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You’ll
remember that both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal ran separate
series last month on class in America. I posted almost all of the NYT items
with references to interactives online (see link below). This discusses both, and points
out that “wealth and class are issues of power…rather than manners or fashion, class
ultimately has more to do with who has the power to make such decisions and the
powerlessness of the majority. These crucial aspects of class--social,
political and economic power”, missing from the series. kwc Class
Matters
By
David Moberg, In These Times, Posted on June 30, 2005,
The myth of the self-made man is American culture's own
special heart of darkness, helping to explain both its infectious optimism and
ruthless greed. The idea holds enough truth and seductiveness to make it
easy to forget its delusional dangers. To reprise Marx's famous formulation,
individuals, like humankind, do make their own personal history, but not under
conditions they choose. But in America, we choose to ignore the caveat about
conditions at our peril. The myth, or belief, that people are solely what they make
of themselves is useful to keep in mind while reading two ongoing series: the New York Times' on class and the Wall Street Journal's on social mobility.
Both focus attention on a truth about American society that runs counter to
most people's deep-seated beliefs: There is less social mobility in the United States now than
in the '80s (and less then than in the '70s) and less mobility than in many
other industrial countries, including Canada, Finland, Sweden and Germany. Yet 40 percent of respondents to a Times poll said that there was a greater
chance to move up from one class to another now than 30 years ago, and 46
percent said it was easier to do so in the United States than in Europe. Although the news about social mobility has not been widely
reported, it is generally recognized that inequality has grown over the past
thirty years. The Times series
highlights how much the super-rich have made out like, well, bandits. While the real income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans
fell from 1980 to 2002, the income of the top 0.1 percent--making $1.6 million
or more--went up two and a half times in real terms before taxes. With the help
of the Bush tax cuts, the gap between the super-rich and everyone else grew
even larger. The American people accept this, it is argued, because they
think not only that there's more social mobility than there is, but also that
they'll personally get rich. Indeed, a poll in 2000 indicated that 39 percent
of Americans thought they were either in the wealthiest one percent or would be
"soon." The Times poll
was slightly less exuberant: 11 percent thought it was very likely they would
become wealthy, another 34 percent somewhat likely. "It is okay to have ever-greater differences between
rich and poor, [Americans] seem to believe," David Wessel wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "as long as
their children have a good chance of grasping the brass ring." This view is problematic. First, the greater the inequality,
the less likely the possibility of mobility. Increased inequality worsens the
large disparities in resources that families can devote to education --
resources that are increasingly important for both entering many careers and
for social mobility. A college degree, it should be stressed, is important not
just because of the knowledge acquired, but because college serves as a
class-biased sorting mechanism for entry to certain jobs. In contrast, the
record suggests that countries with greater equality also have greater
mobility. Substantive equality creates more equality of opportunity. But even if there were mobility, such inequality would be
problematic. Is it fair that society's wealth be divided so unevenly? Isn't
there a decent standard of living -- rising as economies become wealthier -- to
which everyone who "works hard and plays by the rules," in the
Clintonian formulation, should be entitled? Great social disparity means that
the financially well-off use their money and greater political leverage to
protect their privilege rather than to design policies for the common good. In defense of the rich getting richer, former Bush economic
advisor Gregory Mankiw wrote in response to the Times series that the richest increased their share when the
economy boomed; so if we want prosperity, let the plutocrats prosper. But the economy grew faster in the first
three decades after World War II when equality was increasing than in the next
three decades when equality was decreasing. In any case, if the income from
growth is captured by the very rich, as it largely has been for a couple
decades, this path to prosperity offers little to most people. Also, with high inequality, even the pretense of community
declines, social conflict increases and society functions more poorly.
Individual mobility is not the only way to improve one's lot. Social solidarity
and working together can improve everyone's lot. This brings us back to the self-made man. It becomes clear,
as the Times series is titled,
that "class matters," just as race, gender and other accidents of
history matter. The social class into which someone is born largely defines
one's class as an adult, and both make a difference in how healthy or how
long-lived the person will be, especially in the absence of universal health
insurance. It influences access to education and to jobs. The
myth of the self-made person, however, encourages the person who succeeds to think
his good fortune is due entirely to his work and genius. For this reason
businessmen in the United States have historically been more anti-union and
hostile to government than their counterparts in Europe. And the myth makes
those who fail blame themselves. According to recent polls, American workers -- worried more
about job insecurity, rising costs of education, health care expenses, the
availability of insurance, pension failures and social security privatization --
are increasingly looking for stronger social action to provide security. They are deeply skeptical about the
globalization that has increased inequality and insecurity. Like the French
vote on the European Union constitution, a U.S. referendum on globalization
might well divide along class lines. The irony is that taking responsibility as a society to
guarantee more stability and equality -- by regulating the global economy and
establishing universal guarantees of health care, education, and retirement security
-- can provide citizens with more individual
freedom. For now, the realm of freedom for most Americans remains
constricted to the shopping mall, where they can buy their identities. Both the
Journal and Times point to the rapid growth of
personal credit as one way that Americans have continued to buy while earnings
have stagnated. Former United Auto Workers official Frank Joyce even sees the
rise of credit cards as undermining workers' interest in unions. Income, earned
or borrowed, obviously greatly differentiates people's lives, even if a working
class consumer can only indulge in a box of luxury chocolates or sub-luxury
car. And the growing differences in income are exacerbated by growing but
unmeasured differences in health insurance, as well as various business perks
such as free cars or expense accounts. But
the focus on income ignores the even greater inequalities of wealth. Wealth
provides security.
As the Times series points out,
the better-off consistently talk of making choices while working class
individuals talk about feeling trapped. Kids from wealthy families can take
unpaid internships, spend a year abroad or experiment with careers; kids from
working class families are likely to stick with a summer job that pays the
bills and provides health insurance, thus failing to finish college. More
important, wealth and class are issues of power. Aaron Kemp, who lost his job when Maytag
shifted production from Illinois to Mexico and Korea (see "Maytag Moves to
Mexico," January 17), remarked, "I never remember even thinking about
what class I was in until after the plant closing announcement and layoff. And
then you begin to think about what class you're in." Rather than manners
or fashion, class ultimately has more to do with who has the power to make such
decisions and the powerlessness of the majority. These crucial aspects of
class--social, political and economic power--have been missing from the series. It might have been good for the Times to run an excerpt of Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro's
new book, Death by a Thousand Cuts.
It recounts how the super-rich worked with ultra-conservatives to demonize and
possibly eliminate the estate tax, which they renamed the "death
tax." As William Gates, Sr., father of Microsoft Bill, often argued on behalf
of the tax, the very rich accumulate their wealth not simply because of what
they did but because of the society in which they lived, and they have a debt
to that society. And the heirs of such wealth are the antithesis of self-made
men. The rich used their political power, their money and the
right's shameless, mendacious hucksters to protect their riches, at the expense
of society. But belief in the myth of the self-made man--abetted by the
feckless incompetence of Democratic opposition--made many ordinary people
suckers for the right-wing pitch. Class matters, but so does consciousness of
class. That's another, longer story. David Moberg is a senior editor of In These Times. Article found at http://www.alternet.org/story/23250/ Original http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2175/ NYT Series Class Matters http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/index.html?8dpc |
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