Publishers Weekly
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Connecticut senator Murphy (The Violence Inside Us) diagnoses the causes of America’s growing alienation and economic disparity and proposes solutions in this sharp but uneven analysis. He opens with a surreal scene—his 14-year-old son’s hockey league, now “backed by private equity investment,” banned parents from filming games in favor of subscribing to their “$25 to 50 a month” streaming service. It’s an apt jumping-off point for Murphy’s larger argument that monied interests and “me-first” individualism have left citizens “fragmented and spiritually adrift.” The root of this problem, he asserts, lies in six “false cults,” ranging from the cult of profit, with corporations solely focused on shareholder gains, to the cult of credentials, leading to a “growing education divide.” Murphy’s critiques are most incisive when bolstered by his own experiences, like a chilling meeting with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, who attempted to assuage Murphy’s AI skepticism by hyping how “AI will replace human friendship.” His historical analysis is shakier—pointing to 1970s auto manufacturing as exemplary of worker power strikes an odd note, even with an acknowledgment of the industry’s “racial tension”—and his policy solutions are a rocky mix of progressive standards such as antitrust reforms, ambitious concepts like a constitutional amendment to ban dark money from elections, and strangely specific ideas like ending the use of Clear, a biometric identity verification system, at airports. It’s a promising agenda that needs more refinement. (May)