The differences between the better off and the worse off (assuming those worse off have adequate housing, food and health care) wouldn't matter nearly so much if there was a sense of community, but there mostly isn't. Church should serve to bridge the gap between those who have a lot and those that don't. Church should be a place where corporate executives and factory workers could find a common sense of idenity and purpose in Christ. It happens in a very few churches, but not in most. Many of the wealthier are in the main line churches and many of the poor are in Pentecostal churches. And of course, the majority aren't in church at all.

Modern day living arrangements make it easier and easier for the haves and the have lesses to avoid interaction with each other if they so choose and often that is exactly what they choose.

For most professionals, when they have a social gathering, their plumber, their auto mechanic, or their electrician isn't there. So if community doesn't happen in church it almost certainly won't happen in society at large. Those who live in community are far less likely to suffer either greed or pride.

I agree with most of your post, but not the seeming implication that the disparity itself is irrelevant. That is, if the disparity between those who have a lot and those who have less continues to grow, then greed and pride will continue to grow because the church as it is currently constituted doesn't have the strength or moral authority to create true community.

Finally, a good bit of the disparity is caused by unethical business practices. For instance, study after study has shown that banks will not lend to minorities who are in similar financial and credit rating situations to whites.

One of the reasons I favor estate taxes for vast wealth is to try to stem disparity that comes not from hard work and talents but by the luck of who one was related to.

I don't know that we could or should curb the activity, but it seems to me that poverty is very much exacerbated by having a huge industry devoted, essentially, to convincing people that their current possessions are inadequate. Advertising makes people feel poorer, imho.

Health care is trickier. It's much easier psychologically, I would think, to get sick and die or to watch a loved one get sick and die when there simply is no medical care available. Having it be available but unobtainable would seem to lead to more misery. Again, I'm not sure how much we can and should do on this score.

But, I'm not sure 1920s America is the benchmark we should be using for an acceptable level of poverty. I'd be interested to know how the lot of the median family (in terms of total wealth) compares to that of a similar family in, say, 1960 or to that of a similar family in one of the European families. I might be wrong, but my understanding is that it was not all that uncommon in the 50s and 60s for a family to get by pretty well on a single income (leaving the second parent free to manage the household), maybe afford a cottage on a lake somewhere, and have a pretty good pension waiting in their future to boot. The very richest at that time didn't tend to get quite as wealthy -- though, whether that's cause or coincidence, I couldn't prove.

With regard to Europe, I'm sure the reports I've read of those countries being a working-class paradise are overblown. But, it seems reasonably clear that the western European countries have much stronger social safety nets than we do here. But, it's much harder to get really rich there. I don't know if you can get objective data on such things, but I'd be curious to know if the average European is happier or sadder than the average American.

I believe it was either Galbraith or Reich who had an interesting essay about the relative nature of poverty. That is, there can be no real, absolute definition of poverty (though some instances--Somalia, etc.--are undeniably impoverished), rather, poverty is often just as you say, a designation to denote those with the lowest access to material goods in a society.

This does have implications, however, for advancement. If keeping up with the Jones'--in terms of appearance, education, etc.--is necessary for effective participation in society, then a nation that allows these relative differences to expand too quickly hinders the dynamic nature of its own populace--economically, culturally, politically. An interesting concept.

"If keeping up with the Jones'--in terms of appearance, education, etc.--is necessary for effective participation in society, then a nation that allows these relative differences to expand too quickly hinders the dynamic nature of its own populace--economically, culturally, politically. An interesting concept."

Not necessarily, of course--I treat everything Galbraith says with respect for its style and suspicion of its content. A society that aims at egalitarianism is apt to both fail (per Hayek) and cause major catastrophes, either explicitly or in opportunities forgone. More to the point, this is an account of economics that leaves the economics out--what of, for instance, Sherwin Rosen's contention that the structure of certain industries almost guarantees the existence of "tournament-style" rewards where the winners get a lot and the second-best get very little? This isn't something chosen by anyone, but it is certainly worthy of consideration.

In many ways, poverty means exactly the same thing today it did in 1020.

