Once upon a time, the United States was the world's most powerful economic engine, a job-producing machine that propelled a broad swath of its citizens into a comfortable middle class. They bought tidy little houses they could afford. They bought big, shiny Chevrolets and Fords with bench seats.
They used their health insurance to pay for the occasional tonsillectomy or appendectomy. They retired with pensions generous enough to purchase nice gifts for the grandkids.
That period of broad prosperity was relatively short, no more than 50 years after the end of World War II, but it looms large in the national psyche, supplying the cultural icons and touchstones that furnish the "American dream." And that era depended as much on the weakness of other nations - the backwardness of China and India as well as the postwar devastation of Europe - as it did on American enterprise.
But it's a tricky business to announce to voters that the golden age is over. Just ask any of the current crop of presidential candidates.
As the era of widely shared prosperity staggers to its end, globalization looks like the enemy, a con job foisted on ordinary Americans by greedy corporations and pointy-headed intellectuals. There may be a bit of truth to that.
Back in the 1990s, when not just hard-core Republicans but also moderate Democrats were proselytizing for free trade, the consensus was that everybody would benefit - eventually. A few good jobs would be lost here and there, but many more would materialize.
Granted, that was the "macro" - or big picture - view. The micro view, down where ordinary folk are struggling to make ends meet, has turned out to be quite a bit harsher. Even before the telltale winds of recession blew in, average workers were struggling with the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, which left for cheaper terrain in China and Vietnam, taking with them middle-class wages and benefits.
It also turns out that the effects of globalization may be more severe than the experts anticipated. Princeton economist Alan Blinder, a longtime proponent of free trade, now says that it will create more severe social and economic upheavals than he once thought. He predicts that between 30 million and 40 million Americans jobs are likely to be shipped overseas in the next 10 to 20 years. Not only will the lunch-bucket crowd feel the pain, but college-educated, white-collar types will, too.
