“it is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
The Second Gilded Age
With the new century, America entered a second Gilded Age, a second Belle Époque, defined by the irresistible rise of the “one percent”, of financial implosion, impunity for the mighty, corporate executives “too big to jail”, recession, anxiety and polarization. The labor movement is so shrunken in importance as to be nearly irrelevant.
On June 1, 2000, then—U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said this in reference to the controversy over Bill Gates and Microsoft: "America was not made the industrial giant of the world by the robber barons alone. It was made the industrial giant of the world by competition, by encouraging new developments, by encouraging young entrepreneurs to break into the market. It's the best system I've seen so far."
In a famous 1981 paper titled “The Economics of Superstars,” the Chicago economist Sherwin Rosen argued that modern communications technology, extending the reach of talented individuals, created winner-take-all markets in which a few winners reap huge rewards, even if they’re only modestly better at what they do than their rivals [or possibly worse, such as Microsoft].
The labor movement become increasingly defensive and insular in the face of implacable and relentless employer hostility to unions and worker rights, punctuated by the mass outsourcing of jobs to countries that did little or nothing to protect worker rights.
Paul Krugman wrote in 2014: "... the share of national income going to the top one percent has followed a great U-shaped arc. Before World War I the one percent received around a fifth of total income in both Britain and the United States. By 1950 that share had been cut by more than half. But since 1980 the one percent has seen its income share surge again—and in the United States it’s back to what it was a century ago.... a path back to “patrimonial capitalism,” in which the commanding heights of the economy are controlled not by talented individuals but by family dynasties.... Before [1980], families at all levels saw their incomes grow more or less in tandem with the growth of the economy as a whole. After 1980, however, the lion’s share of gains went to the top end of the income distribution, with families in the bottom half lagging far behind."
Economist Emmanuel Saez, winner of the 2009 John Bates Clark Award for his contribution to economic thought and knowledge, argues that income inequality will remain stubbornly high “unless drastic regulation and tax policy changes are implemented.” Saez makes a strong case for the importance of policy in mitigating the rise in income inequality, arguing that “the retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II – such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality” may be responsible for the explosion in inequity in the USA.
The digital revolution of the decade transformed the economy and the way Americans live, influencing work; interactions with colleagues, family, and friends; access to information; even shopping and leisure-time habits. The combination of hundreds of cable television channels and 24-hour news services like CNN give an unprecedented impact and immediacy to news developments around the world. Combine youth, rock and hip hop music, and 24-hour television, and the product is MTV, a television network whose influence extends beyond music videos to fashion, advertising, and sales.
The first years of the new century unleashed a new threat to peace and democracy: international terrorist attacks that killed and maimed thousands in the United States and around the world. Just as it has with earlier dangers, the United States took up this formidable challenge in unison with its allies. At the same time, it coped with changes sparked by globalization, fast-paced technological developments, and new waves of immigration that have made American society more diverse than in the past. The country sought to build upon the achievements of its history, and to honor those who sacrificed in its cause.
From its origins as a set of obscure colonies hugging the Atlantic coast, the United States has undergone a remarkable transformation into what political analyst Ben Wattenberg has called “the first universal nation,” a population of over 300 million people representing virtually every nationality and ethnic group on the globe. It is also a nation where the pace and extent of change — economic, technological, cultural, demographic, and social — is unceasing. The United States is often the harbinger of the modernization and change that inevitably sweep up other nations and societies in an increasingly interdependent, interconnected world.
Yet the United States also maintains a sense of continuity, a set of core values that can be traced to its founding. They include a faith in individual freedom and democratic government, and a commitment to economic opportunity and progress for all. The continuing task of the United States will be to ensure that its values of freedom, democracy, and opportunity — the legacy of a rich and turbulent history — are protected and flourish as the nation, and the world, move through the 21st century.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
