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Krugman page 4 of 4
VI. Plutocracy?
In 1924, the mansions of Long Island's North Shore were still in their full glory, as was the political power of the class that owned them. When Gov. Al Smith of New York proposed building a system of parks on Long Island, the mansion owners were bitterly opposed. One baron -- Horace Havemeyer, the ''sultan of sugar'' -- warned that North Shore towns would be ''overrun with rabble from the city.'' ''Rabble?'' Smith said. ''That's me you're talking about.'' In the end New Yorkers got their parks, but it was close: the interests of a few hundred wealthy families nearly prevailed over those of New York City's middle class. America in the 1920's wasn't a feudal society. But it was a nation in which vast privilege -- often inherited privilege -- stood in contrast to vast misery. It was also a nation in which the government, more often than not, served the interests of the privileged and ignored the aspirations of ordinary people. Those days are past -- or are they? Income inequality in America has now returned to the levels of the 1920's. Inherited wealth doesn't yet play a big part in our society, but given time -- and the repeal of the estate tax -- we will grow ourselves a hereditary elite just as set apart from the concerns of ordinary Americans as old Horace Havemeyer. And the new elite, like the old, will have enormous political power. Kevin Phillips concludes his book ''Wealth and Democracy'' with a grim warning: ''Either democracy must be renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to cement a new and less democratic regime -- plutocracy by some other name.'' It's a pretty extreme line, but we live in extreme times. Even if the forms of democracy remain, they may become meaningless. It's all too easy to see how we may become a country in which the big rewards are reserved for people with the right connections; in which ordinary people see little hope of advancement; in which political involvement seems pointless, because in the end the interests of the elite always get served. Am I being too pessimistic? Even my liberal friends tell me not to worry, that our system has great resilience, that the center will hold. I hope they're right, but they may be looking in the rearview mirror. Our optimism about America, our belief that in the end our nation always finds its way, comes from the past -- a past in which we were a middle-class society. But that was another country. Paul Krugman --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now let me make a Post Script to Krugman. In 1966 several of my buddies in the Army Chorus came to New York City to study voice with the leading teachers of the day. They paid 35 dollars a lesson for lessons with the people who were not the top but on the second rung of the ladder. The dollar today is worth six times less than it was in 1966. You arithmetic whizzes can figure that out, I'm sure. You figure out how much that would be. Today's top teachers in New York are in some cases charging little more than half the amount that the second tier private teachers charged in 1966 and the prices for everything in the city have gone up six times (at least) in order to live. Where they had professional apartments and uniform rent control in 1966 today most of us pay at least a third above the five fold 1970 cost of rent due to rent destabilization and with the current increases in property tax (25% increase to make up for problems passed down from Washington and Wall Street) our rent will go up an equal amount at the end of the current leases. To put it another way, our current two rooms plus 5x5 kitchen and Bath costs 100 dollars more than my two bedroom two bath large living and dining room did in 1980, pre-Ronald Reagan. But if I charged $210 for my lessons I would be the most expensive voice teacher in New York City and the students who are like we were in the Army certainly couldn't pay the fee these days. Why? Because they have less money than we did comparably and not more. The above article explains where that money went. Our lessons are not cheaper because of better productivity, in fact our having to work longer hours and harder creates poorer students because we don't have time to put in the extra practice and language study that the old teachers developed through their long years. Product quality has suffered and we hear that the European countries that used to hire young American singers don't need to anymore. That they are practicing unfair labor practices. But the truth of the matter is that Europeans can afford to take, in many cases, one voice lesson A DAY not one a week or less. They also get a lot of on stage practice because there are more working stages. And finally I will leave it to an old Army Chorus buddy who competed for a while in Europe before he came home to drive a truck. He said American Singers are "better musicians, have better languages and sing with better intonation than the Europeans." In short he said: "Americans are trained to sing in church while the Europeans are trained for the stage and we can't compete." Today's Americans are even being out competed at home as the Russian poor come here and compete for roles. Russia had the most advanced operatic system in the world that trained people as apprentice artists and not to sing in churches. I will finish this with the statement that the First Baptist Church in Ada, Oklahoma has an orchestra. Do any of you know where Ada is? It is where I was born and is the capital of the Chickasaw Indian Nation. REH |
