Rating: 
Summary: Just preaching
Review: If I hadn't bought this book on line I might have read the blurbs on the back and noticed one of them was from George Will. He doesn't care for analysis and questioning. In that case I'd have been more wary of buying it.
After reading the first chapter I can see that the book is a Neo-con's dream. Easterbrook packs the first chapter with endless anecdotes bolstered by vague, and thus misleading, statistics. He then has the audcity to mention how easily statistics are twisted.
His point, with which he bludgeons the reader, is that life is getting better and better for everyone. His examples are entirely US centered. At one point he takes a few shots at Europe as a means of glorifying America, and he mentions that Europeans are far better off today than were their parents. He neglects to mention that their parents had to rebuild from the rubble of WWII.
The anecdotes he uses to show how much better off "average" Americans are include such things as private aircraft and vacation home ownership. Discussing the latter Easterbrook shows his true bias by suggesting that it is "working class" people creating havoc on the lakeside with their noisy motorized equipment to the chagrin of older (that is, wealthy) residents.
Finally he lets loose a few pot shots at that old favorite bugaboo, the dreaded liberal, in the midst of blaming the vast discrepancy in wealth in the US on immigration.
It's extremely clear that Easterbrook is not out to explore a timely idea (the one implied by his title) with an open mind, but simply to preach and marshal support for the conclusions he's already made. This is a classic Neo-con method. This is also the secret to their ability to make common cause with the religious right. Neither actually seeks to discover the truth, but only to bolster and fortify the conclusions they've already decided upon.
Rating: 
Summary: Ignores the Reality of Inherent Unsatisfactoriness
Review: 2500 years ago, Siddhartha enunciated the law of Dukkha,
having realized how unsatisfactoriness is inherent in all
sensory experience. Yet, as this book evidences, we
still like to believe there is such a thing as happiness
based purely on sensory gratification. If this book
had shown a little more insight into the sociobiological
necessity of insatiable craving for species survival,
it might have been more than just an interesting read.
Perhaps a dialog with Barbara Ehrenreich of 'Nickel and
Dimed' would help to educate the author a little about
the realities of actual life and work.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes you feel better w/out letting you off the hook
Review: A good book, especially for the many folks who are feel like things are going down the toilet and yearn for some idealized notion of "the good old days." Easterbrook correctly points out that the majority of Americans, Western Europeans (and a lot of others on the globe) are living better than 99% of all the people who ever lived. And he has the facts to back this up. But our culture, politicians, special interests, and (often) our own psyches constantly try and convince us otherwise. This is not to say Easterbrook does not feel humanity could -- and should -- do a better job looking after ourselves and the planet. But he puts things in proper perspective and makes you realize how often we are manipulated to feel things are worse than they are. My only complaint is the last bit trying to put September 11 and fundamentalism in perspective feels a bit last minute (although undoubtedly someone else would have been critical if he had not addressed these points).
Rating: 
Summary: Attitude of Gratitude? It Starts at the Top!
Review: As one who is growing to question our consumer culture more and more with each passing year, I was genuinely intrigued when I cam across "The Progress Paradox." I think Easterbrook makes a valid case that, when looking at things with historical hindsight, we are in many ways better off than our ancestors. It is difficult to argue with his litany of improvements in health care, education, conveniences, access to information, etc. Given this, Eaterbrook then explores the issue of why so many of us appear to be more unhappy than our ancestors. He offers that our cultural experience of gratitude has eroded, and we simply have come to expect more, and appreciate less.
This is well and good, but "Progress Paradox" fails in one glaring way. It paints a picture of the "good life" of the average U.S. citizen, but then sidesteps an important and idisputable trend -- over the last several decades, the U.S. has experienced unprecedented consolidation of wealth in the hands of the elite few. If the life of the "average" U.S. citizen is so good, then why shouldn't the wealthiest Americans be happy to embrace this lifestyle (with gratitude!) and joyfully pay taxes to help support the public good? I may be wrong, but my suspicion is that Easterbrook may be either intentionally or unwittingly helping the elite classes maintain their priveleged status. Focusing on how average Americans are better off than previous genertions may, in the end, be an effective way to deflect public consciousness away from issues of growing inequality.
