This week's Economist has a
thought-provoking article that challenges the belief generally held by Americans that our country is more of a meritocracy than the countries in Old Europe. It reminds us, for example, that W, Kerry, Gore, and even Dean are products of wealthy, elite familes. It also provides some statistics to illustrate the changing demographics and gives a nice historical analogy to the Gilded Age. The whole thing is worth a read, but the paragraph that struck me the most was this:
Members of the American elite live in an intensely competitive universe. As children, they are ferried from piano lessons to ballet lessons to early-reading classes. As adolescents, they cram in as much after-school coaching as possible. As students, they compete to get into the best graduate schools. As young professionals, they burn the midnight oil for their employers. And as parents, they agonise about getting their children into the best universities. It is hard for such people to imagine that America is anything but a meritocracy: their lives are a perpetual competition. Yet it is a competition among people very much like themselves--the offspring of a tiny slither of society--rather than among the full range of talents that the country has to offer.
I submit that this illusion isn't only harbored by the ultra-rich. The view also predominates among middle and upper-middle class suburban Republicans, a huge block of Bush voters. Back in the 80s, we called them yuppies. Now, they have become security moms and Fox News-watching dads. They vote for Republicans because of the self-righteous belief that they earned what they have purely through their own industry. The "market" has rewarded them due to their merits, with little help from the government or privilege. These people seldom see or interact with the less fortunate, except via cartoonish TV portrayals of welfare queens and junkies.
How can Democrats correct such a closed-world view?
In his famous essay, "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America," Ben Franklin reminded potential immigrants that, in our country:
people do not inquire concerning a stranger, what is he? but what can he do?
Let's hope we aren't witnessing the demise of Franklin's vision.