Timothy Noah, who has his own book on the subject, The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It, takes a poke at Conrad here. Among other things, Noah tries to work around Conrad’s argument that any pesky complaints about “inequality” are irrelevant, at least in part, because the stuff that you actually buy with your money is so much cheaper. That’s true for food and clothing and consumer electronics, Noah concedes, but “Cars and houses and health care and higher education are all much more expensive.”
Actually, new car prices considered in terms of weeks of family income necessary to purchase are right where they were in 1979. Furthermore, cars are much better than they were in 1979, and houses are both much better and much bigger, almost doubling in size from 1970 to 2009 (1400 square feet to 2700). Health care? Well, we are living longer, but not much longer, but I suppose that in some ways (Cialis, anyone?), we are living better. Higher education? When I see a bowl game, it looks like the kids are having fun.
I agree with Mishal (and Tim), that if the “Great Divergence” hadn’t happened, we’d have a lot more social peace in America. But what I really wonder about is why we don’t have more social strife than we’ve had. I’m glad that the Occupy Wall Street folks have made such a fuss, and have made people realize that the rich folks are getting richer and the rest of us are treading water, even though I also think they’ve run out their string and need to regroup and go beyond the street action thing. But I also think that, shockingly, the consumer society in the United States has reached the point where most of us, while we’re treading water, are still consuming a lot, almost enough to make us “happy.”
True-blue liberals like Noah and Paul Krugman hate the idea that wealth can be measured by anything other than actual income, but I think that the fact that consumer goods are not only cheaper than they used to be, but much, much better, makes a difference. No one gives “thanks” that the car they drive today is more comfortable, safer, and more powerful than the one they drove twenty years, or that they can watch thousands of movies and play video games on a 40-inch flat screen (in air-conditioned comfort), but I think it adds up. And I think that’s why the Great Divergence, while it’s real and (pace Conrad) while it’s not a good thing, is not the cutting edge political argument/social disaster that Tim and Paul want it to be. In other words, it’s a political weapon we can and should use, but it’s not a hobby horse we can ride into the White House.
