This is not right! This kind of wealth inequity isn’t acceptable in the USA – it’s the kind of thing you see in Latin America where the "haves" live in houses behind walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass. Why has the wealth inequity increased so dramatically? It’s easy to say it’s a bad thing, but why has it happened? The series The United States of Inequality currently running in Slate proposes to address that question. So far, four episodes of Timothy Noah’s series have been shooting down popular theories:
"… almost no one can agree about what’s causing it. This week and next, I will detail and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of various prominent theories as to what has brought about the income inequality boom of the last three decades. At the same time, I’ll try to convey the magnitude of its effects on American life. The Great Divergence may represent the most significant change in American society in your lifetime—and it’s not a change for the better. Let’s see if we can figure out what got us here."
"But we need not delve into that debate, because the Great Divergence can’t be blamed on either race or gender. To contribute to the growth in income inequality over the past three decades, the income gaps between women and men, and between blacks and whites, would have to have grown. They didn’t."
"The conclusion here is as overwhelming as it is unsatisfying. Immigration has probably helped create income inequality. But it isn’t the star of the show. ‘If you were to list the five or six main things’ that caused the Great Divergence, Borjas told me, ‘what I would say is [immigration is] a contributor. Is it the most important contributor? No.’"
"… before computers we witnessed technological revolutions brought on by the advent of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, the washing machine, the Xerox machine, and too many other devices to name. Most of these earlier inventions had much the same effect as the computer—that is, they increased demand for progressively higher-skilled workers. But (with the possible exception of radio) none of these consumer innovations coincided with an increase in inequality".
[There’s even a visual guide with graphs.]
<to be continued>
[…] Inequality], Timothy Noah talked about what did not cause the rising wealth inequity in the US [see “the most significant change in American society in your lifetime”…]. It wasn’t due to racial/gender civil rights gains, immigration, or the technological […]