In this election year, frustration appears to be near an all-time high. For both the left and the right, dissatisfaction reigns supreme – and what’s worse, the ‘solutions’ each side is proposing only seem to dishearten us even more.

Why?

Chapel Hill resident Robert Merriam tackles that question in a new book, “A Faltering American Dream.” A biologist by training (he chaired the Biology department at SUNY-Stony Brook), Merriam began studying American politics and economics in earnest after retiring from academia.

His conclusion: we’re dissatisfied because our political institutions have been taken over by moneyed interests – economic powers primarily interested in profit – and no longer promote the general welfare.

Merriam identifies what he calls a “Great Turning Point” – Reagan’s election in 1980, roughly – where the US government (along with states) made this move in earnest, instituting tax breaks and tax incentives for wealthy individuals and big businesses in an attempt to stimulate the economy. (It succeeded, he says – but as a consequence, government lost the resources needed to maintain the country’s infrastructure, from roads to schools.) This has only intensified in recent years, Merriam adds – partly because of the Citizens United ruling, which enabled moneyed interests to assert even more influence over elections. As a result, he concludes, American government is failing to maintain a “reasonably satisfied citizenry” – which is to say the American people are so dissatisfied with the current state of affairs that they’re losing faith in American political institutions altogether.

Robert Merriam discussed “A Faltering American Dream” with Aaron Keck on WCHL.

 

Merriam’s book (short, and written to be accessible even to readers not deeply familiar with politics or economics) is available now on Amazon.com.