Hell to Pay, Michael Lind
Hell to Pay, Michael Lind
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Hell to Pay
How the Suppression of Wages Is Destroying America

Author: Michael Lind

Narrator: Joe Knezevich

Unabridged: 5 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 05/02/2023


Synopsis

From one of America’s leading thinkers, a provocative diagnosis of the cause of America’s decline—and a searing indictment of those who caused it

For nearly half a century, Americans have been bombarded by neoliberal propaganda promoting the lie that wages are objectively determined by impersonal labor markets. This falsehood has been repeated by academics, journalists, business leaders, and politicians so often that even many on the liberal left and the populist right believe it.
 
In Hell to Pay, Michael Lind, author of The New Class War, debunks this lie. With brutal clarity, he tells the story of how bipartisan political and business interests united to smash the bargaining power of American workers and reduce wages. And with devastating insight he demonstrates that their success has indirectly caused or worsened nearly every symptom of American decline, from the increase in political polarization to the declining birth rate.
 
Calling for a revolution in the way we think about work and wages, Lind argues that the American republic will collapse if worker power is not restored. Fortunately, Hell to Pay doesn’t just sound the alarm but also offers a plan for breaking the power of the neoliberal elite and reforming America’s disastrous low-wage/high-welfare model—before it’s too late.
 

About The Author

Michael Lind is the author of more than a dozen books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, including The New Class War, The Next American Nation, and Land of Promise. He is a columnist for Tablet and has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic, and The National Interest. He has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and is currently a professor of practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bank on May 03, 2023

I bought this book after reading the authors summary in the Wall Street Journal. He had framed the discussion by correctly stating the impossibilities of feeding a family of four on the salaries and wages, received by the bottom 30 or 40% of the people in this country. It is only through the earned......more

Goodreads review by Jane on July 17, 2023

Lind explains how supression of wages and the resulting fact that workers do not earn liveable wages affects American life overall. His arguments are well supported and strong. He debunks the idea that increasing wages causes unemployment and inflation.......more

Goodreads review by Nicky on February 14, 2024

As a millennial who has slowly become jaded by watching factories get offshored, companies operating illegally (because fines are cheaper than doing the right thing), and bailouts of 'too big to fail' companies that knew exactly what they were doing...nothing in this book came as a shock. However, I......more

Goodreads review by Karl on August 30, 2023

U.S. citizens interested in a functional economic system, sustainable growth and learning from hard fought lessons from the past that appear both forgotten and continue to be circumvented by inventive rapacious, value extractive behavior, otherwise known as rentier capitalism. For the price, this is......more

Goodreads review by LaShanda on January 29, 2024

The book encourages readers to take a moment and truly contemplate the challenges faced by hardworking individuals struggling to make ends meet. It suggests that we should support a shift away from the current system, characterized by low wages and extensive government assistance, towards a new syst......more


Quotes

"An energetic case for rethinking America’s economy in favor of working people."—Kirkus Reviews

"Lind offers a roadmap for renewing an authentically conservative politics in America. It’s time we grabbed the keys and discovered how far that map can take us."—First Things

"Hell to Pay
is bursting with fresh but realistic ideas for how to restore working-class power in the 21st century, from a prudent diversification of how we think about free trade (rather than the current one-size-fits-all universalism) to the restoration of wage boards and tripartite corporatism between government, labor, and capital. His cheery practical-mindedness recalls the best of the Hamilton-Lincoln-FDR-Eisenhower tradition of political economy, to which Lind has devoted a career. That he keeps the flame of that honorable tradition makes Michael Lind a national hero."—The American Conservative