Yeah, we've got lots of amazing gadgets, but what the poor today have in common with the poor 100 years ago is a lack of real property, a lack of security, wages that are insufficient to ever actually buy real property, and lives that are governed by allegiance to someone else's timetable just to scratch out those wages.

The majority of the product of the poor's labor, whenever a poor person works, goes to some wealthy real property owner, just like it did in the 1920s. The poor's labor rarely makes them better off because its products don't belong to them. They sell their time, cheaply, and the products of that time become the property of others. Attempts to create their own business are often crushed by larger, more efficient operations owned by the wealthy.

The lives of the poor are cyclical, with no apparent way out, not linear pursuits of goals like the lives of the middle class and wealthy. In this, the poor today are still the poor of the 1920s -- gadgets haven't improved the situation.

That said, there is significantly more opportunity today to escape the pit of poverty than there were 100 years ago -- and most of those ways are thanks to socially beneficial activities such as public education, grants, small business programs, and of course, unions. Basically, the things people who think that the poor today are "better off" want to get rid of.

I might be wrong, but my understanding is that it was not all that uncommon in the 50s and 60s for a family to get by pretty well on a single income (leaving the second parent free to manage the household), maybe afford a cottage on a lake somewhere, and have a pretty good pension waiting in their future to boot.

The average suburban family that you refer to in the 1960s had one car, so Dad could get to work - not two, and certainly not the three or even four that are common for many of today's suburban families. They probably had one TV, maybe two - not one in every room of the house. I would imagine this is probably the case for most things as such.

The lives of the poor are cyclical, with no apparent way out, not linear pursuits of goals like the lives of the middle class and wealthy.

I'll leave it to someone with more time to find the studies, but I know it's been shown repeatedly that an overwhelming percentage of the people who are defined as being in poverty at any given time are not in poverty only a few years later - the standard numbers on poverty don't take into account 18-y-os who move out and are astarting their first job, etc, etc.

This isn't to deny that some people are caught in a vicious circle; it is only to deny that any significant portion of "poor" people are.

"Every single one of us has enough food that we never need to go to bed with our stomachs crying out to be filled."

This isn't the case at all. I'm at work right now, so I can't take too much time to respond, but there has been a good amount of work recently that has shown good amounts of hunger and food insecurity in poor american households. i'm sure someone else can provide a relevant link or i can do so later.

"The average suburban family that you refer to in the 1960s had one car, so Dad could get to work - not two, and certainly not the three or even four that are common for many of today's suburban families."

On the other hand, I think during those times, things were not so spread out as they are today. Groceries and school were within walking distance. The corner grocery store has largely been driven out of business by the cheaper huge box store on the edge of town with miles of traffic and no sidewalks between home and the store.

You're probably right about the televisions though.

Guess there are a lot of apples and oranges involved in comparing the past and the present.

"In many ways, poverty means exactly the same thing today it did in 1020. "

Spare us the dorm-room Marxism. Does poverty--in the First World--mean that you die at 35 or 40 (or earlier, if you were a woman who died in childbirth)? Does poverty--in the First World--mean abject submission to your local town headsman or baron? Does poverty--in the First World--mean illiteracy and total ignorance of the world outside your immediate neighborhood?

With the important caveat that in the (very) less developed countries of the bottom half or so of the Third World, the answer to all of these questions is no. Poverty is important, but in the United States it is more a degree of substantive inability to exercise certain freedoms than the complete inability to even conceive of those freedoms that the people of 1020 would have known.

I also have to say that the characterization of the 50s and 60s as a 'Golden Age' is rather inaccurate when we go to the facts, as opposed to broad generalizations. Asserting, for instance, that economic arrangements of the time aimed at 'leaving the second parent free to manage the household' is revisionist, anti-feminist historiography of the worst kind. Indeed, the arrangement was very nearly the opposite: Corporatist arrangements, demaned by unions, granted by management and sanctioned by law, made it far more likely for the man to work as breadwinner and the woman to be denied job opportunities.

(By the way, Europe's social welfare net is also a retarding factor in regard to job creation, and the net is fraying pretty badly these days. Les trente glorieuse were a long time ago.)

