Downsizing the U.S.A

By Thomas H. Naylor and William H. Willimon

Book Overview

In this trenchant analysis of American society, Thomas H. Naylor and William H. Willimon take an unabashed stance against the belief that "bigger is better" and warn that size and technological complexity are not risk free. There is a grave price to be paid for our uncritical affirmation of bigness, universal solutions to problems, dehumanizing uniformity, and standardized mass production.

Naylor and Willimon argue that our government, our cities, our corporations, our schools, our churches, our military, and our social welfare system are all too big, too powerful, too intrusive, too insular, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small local communities. They propose specific strategies for decentralizing and downsizing virtually every major institution in America, including America itself. The authors audaciously call for the peaceful dissolution of the United States through secession and provide a thoughtful game plan for achieving this controversial objective.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802843301
• ISBN13: 9780802843302
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

a thought-provoking argument

If you also believe the answer to many of our social woes is a return to "community" and a reverse course away from impersonalization, the arguments in this book will appeal to you. More than an emotional cry for "smaller is better", rather one based on deep intellectual and rational thinking.

For the outside-the-box thinker

Naylor and Willimon offer a simple yet challenging suggestion to our churches, schools, universities, and government: grow smaller, not bigger. In so doing, the authors manage to make a credible case for seccession for states.This book will make you reinvestigate your constitutional views and actually ponder the plausibility of a peaceful breakup or splitoff of the United States. These radical ideas are apt to gain a mainstream following, particularly for those disenfranchised with the state of our current welfare, social security, and public school systems. My only complaint with the book was that the end came too soon.

Reviews of Downsizing the U.S.A. from the Publisher

"Very thoughtful! I enojoyed Downsizing the U.S.A. very much." Richard D. Lamm, former Governor of Colorado; Director, Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues, University of Denver "Legions of Americans, stalled in traffic jams or holding for the next available customer representative on the telephone, will agree with this book's central thesis: big is bad." Publisher's Weekly "Practically everywhere [Naylor and Willimon] turn they see Americans paying a high price for the bigness and complexity of modern society, and they warn that imposed unity and universality are false solutions. They invoke the image of the U.S. as a modern-day Babel. Downsizing becomes a tool for clearing away the physical and spiritual clutter in our lives to help us discover that less really can be more." Booklist "The company's too big to be profitable, so it "downsizes," the trendy word for laying people off. Naylor and Willimon go the corporate managers one better and suggest downsizing everything--cities, government, schools, churches, the military, and the welfare system. The future of business, and of people, lies locally, they argue." The Associated Press