Posted by
Buster Foghorn on Thursday, January 19, 2012 2:55:33 PM
Niall Ferguson offers a thoughtful review of the arguments about “income inequality” and a review of a new book by Charles Murray setting out the causes of the problem and a conservative solution.
Niall Ferguson looks at both sides of the income inequality in America argument in a timely column “Rich America, Poor America”. Professor Ferguson reviews favorably a new book by Charles Murray, “Coming Apart”, a book that looks at the evidence about “Poor America” and points to the roots of our current predicament. It is a column that warrants reading in its entirety coming as it does from a man of sober judgment about a new book by a man of judgment so sober. Bottom line: Professor Ferguson calls the new Murray book: “by far the best available analysis of modern American inequality – and a much needed antidote to the campaign for a European America.”
Professor Ferguson quotes Disraeli, noting that conservatives were not always neglectful of income disparity and the consequences on civil society. He says that today there is at least one conservative, Charles Murray, who has accepted the premise of progressives that there is an income equality problem in America. Unlike lefties like Paul Krugman who prescribe more spending on welfare, school, social ills, etc., however, Charles Murray in his new book “Coming Apart” explains that the divide is a result of a decline in the traditional four pillars that guided America—family, work, local community, and faith. [See “Happiness of the People” by Dr. Murray where he develops his argument against the European model of government advocated by President Obama and other progressives, explaining that such a path leads away from happiness and ignores the Constitutional imperative that government create an “opportunity for happiness” for each American.]
Murray says, “In poor America, all four [traditional pillars] are in a state of collapse.” He traces the decline in the “lower class” since the New Deal and the Great Society programs in each of these traditional pathways to a happy and fulfilled life, pointing to an increase in divorce and single uneducated mothers; a decline in male industriousness, opting instead for a “new leisure preference”; a greater increase in crime in poorer neighborhoods; and a decline in religiosity. Professor Murray explains that while some of these declines are present in the “cognitive elites” (the top 5%), they are a much greater problem in poorer communities, resulting in an “atrophy of bonds of civil society” and less “social capital.”
Professor Ferguson then looks at Murray’s “conservative solution” to the problem of economic inequality:
Scrapping the failing programs of the ‘30s and ‘60s before they bankrupt America. Ensure that everyone has a basic income. Then simplify the tax code to restore the incentives that used to exist for everyone to work hard. Finally, end the state monopolies in public education to launch a new era of school choice and competition.
Professor Ferguson isn’t sure we can return to the halcyon days described and dreamed of by Professor Murray, but as the father of a newborn, he argues that it is time to “tackle the inequality issue head on.” He closes with a request that Mitt Romney read “Coming Apart” before his campaign comes apart.”