America's junk epidemic

The reason we can’t have nice things in 2018 is that we don’t want them

A dollar store.
(Image credit: Gordon M. Grant / Alamy Stock Photo)

No matter what President Trump says, the decline of American manufacturing won't be reversed by modest tariffs on aluminum and steel. There is more to this issue than industrial metals. Perhaps the largest structural economic crisis this country faces — one that encompasses everything else from outsourcing to stagnant wages to the environment — is the decades-long epidemic of cheap crap.

"This is why we can't have nice things" is a cliché that has lost its meaning. The reason we can't have nice things in America in 2018 is that we don't want them.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.