The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
by Tyler Cowen, 2017

Follows in the same stream as The Great Stagnation and Average is Over. Shows how America has become more complacent, in many forms, in recent decades. We have fewer startups and fewer people work at young businesses. We use matching algorithms to find romantic partners, books, movies, news, music, and more that we know we will like and are unlikely to expand our horizons much. We have a government that is ~80% on auto-pilot due to entitlements and inflexible spending, with very little left for discretionary spending. We limit how many houses can be built in dynamic areas and end up with more class segregation in our cities than ever. Basically, we are not a very dynamic country right now.

Cowen discusses the implications of complacency and postulates on whether this is a permanent condition or a passing trend in a cyclical cycle. Recommended.