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May 16, 2005
The American Dream
David Brooks writes about the different attitudes between poor Republicans and Democrats:
The big difference between poor Republicans and poor Democrats is that the former believe that individuals can make it on their own with hard work and good character. According to the Pew study, 76 percent of poor Republicans believe most people can get ahead with hard work. Only 14 percent of poor Democrats believe that.
Kevin Drum offers an interesting analysis and points to another NYTimes article about income mobility:
New research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe. In fact, mobility, which once buoyed the working lives of Americans as it rose in the decades after World War II, has lately flattened out or possibly even declined, many researchers say.The incomes of brothers born around 1960 have followed a more similar path than the incomes of brothers born in the late 1940's, researchers at the Chicago Federal Reserve and the University of California, Berkeley, have found. Whatever children inherit from their parents — habits, skills, genes, contacts, money — seems to matter more today.
My question: Is the low-income Republican outlook on life the result of a constructive optimism or foolish idealism? I think it's a little of both. For a long time, sociologists have found that there is a lot less economic mobility than Americans would like to think. Liberals, particularly young liberals in college, are often chided by middle-aged conservatives for their blinding idealism. But isn't it just as foolishly idealistic to base an outlook on fictional stories by Horatio Alger, as Brooks does, when so much statistical data points in the opposite direction?
Not to say that it's impossible to advance in American society. But in general, your parents' income/education/status has a major influence on your own. Imagine two swimmers in a race, where one swimmer starts in the half-way to the finish line, and the other starts at the beginning. It's not that it's impossible for the latter swimmer to win the race, but he/she's going to have to paddle like a duck on speed to catch up.
But isn't the Horatio Alger outlook on life beneficial, even if it doesn't match up with reality? In a sense, it is helpful to have an optimistic outlook, as it provides a sense of motivation and the drive necessary to advance in society. But when the American Dream develops into dogma, a mantra repeated in every situation, it becomes dangerous. Because too often, instead of believing that it is possible for hard work to lead to success, people assume that everyone's success is a direct reflection of the amount of work they've done.
According to this mindset, Paris Hilton is one of the hardest workers in the United States.
I think it's healthy to believe in hard work and advancement, as long is it's balanced with a realistic understanding of how society functions. If the government provided no assistance to those at the bottom of the ladder, the gap between the haves and have-nots would grow so wide our society would barely function. While we may not have a completely even playing field, the equal opportunities we do have are thanks in large part to government-funded social programs that help pay for education, housing, etc. So to the conservatives who exploit the American Dream to cut government programs that help level the playing field for low-income Americans, I say this: Stop being so damn idealistic.
Posted by Elyas at 10:33 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Comments
What I find amazing is that most of the millionaires listed in Forbes each year started out as lower middle class or poor.
The difference is that people have to make an effort to succeed. If the people do not make the effort, then why should that be up to the government to pay the price. I thought the basis of our country was that we had the chance, the opportunity to be whatever we wanted to be if we made the effort and took the chance. What you are saying is that the opportunity is not good enough; you want the government to subsidize us so that we don't have to take a chance. That is bull!!
Posted by: dick at May 16, 2005 08:31 PM
Is the low-income Republican outlook on life the result of a constructive optimism or foolish idealism?
I think it's a bit of both. You can't fault someone for being positive and idealistic. But when that idealism turns into fairy-tale worship then there's a problem. Thanks for the reality check on the Alger stuff.
Dick--I don't believe the author is advocating that the government personally help each individual achieve their own dream via subsidizing them. Your hostility to a basic government safety net is blinding you from the reality that public funding is essential to individual and societal growth. However I'll let the author respond on that one.
Posted by: Agitprop at May 23, 2005 06:07 PM
"What I find amazing is that most of the millionaires listed in Forbes each year started out as lower middle class or poor."
I doubt it. Any support for that? Also, what do you mean by "lower middle class" and "poor".
http://www.forbes.com/400richest/
If you look at the top ten, five of them inherited their fortune, while the others probably qualify as solid middle-class in my book.
Posted by: Adam at May 23, 2005 06:48 PM
Even if these folk were self-made, it avoids the important question: is it possible for everyone to be self-made?
Could there have been two Bill Gates, or is the system structured so that there are a limited number of opportunities to make it big-- and if you don't make it big, it's not just that you make it "kinda big", you don't make it at all?
For example, think of what happens in the factory where everyone decides to work 60 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week. Goods in high supply have a low market value--so they just compete with each other, drive down wages, and no-one wins except the owner. For workers, winning means being better than everyone else -- not being as good as you can be.
Posted by: Adam at May 23, 2005 06:55 PM
I think the point Dick is missing, is that the world is best represented by numbers, not stories. It doesn't matter if Horatio Alger can write a rags to riches story, or if the few people in Forbes have taken that route. If you want to know what society is like, look at the trends and statistics that shape it. These numbers tell us that there isn't much movement between classes, and where you end up often depends on where you start.
To assume that American society is inherently equal, while a pleasant thought, is a dangerous assumption. In fact, many of these "rags to riches" stories were successful because they utilized these government "subsidies" to finance their education, housing, etc. etc.
Posted by: Elyas at May 24, 2005 01:17 AM
Just to be even handed, I'll criticize the author also. :)
"While we may not have a completely even playing field, the equal opportunities we do have are thanks in large part to government-funded social programs"
Much of the inequality is also due, in large part, to the government. It starts with the history of state-sponsored oppression of many groups (particularly black Americans), to suppression of union organizing, to enforcing a globalization scheme that favors capital at the expense of workers, to maintaining a long list of victimless crimes that catch poor "criminals" much more often than rich "criminals", to subsidizing capital with bail-outs, to subsidizing the lifestyle of the middle and upper classes at the expense of the poor (think of superhighways), to helping the rich to prevent the poor from taking advantage of nature's opportunities (natural resources), and allowing the rich to dump their waste on the poor without their consent, and much more.
I suspect that Elyas is familiar with these problems, but it seems silly to focus on the government's role in creating artificial opportunities when it is doing so much to destroy natural opportunities.
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