Trickle-down behavioralism

THAT, behavioralism that runs more people into debt, not trickle-down economic benefit, is the biggest result of increasing income disparity, says Joe Stiglitz, in a must-read story.

Trickle-down economics may be a chimera, but trickle-down behaviorism is very real. Inequality massively distorts our foreign policy. The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military—the reality is that the “all-volunteer” army does not pay enough to attract their sons and daughters, and patriotism goes only so far. Plus, the wealthiest class feels no pinch from higher taxes when the nation goes to war: borrowed money will pay for all that. ...

The rules of economic globalization are likewise designed to benefit the rich: they encourage competition among countries for business, which drives down taxes on corporations, weakens health and environmental protections, and undermines what used to be viewed as the “core” labor rights, which include the right to collective bargaining. Imagine what the world might look like if the rules were designed instead to encourage competition among countries for workers. Governments would compete in providing economic security, low taxes on ordinary wage earners, good education, and a clean environment—things workers care about. But the top 1 percent don’t need to care.

Or, more accurately, they think they don’t. Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community are so important. America has long prided itself on being a fair society, where everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead, but the statistics suggest otherwise: the chances of a poor citizen, or even a middle-class citizen, making it to the top in America are smaller than in many countries of Europe.

The only problem is, is that most middle-class right-wingers still operate on faith in this area, as in many areas of their lives.

Like the young Ronald Reagan, they believe the presence of a shitpile automatically means a beautiful horse is also in the neighborhood. Or, if they believe in their god enough, one will be delivered to them. Or, they continue to believe they can either pressure the nonreligious rich in exchange for their votes on social issues, or that they have common cause.

Or, that class divisions are played up by liberals, or liberals' fault in the first place. (Well, since real liberals haven't been around since LBJ, that's a hard argument to make.)

(Sidebar — this raises the issue of "spillover" in people's religious beliefs and their effects on wider society. But, I don't want to confound stuff too much.)

Anyway, religious or not, I think many rightists, and a fair chunk of centrists, beyond any religious reasons, are still too wedded to American exceptionalism in this area as part of why they resist facing the fact that America is more class-based, in terms of incomes at least, than "old Europe."