I am all for an "attitude of gratitude" -- provided that it is practiced by all, including the elite. If the average American lifestyle has so vastly improved over the years, then why should there be such a push towards hoarding more and wealth at the top, and doggedly defending tax cuts for the wealthy? In the year 1973, real (inflation adjusted) wages of American workers began to fall for the first time, and they have not kept pace with economic growth since. In the meantime, we now see a nation where the wealthiest one-percent own a whopping 40 percent of the available wealth. Globally, the top 200 corporations (out of 45,000 or so) pull in 25% of the profit from the world economy. So again I say, if "average" Americans never had it so good, then why the obsessive pursuit of more and more wealth at the top? I'll practice my "attitude of gratitude" when I see the wealthiest Americans saying, "You know, we really CAN live comfortably and well with far less than we have -- By God, we have a key role to play in maintaining the public good, and we'll pay our taxes with a profound happiness in knowing that our legacy has been to improve the lot of others, and not dwell on our selffish interests." Now THERE'S a real "attitude of gratitude!"
Rating:
Summary: Attitude of Gratitude? It Starts at the Top!
Review: As one who is growing to question our consumer culture more and more with each passing year, I was genuinely intrigued when I cam across "The Progress Paradox." I think Easterbrook makes a valid case that, when looking at things with historical hindsight, we are in many ways better off than our ancestors. It is difficult to argue with his litany of improvements in health care, education, conveniences, access to information, etc. Given this, Eaterbrook then explores the issue of why so many of us appear to be more unhappy than our ancestors. He offers that our cultural experience of gratitude has eroded, and we simply have come to expect more, and appreciate less.
This is well and good, but "Progress Paradox" fails in one glaring way. It paints a picture of the "good life" of the average U.S. citizen, but then sidesteps an important and idisputable trend -- over the last several decades, the U.S. has experienced unprecedented consolidation of wealth in the hands of the elite few. If the life of the "average" U.S. citizen is so good, then why shouldn't the wealthiest Americans be happy to embrace this lifestyle (with gratitude!) and joyfully pay taxes to help support the public good? I may be wrong, but my suspicion is that Easterbrook may be either intentionally or unwittingly helping the elite classes maintain their priveleged status. Focusing on how average Americans are better off than previous genertions may, in the end, be an effective way to deflect public consciousness away from issues of growing inequality.
I am all for an "attitude of gratitude" -- provided that it is practiced by all, including the elite. If the average American lifestyle has so vastly improved over the years, then why should there be such a push towards hoarding more and wealth at the top, and doggedly defending tax cuts for the wealthy? In the year 1973, real (inflation adjusted) wages of American workers began to fall for the first time, and they have not kept pace with economic growth since. In the meantime, we now see a nation where the wealthiest one-percent own a whopping 40 percent of the available wealth. Globally, the top 200 corporations (out of 45,000 or so) pull in 25% of the profit from the world economy. So again I say, if "average" Americans never had it so good, then why the obsessive pursuit of more and more wealth at the top? I'll practice my "attitude of gratitude" when I see the wealthiest Americans saying, "You know, we really CAN live comfortably and well with far less than we have -- By God, we have a key role to play in maintaining the public good, and we'll pay our taxes with a profound happiness in knowing that our legacy has been to improve the lot of others, and not dwell on our selffish interests." Now THERE'S a real "attitude of gratitude!"
Rating:
Summary: Gregg Easterbrook versus Ayn Rand
Review: Ayn Rand's followers and similar ideologues base their world view on an unscientific economic model which assumes that more wealth = more happiness. That assumption was plausible when economics began as a separate discipline in the 18th Century, when most people in Europe and the early United States were just unimaginably poor by today's standards, much like the inhabitants of today's dysfunctional lumpen-countries. And I can see how Rand would have found this idea personally appealing, early in the 20th Century, given her experiences as an adolescent girl and young woman during the horrible privations of the Russian Revolution and the early years of the Soviet regime.
