In 1975, when the movie The Stepford Wives first came out, it was widely regarded as a chilling parable about men's fears of feminism, a tale of horror that also worked as a social satire on sexism. Sure, it struck some women's liberationists as a ham-fisted attempt to cash in on the movement. But Ira Levin, who wrote the novel on which the movie was based, seems to have been in earnest -- or as earnest as he could be… more
Each economic era has a resource that drives wealth creation. In the agricultural era it was land. In the industrial era it was energy. Today it may be the airwaves, also known as the radio-frequency spectrum -- the most valuable resource of the emerging information economy. Economists estimate that in the United States alone the commercial value of access to it could be more than $750 billion. But it's a resource that's being managed wastefully… more
This special issue was a collaboration between The Atlantic Monthly and the New America Foundation, and featured 14 different articles by New America fellows and staff. Each of those pieces is available online via the links below.
The Forgotten Home Front James Fallows, Chairman, Board of Directors, New America Foundation
Americans enjoy the most sophisticated medical care that money can buy -- and one of the most vexing health-care-delivery systems. We spend about $1.2 trillion each year, two to four times per capita what other developed nations spend, yet we can't find a way to provide health insurance for 41 million citizens. After a brief respite in the 1990s when HMOs held down expenses by squeezing profits from doctors and hospitals, medical costs are once again soaring by 10 to… more
Are racial categories still an important -- or even a valid -- tool of government policy? In recent years the debate in America has been between those who think that race is paramount and those who think it is increasingly irrelevant, and in the next election cycle this debate will surely intensify around a California ballot initiative that would all but prohibit the state from asking its citizens what their racial backgrounds are. But the ensuing polemics will only obscure… more
Every day in America some 1,600 people will leave state and federal prisons. Most will start their journey with "gate money" (from $20 to $200), a one-way bus ticket, and little else. Many will be drug abusers who received no treatment for their addiction while on the inside, sex offenders who got no counseling, and illiterate high school dropouts who took no classes and acquired no job skills. A lot of them will be sick: rates of HIV, tuberculosis, and… more
At kabuki performances in Japan audiences sometimes exclaim "Matte mashita!" during crucial points in the drama. In context this means something like "Here it comes!" or "This is what we've been waiting for!" and it greets the best-known lines in the play. If American theatergoers followed the same custom, people would yell "Matte mashita!" when they heard "To be or not to be ..." in Hamlet or "I'll be back" in a Terminator movie.
In American political culture, which displays… more
The U.S. economy is afloat today thanks only to the undaunted American consumer. Breaking the pattern seen in other downturns of the past half century, consumption grew at a brisk pace through the three quarters of recession in 2001. Despite plunging stock prices, the spending binge continued last year, financed by record borrowing, a huge wave of mortgage refinancing and home-equity loans, a large federal tax cut, and anemic household saving. Were it not for the persistence of American shoppers,… more
Ten years ago shoe-leather urbanologists found their primary source material in the late-night crack market. Today they're better off rising early and divesting themselves of $1.10 in pocket change to ride the U8 bus, a leading economic indicator of the American inner city. The U8, which serves the easternmost corner of Washington, D.C., is what's known in public-transport parlance as a circuit bus. Its African-American riders are among the most isolated of the urban poor: those who not only can't… more
Even before the collapse of the stock market and the recession of 2001 dispelled the illusion that we had escaped the business cycle, there were reasons to doubt that America was truly experiencing the miraculous rebirth that some people claimed it was. Although productivity, after years of stagnation, did increase during the boom years of the past decade, even at its late-1990s peak the economy did not produce jobs any faster or for a longer period than previous expansions had.… more
