This book has been taken apart by some of the leading public intellectuals of internet life; such as Krugman and Frum. From my layman's reading the social science appeared week and there were appeals to 'look around you to know' rather than empiricism. Frum called it, "Palinism with a bar chart."

The thesis of the book is weak, arguing that the issues are a moral failure of the working classes. I think what we are really seeing is the unravelling of neo-liberalism as a method for political and economic governance. The inequality inherit in neo-liberalism is becoming apparent and the social costs of that inequality are empirically obvious in both social science studies and the general mood of the population, with Occupy Wall Street being a good example of the latter.

Australia, Canada and Europe are governed differently to the US courtesy of their parliamentary systems. In a parliamentary system when an executive comes to power, they control the legislative for most intents and purposes. In Australia the executive has absolute authority over their party's voting unless they are a minority government. The problems Obama has had in dealing with Congress simply do not exist in Australia.

A second issue is that race has been a public issue in the United States far more than in other countries. The US is very public about the good and the bad. It was one of the first nations to deal with racism as a rights issue, but it also has been very public in its resistance to civil rights issues. This has meant America has not picked up the forms of governance that deal with equality in the same manner Europe has. That being said, neoliberalism has also increased in equality in the so-called welfare states as well.

So what is America to do in the face of the collapse of neoliberalism governance (or the Washington Consensus as it is known in the US and IMF)?

The empirical evidence of state intervention in the health system for costs and outcomes is over whelming. The United States is opposing the reality and both major parties are still seeking free market outcomes to health care which will ultimately fail to achieve their public policy goals.

America is a low tax state, but so is Australia, and it has more egalitarian tax mechanisms than the US. At the national level the income tax is very progressive. The issue in the US is that the states tend to raise tax monies in a regressive manner through sales taxes, property taxes and fees. Worse, many of the states have balanced budget constitutional clauses which means they clamp down on taxes in times of economic distress.

American will muddle through. It always has done, and in the last century or so has been a leader in economic development. I don't think that will change anytime soon. I also dont subscribe to the 'America in decline' thesis however a generation of politicians have been immersed in the methods of neoliberal governance and it will be difficult to replace that paradigm of governance with any urgency in the American system. If anything the so called 'tea partiers' in congress have done little more than double down on bad policy from the promise of neoliberalism.

Another issue is the rise of China and India from countries mired in poverty into modern consumer nations with a large dignified and cosmopolitan middle class. China with is well established central government focused on capital intensive projects such as consumer electronics manufacturing. India was a little smarter in my opinion and has been more successful in the creative services areas.

Where once having an educated population meant the possibility of manufacturing, now it is nothing special and a high school education is not enough in nations such as the United States or Australia. Every vocation that offers labor mobility, trade through services, is tertiary education. The quickest mechanism for the US to get ahead is to accelerate education for teenagers.

When you have a child trapped and dedicated to going to school until they are seventeen or eighteen; speed up their education so that when they leave at age eighteen they already have a degree level education. A further year at university or college for education would ensure the United States the economic powerhouse for the foreseeable near future.

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