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The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It
The acclaimed authors of Death by a Thousand Cuts argue that Americans care less about inequality than about their own insecurity. Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro propose realistic policies and strategies to make lives and communities more secure.
This is an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what? And how do we get out of it? Many on the right call for tax cuts and deregulation. Others on the left rage against the top 1 percent and demand wholesale economic change. Voices on both sides line up against globalization: restrict trade to protect jobs. In The Wolf at the Door, two leading political analysts argue that these views are badly mistaken.
Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro focus on what really worries people: not what the rich are making but rather their own insecurity and that of people close to them. Americans are concerned about losing what they have, whether jobs, status, or safe communities. They fear the wolf at the door. The solution is not protectionism or class warfare but a return to the hard work of building coalitions around realistic goals and pursuing them doggedly through the political system. This, Graetz and Shapiro explain, is how earlier reformers achieved meaningful changes, from the abolition of the slave trade to civil rights legislation. The authors make substantial recommendations for increasing jobs, improving wages, protecting families suffering from unemployment, and providing better health insurance and child care, and they guide us through the strategies needed to enact change.
These are achievable reforms that would make Americans more secure. The Wolf at the Door is one of those rare books that not only diagnose our problems but also show us how we can address them.
This is an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what? And how do we get out of it? Many on the right call for tax cuts and deregulation. Others on the left rage against the top 1 percent and demand wholesale economic change. Voices on both sides line up against globalization: restrict trade to protect jobs. In The Wolf at the Door, two leading political analysts argue that these views are badly mistaken.
Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro focus on what really worries people: not what the rich are making but rather their own insecurity and that of people close to them. Americans are concerned about losing what they have, whether jobs, status, or safe communities. They fear the wolf at the door. The solution is not protectionism or class warfare but a return to the hard work of building coalitions around realistic goals and pursuing them doggedly through the political system. This, Graetz and Shapiro explain, is how earlier reformers achieved meaningful changes, from the abolition of the slave trade to civil rights legislation. The authors make substantial recommendations for increasing jobs, improving wages, protecting families suffering from unemployment, and providing better health insurance and child care, and they guide us through the strategies needed to enact change.
These are achievable reforms that would make Americans more secure. The Wolf at the Door is one of those rare books that not only diagnose our problems but also show us how we can address them.
368 pages, Hardcover
Published February 18, 2020
31 people are currently reading
380 people want to read
About the author
Michael J. Graetz
29 books17 followersMichael J. Graetz is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Columbia Alumni Professor of Tax Law at Columbia University and Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Yale Law School.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 6, 2020
Interesting analysis of how the past decades have changed job security in US, due to new technologies, automation and free trade. Despite causing general lower prices for consumers those changes have also destroyed massive industrial jobs throughout the country, specially in rural areas. Combined with a not-so-great social welfare state they have caused downward mobility for so many people which led to the rise of populists politicians like Donald Trump who claim to be a solution to those insecurities.
But despite his protectionist measures the industrial jobs created were not brought back in the intended areas. For example, in the steel industry a new factory employs much fewer people nowadays. In the other hand, many more local industries in US were hurt by increased prices, as those needing cheaper steel from China, and many farmers were also hurt by consuming countries who have responded to this protectionist measure by lowering demand from US. Economists fear that even the new commercial deals with China would not be enough to restore the damage already made.
Job insecurity should instead, the authors say, be addressed by a greater social welfare through reforms in Health Insurance, Earned Income Tax Return and others. They propose clever ways of how to achieve them politically backed from lots of examples from the Great Depression to this day. There is a interesting saga of how Obamacare came to be, and how it was derailed from its original intention.
Sometimes I feel there is a bit of bias into status quo. They critique politicians like Bernie Sanders and Obama as much as Trump but when they praise measures like the New Deal adopted by Roosevelt wasn't there a complete break from the status quo at the time? They say that coalitions who led to these policies were only possible due to a general fear of Communism, which was the only big alternative at the time, capable of scaring even business leaders. Today there is no such competitive alternative. But maybe the wolf at the door is also that: an old bearded man with a red hammer and a sickle crossed in a frightening way?
But despite his protectionist measures the industrial jobs created were not brought back in the intended areas. For example, in the steel industry a new factory employs much fewer people nowadays. In the other hand, many more local industries in US were hurt by increased prices, as those needing cheaper steel from China, and many farmers were also hurt by consuming countries who have responded to this protectionist measure by lowering demand from US. Economists fear that even the new commercial deals with China would not be enough to restore the damage already made.
Job insecurity should instead, the authors say, be addressed by a greater social welfare through reforms in Health Insurance, Earned Income Tax Return and others. They propose clever ways of how to achieve them politically backed from lots of examples from the Great Depression to this day. There is a interesting saga of how Obamacare came to be, and how it was derailed from its original intention.
Sometimes I feel there is a bit of bias into status quo. They critique politicians like Bernie Sanders and Obama as much as Trump but when they praise measures like the New Deal adopted by Roosevelt wasn't there a complete break from the status quo at the time? They say that coalitions who led to these policies were only possible due to a general fear of Communism, which was the only big alternative at the time, capable of scaring even business leaders. Today there is no such competitive alternative. But maybe the wolf at the door is also that: an old bearded man with a red hammer and a sickle crossed in a frightening way?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 30, 2025
Serves as a distillation of lectures 19-26 of Yale Course's "Power and Politics in Today’s World", which is available for free on YouTube. The lecture series is top-notch and I'm so grateful that Yale and Prof. Shapiro provide it free to everyone. I'd say that if you watch the lectures, the book is somewhat redundant, but serves as a good reference.
Shapiro and Graetz analysis of the problems facing Western societies is top-notch, but their proposed solutions feel inadequate. Their policies are smart and well-balanced, but I feel like there's simply no appetite for technocratic policy right in the US right now. Maybe if Prof. Shapiro created a reality TV show based on his lecture series he could get some traction.
Shapiro and Graetz analysis of the problems facing Western societies is top-notch, but their proposed solutions feel inadequate. Their policies are smart and well-balanced, but I feel like there's simply no appetite for technocratic policy right in the US right now. Maybe if Prof. Shapiro created a reality TV show based on his lecture series he could get some traction.
November 29, 2020
A must-read for business, government and non-profit leaders. This is a fantastic work on the political economy of the United States. While Adam Tooze’s “Crushed” is a great explication of the complex challenges that got us here, “Wolf at the Door” proposes sensible and pragmatic solutions to the challenges to our economic dimensions of national security policy.
August 15, 2020
Both authors are very smart 6 year olds. They have been living very good lives and they are well paid just by waiting for the government and faculty to pay them a cut of the collected taxes. So why wouldn't anyone just do nothing and expect to be paid just like them?
February 15, 2024
Tax Policy and Simplification Committee Book Club
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2024
Very informational and really easy to digest. Definitely took me a while to get through and can only read a few pages a day
August 11, 2025
Was a little bit repetitive if you’ve watched Ian Shapiro’s lecture on power and politics.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews