Income Inequality

I'm a bit late to the game on this one. About a year late, in fact. In short, this series is a staggering achievement. Timothy Noah is an example of the rare journalist blessed with both a deep and penetrating intellect and a gift for interpreting complex topics for his readers with remarkable clarity. General praise aside, the intention of this series was to 'understand income inequality, the most profound change in American society in [a] lifetime.' 

Mr Noah examined race, gender, government policy, emerging technology, immigration, politics, education, international trade, and the decline of organized labor in the search for causes of what Paul Krugman has called 'The Great Divergence,' namely, the startling social stratification along lines of income and wealth in the United States since roughly 1979. The fact is that the wealthiest one percent control nearly a quarter of the nation's income, half-again as much as they did in 1915. It is undeniable (by all but the most unrepentantly regressive) that this division stifles growth by unduly inhibiting full participation in the economy by vast swaths of the population.

Without revealing Mr Noah's conclusions, I will opine that they are only partly satisfying. It is only reasonable that easy answers to this problem are elusive. I was keen to know Mr Noah's views on what would constitute an acceptable division of income and wealth in a civilized and modern society. While he acknowledged that 'historically much mischief has been accomplished by addressing this question too precisely,' he largely left the determination of the answer to the creativity of the reader.

That I find this last issue so vexing is, perhaps, an indictment of my own creative capacity. Those of us who accept that The Great Divergence has been harmful both to those upon whom it has been inflicted, and to the economic growth of the nation collectively must recognize that to merely reverse the stratification would not suffice. We must know toward what goal we are striving.

The United States of Inequality, by Timothy Noah