Skip to main content

Inequality and the American Dream | Economist.com

The United States Inequality and the American Dream Economist.com For a modest little British "newspaper" as they love to call themselves, The Economist has uncanny insight into the American psyche. They've hit the nail squarely on the head once again with their June 17th focus on "Inequality and the American Dream." As though The Economist was really the World's conscience [as perhaps it is] they set out three conditions that must be met in order for inequality to not be inherently wrong as many on the left have argued:
"...first, society as a whole is getting richer; second, there is a safety net for the very poor; and third, everybody, regardless of class, race, creed or sex, has an opportunity to climb up through the system."

To me they have omitted the most important condition that makes America unique. That is, the strong sense of right and wrong derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the moral principles which guided the formation of this country. It is this set of underlying moral principles and not some vague idealism that I believe is the real American "genius for translating...talk of the American Dream into practical policies."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Forty Years

My wife Joy and I celebrated our 40 th wedding anniversary this past weekend with our children and grand-children. We were on lovely Sea Island, Georgia watching this spectacular sunrise and wondering how it was possible that forty years could have gone by so quickly. We had a lot of fun telling all the old stories about how we met, and courted, and married, and brought up the kids. Lots of laughs and a few tears as well. We've been through good times and bad together. We've both worked hard, had a few disappointments, but basically have accomplished mostly good things. We've had good health, loving families, good friends, three fine sons we're very proud of, wonderful daughter's-in-law who are perfect for our boys, and four of the best grandchildren ever. Life doesn't really get any better than that. We've really been blessed and we thank God for that. Now we're working to keep our health and live to celebrate forty more.

Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice

MediaPost Publications - Americans Get More Channels, Watch Fewer Of Them, Especially Broadcast - 03/13/2006 Ironically, Barry Schwartz spoke at PC Forum last night about the Paradox of Choice, and what did I wake up to this morning. Another possible example of too much choice in the channels people have to choose from on television. I wonder whether the "a la carte" crowd has thought about this problem. I'll have to ask Prof. Schwartz about that today.