Not since 1964, when Barry Goldwater challenged Lyndon Johnson for the presidency, have the Republican and Democratic parties been in such fundamental disagreement on the matters of both policy and basic values. Yet the parties are in total agreement on one issue: that America is uniquely the land of opportunity, the place where people of humble origins can -- by dint of hard work, ambition, and sheer grit -- go as far as their abilities will take them.
But this cherished view of America is now a myth. The reality is in fact quite the opposite: Family origins matter more in the United States in determining where one ends up in life compared to other wealthy democratic countries.
This is a recent development. Studies of social mobility as far back as the 1950s and 1960s showed that rates of movement in the United States were generally comparable to other developed countries. This finding itself challenged the longstanding image of America as exceptionally open, but it is a far cry from today, when the United States rates at or near the bottom in comparative studies of social mobility.
To take just two examples, a study by Jo Blanden and colleagues at the London School of Economics found that a father's income was a better predictor of a son's income in the United States than in seven other countries, including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And a review article by Miles Corak at the University of Ottawa, based on 50 studies of nine countries, found the United States tied with the United Kingdom as having the least social mobility, trailing not only Norway and Denmark but France, Germany, and Canada.
To judge by the speeches at the Democratic and Republican conventions and by the party platforms, both parties are fervently committed to the American dream and to the vision of the United States as a uniquely open society. In his speech at the Republican National Convention, Florida's Senate candidate Marco Rubio declared that there "was no limit how far I could go because I was an American." Striking a similar theme in his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, San Antonio mayor Julian Castro proclaimed that "America is a country like no other, a place where great journeys can be made in a single generation."
But the reality is that fewer such journeys take place in the United States than in other wealthy democratic countries. In a six-country study of the income of fathers and sons, children who were born into the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution had a lower chance of rising in the United States than in any of the five other countries, including the United Kingdom. Contrary to the Horatio Alger myth, the United States placed dead last in the percent who climbed from the bottom 20 percent to the top 20 percent.
Unfortunately, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans show any signs of addressing the underlying source of the problem: the extremely high levels of poverty and inequality in America. The starkly different life situations that separate rich and poor in the United States are utterly incompatible with the idea of equal opportunity that Americans, both conservative and liberal, value so highly.
While a society with high levels of inequality could in theory also be a highly fluid one, the reality is that the more egalitarian countries (for example, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland) also tend to be the societies with the highest rates of social mobility. Conversely, societies that are highly unequal (the United States and the United Kingdom come to mind) exhibit the lowest rates of social mobility. To be sure, the relationship is not perfect; Canada, for example, combines very high rates of mobility with an average level of inequality. But overall, the connection between high levels of inequality and low levels of mobility is undeniable.
But can anything be done to bring the vision of the United States as the land of opportunity -- one that is so central to America's national identity -- closer to reality?
First and foremost, the issue of poverty -- virtually invisible in the current presidential campaign, despite the fact that the United States has by far the highest poverty rate of any wealthy democratic country -- must again be placed on the national agenda, exactly half a century after Michael Harrington put poverty at center stage in his classic work, The Other America. Yet deep poverty remains a formidable obstacle to equality of opportunity, and it should be a national scandal that more than 46 million Americans -- including 16 million children -- remain in poverty in the world's wealthiest country.
Beneath the problem of poverty lies the broader issue of growing income inequality, now at its highest level since the 1920s. This growth in inequality is not simply the inevitable product of globalization or the increasing premium placed on skill in a post-industrial economy, for inequality has not increased nearly as much in other advanced societies subject to the same forces. Instead, the greater increase in inequality in the United States is, at least in part, a consequence of a series of political choices, including policies on taxes and deregulation, that are quite different from those adopted by other countries. If Americans really want more social mobility, they must choose policies that counteract rather than reinforce the growth of inequality.
At the same time, those committed to greater equality of opportunity also need to address disturbing trends in American education that have undermined its historic role as an engine of opportunity. Not long ago the world leader in the proportion of young people graduating from college, the United States has now fallen out of the top 10. Coinciding with this decline has been an extraordinary increase in student debt, which has passed the $1-trillion mark and now exceeds the total credit card debt of the United States. In no other advanced country is college so expensive or so dependent on parental resources.
Yet even in a postindustrial society, not everyone will attend college. Many of our peer countries (who are also our competitors in the global economy) have assisted the large non-college-going segment of the labor force by adopting active labor market policies, including the provision of apprenticeship programs and extensive specialized training. Of 16 OECD countries, the United States places last in the percentage of the GDP expended on such training.
So the United States now finds itself at a crossroads: still fervently committed to the American dream, but unwilling to adopt policies that would promote its realization. Put simply, Republicans and Democrats alike want something they cannot have: a society of unsurpassed opportunity to rise, regardless of family background, while tolerating exceptionally high levels of poverty and inequality. Such a society does not -- and cannot -- exist. In this presidential season, it would be bracing indeed if someone would recognize this or, better still, propose a concrete program to revive the beleaguered American dream.
