On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by journalist and Citations Needed podcast co-host Adam H. Johnson to discuss the contradictions and hypocrisies of the multibillion-dollar self-help industry — an industry that has long convinced people that unhappiness is an attitude problem, and not a societal issue that needs to be addressed at a systemic level.
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A transcript of this episode is available here.
Adam’s recent story for The Lever exposed how one of the industry’s leading authors, Arthur Brooks, spent decades advocating for economic policies that have immiserated working Americans. As the former head of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the country’s most prominent conservative think tanks, Brooks was paid nearly $3 million a year to help lead campaigns against Medicaid expansion, free college, rent control, and universal health care.
In today’s interview, David and Adam unpack how large parts of the self-help industry grifts its customers, the history of AEI and its toxic influence on American politics, and Brooks’ career transition from sower of despair to peddler of happiness.
Links:
- The Happiness Guru Who Immiserated America (The Lever, 2023)
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"self-help industry — an industry that has long convinced people that unhappiness is an attitude problem, and not a societal issue that needs to be addressed at a systemic level" It's not one or the other. It's both. You can have everything handed to you and bitch and moan about your broken fingernail or you can have almost nothing and be exclaiming in joy about the sunrise.
"Brooks was paid nearly $3 million a year to help lead campaigns against Medicaid expansion, free college, rent control, and universal health care"
I was just thinking this morning that if every person on the planet had all his/her basic needs met (the way it should be) then there wouldn't be anybody left on the planet to exploit!!! So what would the poor sociopaths dominate? Mother Earth has enough for EVERYONE. Imagine if EVERYONE had potable water! That's my dream. The American dream may have been to own a home and have a car or whatever but what if all Americans just dreamt that all people on the planet had potable water. Wow.
Just found a psych today article called
Collectivism and Individualism
It’s not either/or, it’s both. (gonna read it soon)
So then I listened to the rest of the Lever Time discussion with David and Adam. Very good. Yes, the TV shows show upper middle class problems. I remember growing up with the Brady Bunch and thinking that one day my life would be like theirs in which problems were solved in minutes! Real life has long term problems that we have to manage daily and sometimes there is no real solution, but you become resilient. Good discussion.