[One of the more lunatic aspects of U.S. politics today is the way the right seems better positioned to take advantage of the growing polarization of wealth than the left. The following is from the current New York Press.]
Rich Pickings
By Scott McConnell
At a wedding reception last summer-outdoors in one of those seaside towns frequented by the "Top Drawer" staff-dinner conversation turned to the setting. Not just the property, the house, the sublime gardens and trees, but the effort that had gone into making the evening memorable for 200 guests. The tent to shield the diners from a summer shower was the most remarkable. While it would take Martha Stewart's vocabulary to do it justice, if you looked out from your table you saw not the sides of a tent, but something like the pleated and pillowing curtains hanging in a Park Avenue living room. Freshly cut flowers hung from the border of the sides and top, so one had the impression of dining in a soft bubble, surrounded by chiffon and living colors.
After the dessert was served, the husband of one of my tablemates, like her a veteran ideological warrior, bounded over and confided to his wife (as I strained to listen) what he had learned of the cost of the affair-an impressive sum I won't pass on. But I surprised myself by blurting out the first leftish remark I had uttered since sometime in the 1970s. "Never in American history has more talent been directed toward meeting the needs of the very rich."
In the 1960s a lawn party under a tent was simply under a tent. The rich drank more and behaved more recklessly. According to strict "meritocratic" standards, they may have deserved their stature less. Certainly their SAT scores were more modest. In the United States at least, the economy and culture did not seem geared so singlemindedly toward celebrating them, touting their exploits and making their lives more pleasant.
This Labor Day weekend, the papers reported statistical confirmation of my sentiments. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a study showing how much the earnings ratio between the rich and poor has tilted in the last 20 years. The richest one percent of Americans now have as much after-tax income as the lowest 38 percent-more than double the ratio that existed in 1977. The data also show that four out of five American households have a smaller slice of the national economic pie than they did 20 years ago. The share of the top one fifth grew, 90 percent of the growth going to the richest one percent. The social consequences of the rise in the shares of the rich are softened by a general expansion of the economic pie, but the poor have not even benefited from that. Their real after-tax income has fallen 12 percent since 1977.
During the Cold War serious people used to analyze the conditions that made a country ripe for communist insurrection. Extreme inequality, on the Latin American or Southeast Asian model, topped the list. Now the United States is moving toward a social profile resembling the Third World countries one used to think of as unstable. The causes fall at least in part under the rubric of globalization: Increasingly American businessmen look abroad for their markets and employees, while congratulating themselves for being broad-minded citizens of the world. The late Christopher Lasch, in The Revolt of the Elites, described the American ruling class as having seceded from the United States. When the profits are to be made in Mexico or Thailand, why should it give a hoot about the lives of folks in Youngstown, OH?
Curiously, while inequality has increased, the left has made great advances in the cultural realm. You cannot turn on the television now without seeing prime-time programs, geared at teens and preteens, drenched in sexual innuendo. The ruling establishment of neither party dares to challenge bilingual education or racial quotas. Denigration of the dead white male figures of American history is standard classroom fare.
The two developments are linked, the result of an informal ruling class arrangement: The left-wing multicultural elites won't challenge the hegemony of the rich; business leaders embrace "diversity" with all its negative implications for traditional American mores. Both parties receive their funding from different wings of the same establishment.
So long as the United States remains a democracy, this outcome is ripe for challenge, particularly one that is culturally conservative and economically egalitarian. But it won't come from Democrats or Republicans. That is why the Reform Party has such potential, and why both wings of the ruling establishment are petrified that an articulate figure able to focus national attention on real ideas-Pat Buchanan comes obviously to mind-might secure the Reform nod and change the face of American politics. Look for establishment assaults on Buchanan, which have recently appeared in the conservative Wall Street Journal and liberal Salon, to intensify in the weeks to come.
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