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How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

bostonreview.net

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Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#11

Post by oblio »

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #7

"Race played a significant role here, with whites reacting (almost entirely incorrectly) to a sense that Americans of color were overtaking them." I suppose that 'almost' is there to exclude population numbers, what with whites projected to become a minority by 2050 (in the US - the white population is pretty small on a global scale, at ~8%).

To Europeans the whole US "white" thing is ludicrous. Americans count Hispanics as non-White, and while a good percentage of them are probably mixed, a big group are definitely what we'd call "white". You guys would go to Spain and Italy and call locals "Hispanics", based on your definition, while no German (for example) would ever do that.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#13

Post by DarkKomunalec »

HalfwayToDice wrote: post #9
svantana wrote: post #6

It is only natural that the people in possession of resources are reluctant to share them; that is also the case in most countries, in my experience. The weird thing about the U.S. is that so many below-median-income folks are right-wing -- the very ones that would benefit from increased wealth distribution. I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream. In some sense a lot of us To…

This is a rather simplistic analysis of why poor people often vote republican in the USA. Ironically, I just visited Gothenburg in "socialist Sweden", and it was the most racially/poverty segregated city I have ever been to in the modern world.

To be fair, Sweden has only recently started becoming multicultural, so they might need some time to learn how to handle it fairly.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#14

Post by sharemywin »

notacoward wrote: post #10

I'm not sure I agree with the author's policy prescriptions, but the figures on income growth among different segments are interesting. As much as we might be falling behind the top 1%, we 2-20% folks are still pulling away from the rest and that has important implications. A thought-provoking read overall.

What I found most interesting is his point about licenses and degrees etc. Most doctors need to start over that are licensed in other counties. Try getting a professional license if your a felon(even a drug charge).

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#15

Post by jacquesm »

svantana wrote: post #6

It is only natural that the people in possession of resources are reluctant to share them; that is also the case in most countries, in my experience. The weird thing about the U.S. is that so many below-median-income folks are right-wing -- the very ones that would benefit from increased wealth distribution. I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream. In some sense a lot of us To…

> I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream

No, it's much simpler than that: blacks, gays, guns, abortion.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#16

Post by skj »

gizmo wrote: post #4

It's not a bad article, but it makes the same observations about opportunity we've read about a thousand times before. The article mostly describes the status quo, but doesn't say much about the root causes or about possible solutions. Maybe the full book is better, but I doubt it. The author doesn't strike me as a person with deep insights. One sentence from the article really sticks out: "The American ideal of a cl…

> Efforts to redistribute wealth and opportunity from the rich to the rest does not benefit the rich

Only if you don't consider a benefit to ones descendants.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#17

Post by aaron-lebo »

gizmo wrote: post #4

It's not a bad article, but it makes the same observations about opportunity we've read about a thousand times before. The article mostly describes the status quo, but doesn't say much about the root causes or about possible solutions. Maybe the full book is better, but I doubt it. The author doesn't strike me as a person with deep insights. One sentence from the article really sticks out: "The American ideal of a cl…

He may (or may not) be contradicting himself, but the argument isn't wrong.

By hoarding wealth, the richest prevent their own wealth from growing (out of risk aversion and greed), and they end up either voluntarily transferring wealth or it's taken from them by an angry underclass. You can see why (after the fact), they would've preferred the former. Posted this yesterday but Acemoglu and Robinson's Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy goes into this in depth.

http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/01/book_rev...

Besides, it's really nice to be wealthy, but wealth can't protect the wealthiest from getting murdered by someone lacking mental healthcare or getting radicalized because they have no other option. Thus spreading the wealth does help everyone.

Also, you are misrepresenting what he said re Britain and the US.

I am British by birth, but I have lived in the United States since 2012 and became a citizen in late 2016. There are lots of reasons I have made America my home, but one of them is the American ideal of opportunity. I always hated the walls created by social class distinctions in the United Kingdom. The American ideal of a classless society is, to me, a deeply attractive one. It has been disheartening to learn that the class structure of my new homeland is, if anything, more rigid than the one I left behind and especially so at the top.

The only thing he's saying is that while Britain has a society with obvious class differences, the US has those differences hidden. It's not that it took years for him to figure out cause he's a clueless dummy.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#18

Post by DarkKomunalec »

oblio wrote: post #11
DarkKomunalec wrote: post #7

"Race played a significant role here, with whites reacting (almost entirely incorrectly) to a sense that Americans of color were overtaking them." I suppose that 'almost' is there to exclude population numbers, what with whites projected to become a minority by 2050 (in the US - the white population is pretty small on a global scale, at ~8%).

To Europeans the whole US "white" thing is ludicrous. Americans count Hispanics as non-White, and while a good percentage of them are probably mixed, a big group are definitely what we'd call "white". You guys would go to Spain and Italy and call locals "Hispanics", based on your definition, while no German (for example) would ever do that.

I live an hour's drive away from Italy, and it doesn't seem ludicrous to me to notice that people have less European ancestry south of the US border. Although this holds increasingly true for the south of the US itself, as well.

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#19

Post by morsch »

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #7

"Race played a significant role here, with whites reacting (almost entirely incorrectly) to a sense that Americans of color were overtaking them." I suppose that 'almost' is there to exclude population numbers, what with whites projected to become a minority by 2050 (in the US - the white population is pretty small on a global scale, at ~8%).

We're all mongrels: http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/mongrel.htm

More to the point: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/opinion/the-myth-of-a-whi...

Re: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality

#20

Post by technofiend »

svantana wrote: post #6

It is only natural that the people in possession of resources are reluctant to share them; that is also the case in most countries, in my experience. The weird thing about the U.S. is that so many below-median-income folks are right-wing -- the very ones that would benefit from increased wealth distribution. I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream. In some sense a lot of us To…

There is a quote attributed to John Steinbeck (but see Wikipedia, because it doesn't appear to have a citeable source)

>Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Regardless of who said it, it captures the American attitude held by some "You may some day be flush, why would you vote against your future self and raise taxes on him?"

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