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America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity, and others viewit in much the same light. But, while we canall think of examples of Americans who rose to the top on their own, what really matters are the statistics: to whatextent do an individual’s life chances depend on the income and education ofhis or her parents?
Nowadays, these numbers show that the American dream is a myth. There isless equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe– or, indeed, in any advanced industrial country for which there are data.
This is one of the reasons that America has the highest level ofinequality of any of the advanced countries – and itsgap with the rest has been widening. In the “recovery” of 2009-2010, thetop 1% of US income earners captured 93% of the income growth. Other inequalityindicators – like wealth, health, and life expectancy – are as bad or even worse. The clear trend is one ofconcentration of income and wealth at the top, the hollowingout of the middle, and increasing poverty at the bottom.
It would be one thing if the high incomes of those at the top were theresult of greater contributions to society, but the Great Recession showedotherwise: even bankers who had led the global economy, as well as their ownfirms, to the brink of ruin, received outsizebonuses.
A closer look at those at the top reveals a disproportionaterole for rent-seeking: some have obtainedtheir wealth by exercising monopoly power; others are CEOs who have takenadvantage of deficiencies in corporate governance to extract for themselves anexcessive share of corporate earnings; and still others have used politicalconnections to benefit from government munificence– either excessively high prices for what the government buys (drugs), orexcessively low prices for what the government sells (mineral rights).
Likewise, part of the wealth of those in finance comes from exploiting thepoor, through predatory lending and abusivecredit-card practices. Those at the top, in such cases, are enriched at the direct expense of those at the bottom.
It might not be so bad if there were even a grain of truth to trickle-down economics – the quaint notion that everyone benefits fromenriching those at the top. But most Americans today are worse off – with lower real (inflation-adjusted)incomes – than they were in 1997, a decade and a half ago. All of the benefitsof growth have gone to the top.
Defenders of America’s inequality argue that the poor and those in themiddle shouldn’t complain. While they may be getting a smaller share of the piethan they did in the past, the pie is growing so much, thanks to thecontributions of the rich and superrich, that the size of their slice isactually larger. The evidence, again, flatlycontradicts this. Indeed, America grew far faster in the decades after WorldWar II, when it was growing together, thanit has since 1980, when it began growing apart.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, once one understands the sources ofinequality. Rent-seeking distorts the economy.Market forces, of course, play a role, too, but markets are shaped by politics;and, in America, with its quasi-corrupt system of campaign finance and its revolving doors between government and industry,politics is shaped by money.
For example, a bankruptcy law that privileges derivativesover all else, but does not allow the dischargeof student debt, no matter how inadequate the education provided, enrichesbankers and impoverishes many at the bottom.In a country where money trumps democracy,such legislation has become predictably frequent.
But growing inequality is not inevitable.There are market economies that are doing better, both in terms of both GDPgrowth and rising living standards for mostcitizens. Some are even reducing inequalities.
America is paying a high price for continuing in the opposite direction.Inequality leads to lower growth and less efficiency. Lack of opportunity meansthat its most valuable asset – its people – is not being fully used. Many atthe bottom, or even in the middle, are not livingup to their potential, because the rich, needing few public services andworried that a strong government might redistribute income, use their politicalinfluence to cut taxes and curtail government spending. This leads tounderinvestment in infrastructure, education, and technology, impeding theengines of growth.
The Great Recession has exacerbatedinequality, with cutbacks in basic socialexpenditures and with high unemployment puttingdownward pressure on wages. Moreover, the UnitedNations Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary andFinancial System, investigating the causes of the Great Recession, and theInternational Monetary Fund have both warned that inequality leads to economicinstability.
But, most importantly, America’s inequality is undermining its values andidentity. With inequality reaching such extremes, it is not surprising that itseffects are manifest in every public decision, from the conduct of monetarypolicy to budgetary allocations. America has become a country not “with justicefor all,” but rather with favoritism for therich and justice for those who can afford it – so evident in theforeclosure crisis, in which the big banks believed that they were too big notonly to fail, but also to be held accountable.
America can no longer regard itself as the land of opportunity that itonce was. But it does not have to be this way: it is not too late for theAmerican dream to be restored.
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