Driven Wealth: The Rise and Fall and Future of the North American Auto Dream

Audiobook

Narrated By Christopher M. Michaud

Driven Wealth: The Rise and Fall and Future of the North American Auto Dream

For much of the twentieth century, the North American auto industry did more than build cars. It built the middle class.

In Driven Wealth, Canadian author Christopher M. Michaud explores how the automobile industry became one of the most powerful engines of prosperity in modern history. From the early factories of Detroit and Windsor to the explosive growth of the post–Second World War economy, auto manufacturing created millions of stable, well-paying jobs and helped define what became known as the North American middle-class dream.

But the system that once generated widespread prosperity did not last forever.

Beginning in the 1970s, oil shocks, globalization, automation, and shifting economic priorities began to erode the industrial model that had sustained generations of workers and families. The factories remained, but the economic foundations underneath them were changing.

Today the industry faces another transformation, from electric vehicles and automation to new global competitors and evolving economic realities.

Driven Wealth traces the rise of the auto industry, the long arc of its decline, and the uncertain road ahead. In doing so, the book asks a larger question about the future of work, wealth, and industrial society in North America.

This audiobook is part of The Canadian Century Revisited, a series examining the forces that shaped modern Canada and the challenges now defining its future.