Over the past few days, a very interesting and worthwhile debate has arisen among several thoughtful conservatives about growth, work, and prosperity. The occasion for it has been Oren Cass's new book, The Once and Future Worker and its argument that work, and not just wealth, is a vital measure of well-being, and one on which our society has been falling short.
Beyond the book itself, Cass has made his case in an excerpt in The American Interest and an essay in The Atlantic. In each case, he makes an argument for putting relatively more value and emphasis on production and work and therefore relatively less on consumption and growth than we have tended to do in recent decades. The latter point is what has drawn criticism on the right, particularly from Michael Strain and James Pethokoukis. Both rise to the defense of growth as an absolutely essential precondition not only for consumption or even prosperity but for the well-being of the nation as a whole and each of its citizens and even for, well, work.
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