The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead is a nonfiction book, authored by David Callahan and published by Harcourt in 2004.

[3][4][5] The main thesis of the book is that the current state of American society, characterized by rampant inequality and a winner-take-all philosophy, produces the cheating that has been observed in business, law, academia, journalism, entertainment and medicine.

In the 1980, when Sears instituted a production quota for its auto repair staff, mechanics began performing unnecessary and costly maintenance.

Rather, it represents the individualistic ambitions of the amorphously defined "Me" generation, mixed dangerously with laissez-faire principles espoused by the 1980s neoliberals, and implemented, to America's detriment, during the "get-rich-quick" era of the 1980s and 1990s.

The 1980s and 1990s were characterized by an emphasis on self-interest, maintaining the individualism and anticonformism of the 1960s but shedding the community-oriented ideals of social responsibility and personal integrity.