But 250 years of economic progress in Western Europe, the U.S. and offshoot societies have changed the look of things. Easterbrook provides overwhelming empirical evidence that this equation doesn't work once a nation's per capita GDP reaches about $10,000. After that level of income, wealth and happiness decouple so that we have, on the one hand, depressed rentiers who never have to work for the money they lavish on psychotherapy for their imaginary miseries; and on the other hand cheerful blue collar people who are grateful that they earn enough in wages week-by-week to provide for their families. (Easterbrook promotes gratitude as one of the pro-happiness virtues that short-circuits the wrong-headed equation of wealth with happiness.) So much for Rand's economic theory. Moreover, on pages 182-85 Easterbrook cites psychologist Martin Seligman's conclusion that four common American beliefs, which happen to be promoted by Rand's philosophy though Easterbrook and Seligman don't link them specifically to her, contribute to poor emotional coping strategies that often lead to unhappiness and depression. They are: individualism, self-esteem, victimology and excessive consumerism. Rand's advocacy of individualism and self-esteem are obvious, but she also presented a view of businessmen as a "persecuted minority," and she and her followers uncritically celebrated the value of ever-increasing consumption despite all the problems that lifestyle causes. Several biographical accounts of Rand and her movement provide evidence that her philosophy in practice doesn't produce the beneficial results that her novels seem to promise. Easterbrook inadvertently strengthens the case against her, but from the field of the empirical social sciences, not to mention common sense.
Rating: 
Summary: EEEAAASSSSTTTTTEEEERRRRBBBRRRROOOKKK!!!!
Review: Darn you Easterbrook!
Darn you! You have written an awesome book, perhaps one of my favorites, but you did what you should not have done. You did what CS Lewis did in Mere Christianity by trying to offer a "proof" of God, and what David Shenk did in a book called Data Smog: You tainted your greatest wisdom with a bleeding heart. You offer an amazing theory; one totally correct and very capable of changing a person's life. You say that we have it great and that we're miserable. You tell us many reasons why we might be miserable, and you tell us that this should not be so. But did you stop there? No! You then tell us your personal religion and your personal politics. You tell what we must do as decent people. You push on us a whole score of things we may not believe in, and in so doing wear down at the thing you wanted us most to see. We the diverse citizens of the United States are your target audience, and you probably manage to alienate at least 50% of us. No one book can save all of the world. Maybe you can save it in two or three. I ask that you republish this book minus 100 pages. The main point alone is sufficient to topple despair.
Rating:
Summary: An essential read for lovers of the human race
Review: During these times of divisive politics it is important to remember that men of good faith will differ. Many of us want the same things for the world, but disagree on the best way to acheive them. Those who believe that the good things of this world should be enjoyed by all people must read this book. It presents strong evidence that the gloom and doom picture painted by much of the popular press is not consistent with the facts. Things are not only getting better, they are getting much better for much of the world. The environment is getting much cleaner, and poverty is diminishing. Contiued progress is not acheivable through government regulation, but through the creative energies of productive individuals. Read this book, see the evidence, decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: interesting read, but a bit poorly argumented
Review: easterbrook engagingly writes that, while everything may seem like it's getting worse every year, in the big historical sweep we are really living better than ever. paradoxically, happiness seems to have stalled out, and unhappiness seems to be increasing. he tosses out a number of theories about why this is, and how we might fix it. i have many criticisms of this book, including the `fast and loose' use of hundreds of interesting statistics, the failure to assemble his data into a rhetorically tight and compelling argument, an occasional tendency to slip off topic into somewhat personal rants, and the final third of the book seems a bit scattered and off-topic. yet despite all that i have to say i found nearly every paragraph interesting reading, and still really enjoyed it for taking up a challenging and provocative topic in a lively way.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed bag
