Will Hutton debunks "The American Prosperity Myth" and contrasts the loan-funded American economy with those of prosperous and "welfare generous" European countries. The article has a lot of unpleasant facts and claims about the US economy and some grand omissions. Yes, the Finnish company Nokia dominates the mobile phone business with twice the market share of its largest competitor, American Motorola, but where are Intel, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Oracle, etc. in this account of declining American productivity and commercial dominance?
The point that struck me the hardest, however, is in the area of social mobility. The article paints a scary picture of a stagnant class based society:
"In 1979 children from the richest 25 percent of American homes were only four times more likely to go to college than those from the poorest 25 percent of homes; by 1994 they were ten times more likely. With the recent rise in tuition fees--up by a cool 20 percent on average since 2000--and further erosion of private and public grants, the divide can only have deepened.
University is becoming the preserve of the better-off in the United States to a degree unparalleled in the rest of the industrialized West, with attendance at the elite colleges, law and business schools--which serve as passports to the upper echelons of American life--increasingly restricted to the sons and daughters of the very rich. A new aristocracy is emerging in a country whose original ambition was to prevent such a phenomenon from ever taking place. It was only in Old Europe that status, opportunity and life chances were determined by accident of birth. Twenty-five years of conservative economic and social policies are burying that American dream."
[The American Prosperity Myth, The Nation, September 1 issue]
Out of all the people I studied with at Aalborg university (in Denmark - a very generous welfare state), I only know of one who came from a very rich family. The professions of the parents of my closest friends were: A policeman, a medical supply salesperson, a carpenter with his own company (maybe four employees), two accountants working in industry, an indoor decorator, a career military man (this was the very rich parent), one couple who owned and operated a flower farm and florist shop (sorry, the dictionaries are packed away :-)), and of my own parents one is an accountant working in industry and the other is one of two partners in a small chartered accountant firm with a total of four employees (including the two partners).
Admittedly my little sample does not compare to the statistic quoted above where the richest 25% are compared with the poorest 25% of American homes. Clearly, most of our parents' professions are white collar professions and/or include ownership of a small business, and as such my friends and I do not come from the poorest 25% of Danish homes. But still, without exception, we all took our formal education one or two or three steps further than our parents did. The "generous welfare state" of Denmark has succeeded in educating those who had the required desire and skills, effectively independent of our parents' social and financial background.
(I include this post in my "Research" and "Information Infrastructure" categories because the availability of an educated work force is an essential part of establishing and maintaining any information infrastructure.)
