Review: The End of Equality
| Author: | Mickey Kaus |
| Review Date: | 09/13/2003 |
| Basic Summary: | Political journalist Mickey Kaus argues that the Democratic Party needs to abandon its unhealthy obsession with income redistribution, and focus instead on strengthening civic bonds. |
The more I think about this book, the more apparent its weaknesses become. It's short on numbers, does not fully address counterarguments, and leaves its own argument underdeveloped. But it is an excellent book.
Today, Kaus is a blogger for Slate Magazine, where he directs unrelenting attacks at Democratic politicians. You might even take Kaus for a Republican. But Republicans do not write for the New Republic or work in the Carter Administration. Kaus' vitriol towards Democrats is not a wellspring of conservatism, but the disappointment of a man who believes his party has gone astray.
Written in 1992, The End of Equality posits two forms of liberalism - money liberalism and civic liberalism. Wasting little time on philosophizing the nature of these two strands of liberalism, or proving that this is the best way to analyze liberalism, Kaus launches straight into diagnosis (money liberalism) and cure (civic liberalism).
Money liberalism reduces everything to money. Domestic problems are always attributable to growing income (or wealth) inequality, and the solution is always redistributing cash. Crime, the breakdown of the family, the decline of social mores, a failing education system - no matter what the problem, it is always the result of inequality.
Even if money inequality is the problem - and Kaus doubts that it is - redistributing money can't be the solution. Growing income and wealth inequality is an inevitable outcome of capitalism, and can't be reversed without abandoning capitalism itself. Only truly massive taxation would bring us back to the level of money equality we had in the 1950s, and even socialist countries like Sweden do not have a tax burden that high. Besides, a heavy tax burden would significantly retard economic growth.
Money liberalism is not merely quixotic in its quest, it is downright damaging to our social fabric, says Kaus. Three decades of redistributing money and benefits without any demands upon the recipients have destroyed work ethic among the very poor, concentrated ghettoes which drive the prosperous into the suburbs, and created opposition to the liberal program.
But Kaus does not give up on equality, he merely gives up on money equality. What America needs - and what people really lament the passing of - is civic equality. This is the equality that says that every person is of equal worth, that brings people together as equal members of the same society. We remember the 1950s fondly not because everyone had the same amount of money, but because everyone had the shared experience of fighting in WWII, lived in cities where rich and poor overlapped, and shared a set of common values and common patriotism.
Therefore, the problem is not the money, says Kaus, the problem is that we've let the difference in money destroy the public sphere. Instead of redistributing money, we need a set of institutions that defend against money's power to divide us - an immune system against money's ill effects.
For this immune system, Kaus has some radical proposes - from reinstating the draft and creating a mandatory national service program to a guaranteed jobs program, from public ownership of sports teams to universal health care.
And no one would get benefits from the government without working. Kaus believes that our shared experience of working is the strongest bond between people in our society. Take that away and society falls apart, as the working split into private communities and the non-working poor live a lifestyle increasingly opposed to the rest of the nation.
None of Kaus' programs are really fully developed - he never brings in convincing statistics, and sometimes it is unclear how the program contributes to his goal of civic equality. He may be making too little of the danger of money inequality. More importantly, he has the tremendous advantage of working in theory, while money liberalism is tested in practice. Conservatism's lesson, after all, is the law of unintended consequences, and who knows what unintended consequences may arise when you create universal health care, a national service program, a guaranteed job program, and an apprenticeship system.
But at least it's a new idea to give liberals direction. Kaus is absolutely right - money liberalism has failed. The United States and Europe have tried it, and it has not succeeded. Tens of millions remain poor, and our society continues to divides into ghettos and gated communities, and tiny enclaves protected from contact with others.
Too many Democrats have not owned up to the failings of money liberalism. There are no new ideas. There is just a rearguard battle to prevent the Republicans from gutting too much of the Great Society programs. But defending a failing status quo does not win elections, and it certainly does not help American society. Putting forward a new set of programs may do both. This book, by presenting the necessary new idea, gives us a new way to analyze and judge what must be done.
(I should note that while the book is extremely well-written and a very fast read, it only rarely displays the wit and disarming comedy that Kaus uses in his blog.)