 10 Social Problems 199

Chapter 11 Immigration 223

Part 4 Future Challenges

Chapter 12 The Future of Primacy 255

Chapter 13 Policy Directions 277

Notes 295

Index 337

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Lawrence Mead’s ideas have formed much of the political basis for the sweeping national reforms of the American welfare system since the 1990s. In this volume his cross-disciplinary approach merges political philosophy, history, and psychology to explain the origin of the West’s individualist culture. In a completely original argument, Mead shows how individualism combines freedom with the burden of interior constraints over action. This important characteristic forms a culture that is not present outside the West, and Mead warns us that this individualism is at risk of being lost, with enormous consequences for America’s future.”

—Jason Turner, former New York City Health and Welfare Commissioner

* * *

“American power is not just a by-product of wealth or the scale of a large country. Rather, it is the achievement of individuals. . . . For America to continue to lead the world, it must, above all, retain that buccaneering spirit. Americans must continue to bear the burdens of freedom.”

—From the Introduction