Inequality and Conservatism?
They looked at public moods during rising inequality from
1951 to 2009. Unsurprisingly, inequality grew fastest during the 1980s and the
2000s, two eras that were unusually friendly toward the wealthy. They found
that during a rise in inequality, the
public mood swings more conservative, and when there is a rise in equality, the mood swings more liberal.
For example, when the economy was more unequal, the public’s support for social
programs was at its lowest. When the economy was more equal, as during the
1960’s “War on Poverty,” the support for social programs was high.
They also found that the swing to the right during rising
inequality was with both the rich and the poor. That was really surprising.
But why does that happen. When I read the report, I wondered
if maybe the poor just don’t realize that the world is as unequal as it is. But
their research concluded that that wasn’t the case. As it turns out, the poor
actually over time are more likely than
the wealthy to see and recognize an increase in inequality. That sounds odd
too, but wealthy people notoriously don’t think that they are wealthy or that
there is much of a significant gap between rich and poor. But even when poor
people know that there is a growing
gap, they still lean more to the right when the gap grows wider.
One theory is that during good economic times news stories
focus on individualism (enhancing opposition to welfare) and during bad
economic times stories emphasize people being down on their luck (enhancing
support for welfare). And since the media seldom covers poor people, except as
tragic figures during a hurricane or flood, the poor perhaps don’t have an easy
frame of reference from which to think about the wider span between liberal or
conservative. So if the only options presented in the media about the economy are
middle and right, they will only respond to pollsters with a center to right
opinion. However, while that might explain why America in general has been
trending to the right since the beginning of the golden age of globalization (roughly
1982), it doesn’t explain why the trend is more pronounced during swings of
high inequality. Why did both rich and poor become more conservative on
economic issues during the Bush administration, even though the gap between
rich and poor soared to its widest in history?
Another theory says that while during times of big gains for
people at the top the media tends to cover rich people (i.e. the 1980s and
2000s) which encourages a turn toward conservatism, during times of social
equality it tends to cover government’s role in helping the poor (as in the “War
on Poverty” of the 1960s), which may in turn have created a turn in public
opinion toward liberalism.
There are two takeaways from this.
First, while may be snarky to say this, one important
learning for those who are truly wealthy is that the more unequal they can make
our economy, the more the public will support them in doing it. That sounds unfair
to say that, but it’s actually a little bit true.
The second is that runaway inequality as we are experiencing
right now undermines our ability to thrive as a nation. People lose their enthusiasm
for growing, taking risks and playing by the rules if they know that the rich
are going to get richer and suck up all of the currency out of the economy for
themselves. Why try when you know that you’ll ultimately lose? Very literally, when
the rich get richer there is a slight draw on the amount of money in the
economy left over for the rest of the people and it creates a downward pressure
on wages. One of the reasons why we didn’t feel that very strongly during the
2000s was that huge numbers of us made up for our flat-lined incomes by
borrowing against our homes or buying homes we couldn’t afford thinking that
the price would continually go up and make us rich. Now that that balloon has
busted, we are feeling the very real reality of an economy that staggeringly
rewards the top and depresses the poor and middle It’s crippling, discouraging,
and damaging to our future as a democracy.
It’s interesting that some in Congress use this argument all
the time, that if we don’t reward the wealthiest people at the very top (who
they tend to call the “middle class”), that group will get discouraged and not
work and not invest. The argument is dubious for those at the top, but it is
very real for those at the bottom. It’s not an accident that the polarization
of our Congress is occurring at the same time that we have a polarization in
our economy. One drives the other. Income inequality has shredded our belief
that we are one nation (“under God”?) and it is fast at work shredding our
potential for an effective government.
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