For other readers in this thread, I should note Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox takes up many of these considerations from the viewpoint of the United States; Sen's Development as Freedom is a more challenging corrective (and one far less sympathetic to the claims of people like Easterbook in certain respects).

"Guess there are a lot of apples and oranges involved in comparing the past and the present."

Rather. But that's why good economists try to rely on hedonic price indexing: See, for instance, the critique by Krugman here: http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/viagra.html.

And don't be so hasty to condemn all suburbanization. The automobile and highway construction greatly accelerated an existing trend in the U.S., and principally changed the U.S.'s experience from being one of rail-driven suburbanization (i.e., Long Island before the 1920s, much of London today) to the godawful mess that is Los Angeles.

"Spare us the dorm-room Marxism"

How about I just spare you the typo -- I meant 1920.

Ah. Well, that makes a lot more sense.

I still disagree, in large (but not total!) sense, but that is principally because of urbanization, an increase in access to higher education (including secondary degrees, not just university), and the increasing role of human capital. But I will agree that class still matters.

I should note, by the way, that I wouldn't be tremendously concerned by a politician worrying "Half of our school children are reading below average!" Now, if the politician were astonished to find fifty percent of children performing below the median, I would revoke my endorsement of democracy.

While yes we live a lot better than our four bearers it is rediculous to say simple greed is defined as someone who is jealous of those who have more. I am poor, poor by choices I made I don't blame anyone but myself. I also have a lot of poor friends (as well as many who are not) and most of them live in conditions you wouldn't let your dog live in. Sure, it's better than many had it a century ago but so what. Is it greedy to want to live somwhere with a sound roof? Is it greedy to want to live somwhere that the paint is't peeling of the walls risking the health of the children living there? Is it greedy to want your children to have as reasonable education as their nieghbors is the wealthtier suburbs? Is it greedy to not want to be restricted by their upbringing in the getto where one is chastised by there peers, ignored bhy their parents, punmped through the schools and under suspicion from local law enforcment simply because they are poor?

Greed is wanting $50 million a year instead of 45 at the expense of [deleted by site administrator] your employees. Greed is ridding ourselves of minimum wage laws so American workers can live like workers in developing countries and we can even more sharply diveide the classes. Greed is doing away with the public education system and ridding ourselves of child labor laws so we have something to do with the little [deleted again by site administrator] when we take em out of school.

Not sure about your statement that Jane Gault is right of course. I see some errors in her statement for one thing. For example she says children are not quitting school to help out parents. Well there is a good reason for that, its illegal. Children do not have that option at all till 16 (at least in my state). After 16 they can drop out with parents consent. In fact there are programs here htta will drag children form their bed to see that they get to school and consistent truancy will wind them up in courts.

A fallacy in this argument is (as those above point out better than I do) that comparing now to 1920, while intreresting is like comparing apples to oranges. The poor in 1920 would have been considered rich by the standards of 70 years before that too, 1850. I suppose that you could argue that many of the poor in 1920 would simply have been a slave in 1850 and therefore taken care of.

You also ignore the fact that the poor are better off becasue of our policies to help the poor, starting with the Henry Wallace proposale enacted into Law by Roosevelt. The argument should not be regressive. We can take pride in our progress on this issue, even Jesus said 'the poor you will always have', of course poor to him was different than poor to us.

Here is how I see the breakdown.
The poor are the hand to mouth society, they struggle to get to the place where they can handle or get approval for liabilities, such as home ownership. Asset building is a foreign concept at that level, which is why privatization talks ignore the obvious.
The middle class use liabilites to create assets. They understand assets and feel they can play there, and do so at a cost offset by the need to feed the liabilities.
The Rich live in an asset world. Assets are largely are not a product of liabilities first. The rich have a faded coherence of risking liabilities to create assets.

To be cynical only gives you two options of "greed" or "pride". Isn't it good to be competative and therefore always evaluating of where you are in life so you can improve yourself financially. (I know money isn't the only thing, etc, etc, etc. please don't go down that path)
I have two small boys, 6 and 7, and its obvious to me (and I've read it in legitimate books on parenting), that boys don't care how tall they are, it only matters who is tallest. Men are always competing, and we always will, and I would n't want it any other way.