Review: Easterbrook is all over the map in this book. On the one hand, his book is a welcome antidote for the Paul Erlich-esque hand-wringing, doom-and-gloomism constantly being showered on us. It also provides some of the best sketched-out refutation to existential angst that I've seen in print. Examples of its better points include: * "Many figures in philosophy, religion, politics, and other fields have recommended that others pay no heed to material concerns, while being obsessed with the same things themselves" (p 145). Excellent point, and for a very engaging expansion of that point, read Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals." * "On its face, existential despair appears self-canceling: If life really is pointless, why bother to get upset about that? Wouldn't getting upset be pointless?" (p 253). * Positive psychology provides more help for people than earlier, negative methods. * By and large, things are getting better, not worse. But the book's failures are also many and glaring: * at its core, the book is contradictory. Easterbrook appropriately harps on the fact in the first 150 pages that astounding progress has been made in an absolute sense. For example, a car made today emits only 2% of the pollutants of a car made in 1970. But particularly at the end of the book, Easterbrook throws this all away and begins berating us for problems that exist in a relative sense, something he spends the first part of the book shredding. He then begins rolling out typical old-time liberalism: mandated universal health insurance (pp 255-7); elimination of SUVs (pp 92,93); increase in the minimum wage to a "living wage" whatever that is (pp 260-3); Bush-favors-the-rich bashing (p 247); CEO bashing (p 266-77); subsidized housing for drug addicts (p 259); more foreign aid (309). And when he says that in the U.S. "millions of people not only have more than they need, but have, in many ways, more than is good for them" (p 258), then you should, as Robert J. Ringer would say, "Hold on to your chips," 'cuz he's coming after them. * "Until the day when everyone is released from basic want, a sword will hang over Western abundance" (p 68). This from the guy that complains about "amplified anxiety" (p 111). Who will wield this sword anyway? And exactly who is going to "release" the whole world from basic want, and how are they going to get the money to do it? * "A reason Western economies keep performing better may be that capitalism has been supplanted by market economies" (p 67). In response to that non sequitur, I would only ask, What kind of economy existed during capitalism then? * SUVs are unsafe because an SUV is "more likely to harm the passengers in a car it collides with" (p 93). To *that* non sequitur, I'll only ask: What vehicle do *you* want to be in when you get into an accident? * "But the mid-1990s rise of road rage coincided with the onset of SUV mania" (p 94). Ahem! Having lived in L.A. in the late 1980s, I can definitively refute that asinine comment. * In the 1990s culture wars, "the right claimed the left was...opposed to reading of the classics" (p 103). Yeah -- that's absolutely correct. For instance, anyone remember the $20 million Bass Grant controversy with Yale? Hmm? * "Each of the three Die hard movies...depicted dozens of police officers being gunned down" (p 115). Now this is a supposed fact that we can easily verify for accuracy. Let's see: counting the two special agent Johnsons, the helicopter pilot and two cops in the armored vehicle ("What do we have here...it seems the police have themselves an RV"), that comes to a grand total of five police officers killed. Add in the two rent-a-cops in the beginning of the movie just to be generous, and you're talking seven. Not exactly "dozens" is it? How can Easterbrook expect to have us take him seriously on the big facts when he can't get the small ones right? * "...luck is simply part of life, but [we] should acknowledge this means that those who experience good luck acquire significant obligations to those who do not" (p 154). That sounds too much like a Dick Gephardt "lucky in life's lottery" line, which is a set-up for a soak-the-rich line. Easterbrook casually tosses this out without a discussion of premises (how exactly does one "acquire" an obligation to another person whom you have never met and who lives thousands of miles away?) as well as its practice (who is to distinguish luck from unequal effort?). * "When free-market conservatives begin to suppose that something beyond the free market is necessary for human happiness, a threshold has come into view" (p 250). First off, is there such a thing as a free-market liberal? I can't think of one. Second off, I know a straw man when I see one. Conservatives, by definition, are the group that understands the importance of religion and culture, and not just free trade. * When the U.S. based troops in Saudi Arabia, we were "asserting suzerainty over much of Islam's oil wealth"; American agents picked the current Saudi ruling family "with oil interests in mind" (p 297). Uh HUH. I guess that's why oil is so cheap right now, right? And invasion of one Moslem country by another had nothing to do with it. As for who got picked and why, I encourage Easterbrook to brush up on his post WW I history with a little Bernard Lewis. * Mohammedan terrorists are compared to Timothy McVeigh: "the Christian ethos spawned its share of hideous killers, among them the terrorist Timothy McVeigh" (p 299). Unlike Easterbrook, apparently, I was alive and awake after 9/11, and the silence of the imams in America was deafening. Does Easterbrook think we don't know the difference between a nutjob like McVeigh and a current of religious thinking with tens of millions of adherents? Besides, when exactly did McVeigh say that Jesus told him kill all those people? Superficial, glib and sophomoric comparisons just make you look like a hack, an apologist or an idiot. Overall, I have to give the book three stars because it gores so many of the left's sacred cows. You just don't find that in mainstream books, and it has to be recognized. But this achievement is marred by careless and inconsistent writing, and even occasionally by knee-jerk liberal cliches.
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