Ryan Streeter
There is presently a widespread disjunction between our self-conception as a land of opportunity on the one hand, and the reality of what people see around them on the other. For this reason, Americans put the economy atop their list of worries, according to Gallup this week. Confidence is still shaky that our aspirations and hard work won’t get fulfilled.
Candidates in 2012 who understand and address this sentiment will do well.
“Experts” in America's elite corners are certain these economic worries should translate into anxiety – even anger – about inequality. There are plenty of people getting rich while the rest of us are hurting. And so they are befuddled when Americans don’t seem worried about inequality at all.
That sentiment is on full display in the New York Times’ online symposium on inequality this week.
Harvard’s Michael Norton writes about a recent survey he conducted in which he found that:
Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.
He goes on to say that poorer Americans’ belief in social mobility is misplaced since they won't likely experience much progress in life. Ironically, this very belief forces the poor to oppose policies that would benefit them, such as taxing the rich.
He says that he and his colleagues “are now exploring whether educating Americans about the current level of wealth inequality (by showing them charts and pictures) might increase their support for policies that reduce this inequality.”
In other words Norton and his colleagues are looking into whether and how a politics of resentment can be instilled in poorer people to support redistributive goals. Why would you study that unless you wanted to discover that, yes, it can be instilled?
Christia Freeland of Thomson Reuters, commenting on Norton’s study, writes, “Americans actually live in Russia, although they think they live in Sweden.” Russia? Is she kidding? No, she’s serious. Apparently, we are autocratic and oligarchical, a “winner-take-all society,” she says, in which most of us aren’t winning.
Fortunately, Tyler Cowen and Scott Winship weigh in on the debate, making the point that opportunity is what matters in America. Cowen says that so long as there is more earned than unearned wealth in our country, Americans will remain optimistic about opportunity. And Winship cites survey data showing that 60% of Americans think having a fair shot at opportunity is important, compared to just 16% who care about addressing inequality.
America is an aspirational nation. We care about upward mobility, not inequality.
The candidate, and party, that seizes on this in 2012 stands a good chance of winning. The current public animosity to federal spending is very much connected to the themes that Cowen and Winship identify: Washington has been spending unearned wealth like a spoiled billionaire’s heir for too long. Americans, being egalitarian in sentiment (as Norton’s study shows) simply got fed up. Republicans responded to this sentiment in 2010. If they continue to do so by adding a complementary economic platform in 2012, they could steamroll to victory in more ways than one.
But they might blow it. As I argued yesterday, they still lack an economic agenda that has a clear goal. My proposal here, here, and here is that they aim to increase middle America’s income by 7% over seven years without redistribution or other gimmicks. Find the policies that benefit middle America the most, and run on those.
So far, very few in Washington seem to grasp this. Two non-Washingtonians do, however.
Tim Pawlenty is one 2012 hopeful who grasps the reality of middle America. His video announcing his formation of an exploratory committee was superb and aspirational, and his record shows that making the wellbeing of the middle class the touchstone of good policy is also good politics.
Mitch Daniels is the other. In his much-discussed CPAC speech, he said that “upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise, and the stagnation of the middle class is in fact becoming a problem, on any fair reading of the facts.”
The more elected officials who adopt the tone and focus of these two, coupled with some truly innovative policy ideas, will be formidable.
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