Just for whatever it's worth, I practice a lot of collections law. As such, I am in contact with a lot of poor people. Some are just deadbeats. Don't work. Don't wanna work. Never will work.

A lot are just poor planners who happened to get sick. I've met quite a number of single moms whose ex-husbands disappeared and don't pay child support. Then the mom has some kind of health problem and, all too often, the kids suffer from something or other. They get foodstamps and they apply for disability which may or may not be granted. (Of course, I've met far too many people who receive disability from the state that seem able bodied enough to me -- just anectdotally, who gets accepted and who gets denied seems fairly arbitrary.)

I haven't talked to them enough about their hopes and dreams to know whether they're jealous of the rich, but their poverty is real. I don't know if they are wasting money on televisions or cable or whatnot, but even if they are, that amount of money wouldn't even make a dent in the level of debt they're often in. For example, $25k in medical bills; $3k on a defaulted car loan (mostly fees and penalties -- the repoed car makes up most of the principal debt on resale); another $1k or so in back rent. Maybe they even have another $10k or so owed to the juvenile court because they're kids were ordered into a juvenile correctional facility for which the parent is obligated to pay.

If you're sick, looking at $40k+ in debts (hell, even $10k-$20k is too much), and only able to get 20 hrs per week at Wal-mart, you're poor. Even if you eat every day and have a television. I don't think it would be jealousy or greed for such people to want a government to figure out a way to pay for enough medical care to keep them healthy and educate them enough to qualify for a full-time job with decent pay. Possibly they don't deserve such things if they didn't take full advantage of their public school, married a loser, had kids too young, and didn't plan for a sick future while they were healthy. But, I don't think it's greedy of them to want it.

Of course, why people who live from paycheck to paycheck would take out a loan to buy a car is beyond my capability to understand.

I have a good friend who works 30-40 hours a week, making $8/hr. His old car was at the point where it would cost more to fix than it was worth, so to solve the problem he spent $12,000 on a practically new car - he makes $16,000 a year, has rent to pay, food to buy, etc etc etc, and god forbid if he got sick - and he spent $12,000 on a car.

I just don't see what it is that makes people think that going into debt up to their ears is a good idea. (See also: suburbanites who buy $250k houses and two new cars that they can't begin to afford, even with two incomes.)

Seems like in many cases, folks take out that kind of car loan expecting that their income will stay steady but, instead, they lose their job or their hours get cut way back or they get sick or something.

(To veer waaaay off topic for a second, it's kind of like planning your water policy out west based on years that turn out to have been unusually wet.)

Jane's post has at least one fatal flaw. She ignores the fact that there are people in this country lower on the economic ladder than the "welfare mothers".

Perhaps you or Ms. Galt should take a tour of some of the rural poor areas of this country. Take, oh, let's say, eastern Kentucky for a concrete example. Not everyone has central heat. Almost no one has air conditioning. Many people use coal or wood stoves and carry in brackish, iron-red water from a pump outside. This is in 2005, not 1925.

Generalizations about things you haven't seen doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion.

Not everyone has central heat. Almost no one has air conditioning. Many people use coal or wood stoves and carry in brackish, iron-red water from a pump outside. This is in 2005, not 1925.

I find it hard to say that things haven't improved significantly when what was the norm 80 years ago is now a statistical outlier.

But that wasn't the claim, Nick. I quote: "By the standards of, say, 1920, every single one of us, even welfare mothers, is rich.". There is no modifier. The claim is applied to every single one of us. Jane is, so far as I know from her posts, a New Yorker born and bred who so far as I can tell has little real exposure to those outside of her economic sphere, much less those outside her geographical one. This is, of course, based solely on what I've read from her blog over several years.

But that wasn't the claim, Nick.

Fair enough - but I'd be willing to argue that even the brackish-water-drinkers of rural West Virginia are still better off than their 1920s counterparts simply because there's a lot more hope for change now than there ever was then.