I am not a social scientist nor a political economist, but the battles over union rights in an age of (what) anxiety seem to raise that age-old question of whether Americans are, at base, individualistic or communal. Robert Putnam argued in 2000 in his book Bowling Alone that Americans were impoverished in terms of social capital. In other words, we didn’t want to hang out together, not in labor unions, not at bowling leagues (the photo to the left is a bowling alley laid low). In her recent book, Naomi Klein suggests that in times of disaster, measures that would Read more