These essays are for Americans concerned about the future of our country and for policy wonks. By and large, the political process is controlled by those who take an intertest in politics, large in number but small as a percent of population. Are you a member of the political class? Membership is voluntary. Our first 800 years of thinking: science culture and empathy from the Enlightenment ~1600 to ~ 2400 The Crisis of the Anthropocene: The most comprehensive description of all issues of the crisis in less than 100 pages. For the purpose of going through your mind to influence your brain. Musings on our Present Discontent: America, not advanced, not a democracy. Right to life for baby; right to choose for mom. Taxation. The security of a free state. Issues not discussed. The threat from within, Trumpism. The threat from without: Putinism. How to participate. Renewal.

“Timely and important . . . It should be our North Star for the recovery and beyond.” —Hillary Clinton “Sperling makes a forceful case that only by speaking to matters of the spirit can liberals root their belief in economic justice in people’s deepest aspirations—in their sense of purpose and self-worth.” —The New York Times When Gene Sperling was in charge of coordinating economic policy in the Obama White House, he found himself surprised when serious people in Washington told him that the Obama focus on health care was a distraction because it was “not focused on the economy.” How, he asked, was the fear felt by millions of Americans of being one serious illness away from financial ruin not considered an economic issue? Too often, Sperling found that we measured economic success by metrics like GDP instead of whether the economy was succeeding in lifting up the sense of meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and security of people. In Economic Dignity, Sperling frames the way forward in a time of wrenching change and offers a vision of an economy whose guiding light is the promotion of dignity for all Americans.