China will have universal health care for basically free (except for moderating fees) before the US
I mean if ther is no growth very hard to combat poverty
Then about Sweden let me rephrase, if it had not pursued its path toward more social equity it would have remained a much more inequal society ( like the US is today), and Sweden would not have become one of the place with the highest widely distributed wealth amongst its citizens, but would have still been very poor as it was 150 years ago, Ireland type of poverty at that time
I would venture to suggest that it's pretty hard to combat poverty with growth too.
'Then about Sweden let me rephrase ...'
OK, you can certainly make those claims. However, credibly supporting them with well-researched, well-documented facts and sound arguments would be a Herculean task. As it stands, I could with just as much (or rather, as little) justification insist that if Sweden's dear elected representatives hadn't pursued their path toward more social equity, Sweden's citizens would have become a much more ethical society (unlike the US is today); Sweden would have become one of the countries in which wealth most justly distributed amongst its citizens, and would not have been as unjust as it was 150 years ago, monarchical-type of injustice at that time.
While it feels good to make such claims, you're not accomplishing much more than flogging the converted. I prefer to stick to topics that are reasonably subject to validation or falsification after doing some research.
Societies who feel there is a minimum level below which no one should fall ( safety net) may have had higher taxes, but may have avoided the hidden "external" costs which come when 40% of the population is poor, don't have free health care, quality schooling, social program to help all 100% of the population start off on the same level. Having the 1 % grabbing the most as in the US, Brazil or India might not be the smartest way to go in our knowledge society, globalized and technological world!
Just an hypothesis!
Isn't the above comment contradictory, if both sides, as you say, highly value "equal opportunity" how do we end up with this result? It can only be for one reason: despite the rhetoric they do not believe in equal opportunity for all.
What you also fail to mention is that the same thing is occurring in other countries to a greater degree than the fifties and sixties just, maybe, not to the same degree as the US. Interesting omission.
In what sense is the United States of America committed to this dream if it is unwilling to do anything to make it a reality?
A close look at the disproportionate tax code & inheritance laws here provide clear indicators that there is now an embedded socioeconomic caste system in America.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Government DROVE jobs out of country with regulations and high taxes ... then blames corporations for the losses.
We didn't want "dirty" industries ... remember?
Companies move to areas where there is less intrusion and support for business.
"When the leaves get to control the tree, the tree soon dies".
And no, we don't want dirty industries. We want clean industries. We don't want slave labor, or child labor either. It's called "civilization", and it's a good thing.
Socialism is a system that protects the old money elite by preventing people from acculiminating wealth. Also our one size fits all approch to education has failed by leaps and bounds.
What's needed is to reduce the amount of government oversight to the time of our parents and grand parents when it was possible to establish a business and grow that business as you grew trust with your customer base. Also our school system is still geared to teaching kids factory work on assembly lines. We need to move to individual instrustion with private schools, school vouchers, or corporate sponserships of our schools.
Look at the illegal immigrants from Mexico. Many of them have only an 8th-grade education, most can't speak English, but when they come here they find jobs and get ahead. Why? They grew up in a society with no welfare.
We need to get the people at the bottom of our society to act aggressively on their own behalf to make money and get ahead. Nobody has improved his lot any other way. A social worker or a teacher can't hand it to you on a platter - you have to do it yourself.
Schools could certainly be improved, just by restoring discipline and requiring everyone to study and behave properly. But in our society, that isn't likely to happen.
What is happening is labor, understood as what someone is worth with only his own two hands, is being severely de-valuated. This is mostly due to automation and cheap third world labor and their is no turning back. There is even prison labor to compete with now! The truth is we simply do not need that many people to create all the stuff we want and corporations can make people fight each other to get wathever low paying, back-breaking job they are willing to give.
On the other hand, what is actually gaining a lot of value is land, natural ressources (two things you can't usually get if you start from nothing) and I.P. (which you will need a good education and financing to get)
This is leading us to a world where most of the real wealth is inherited (land and ressources) and it is more and more difficult to break trough because the "natural" redistribution trough labor from the industrial era is ending and Amercians are allergic to any other kind of wealth re-distribution.
The scary thing is, nobody wants to seriously tackle this issue
The greatest indicator of poverty is the one-parent family.
71% of high-school dropouts come from a fatherless home.
82% of the US prison population is made up of these same high-school dropouts.
This is not a societal issue of not allowing mobility. This is an issue of people being selfish, making babies and not having a two parent family in which to raise the child and give that child a better chance at a fulfilling life.
All one has to do is a simple google search "how many one parent families in America are dropouts" and use those links to get to the almost uncountable number of studies which show the facts.
The author made $131,975.04 in 2011, a wage that is supported by taxation and determined largely by policy.