The Hunger for More

Starting with the premise that America is as rich as it is going to get, the author argues that it is time to redefine success in other than material terms

Shames ( The Big Time ) defines salient features of the dominant ethic of the 1980s: worship of money and people who have money, treating one's job or career with the utmost seriousness, a selfish credo of self-interest, leisure as a form of recuperation. But as society fractures into a workaholic, moneyed elite and the underpaid or underemployed masses, it is becoming clear, he argues, that "America has gotten about as rich as it's going to get." Swinging between sharp insights and glib generalizations, this breezy, journalistic epitaph for the '80s suggests that a new ethic of service and humane values may "fill the bubble" created by the swelling poverty of the so-called middle class. Former ethics columnist for Esquire , Shames is adept at skewering the much-touted entrepreneurial boom, workaholics, "academic vocationalism" and the "sleaze wave" of questionable business deals and government scandals. He is less successful at explaining how a new ethic might work, and why peole would adopt it. First serial to Financial Enterprise, New York Times and Best of Business; author tour.
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