Full rights, including marriage, for gays and lesbians are swiftly becoming the status quo. Ethnic minorities have increasing demographic power, as reflected in their growing political strength on issues like immigration, or indeed in the fact that the president of the United States is black. The earning power of women is growing, and women are increasingly likely to be the breadwinners in their families.
This is the great paradox of our age – political inclusion of groups that were once beyond the pale is steadily increasing. But at the same time, the economic divide between the top and the bottom is becoming both wider and deeper.
This contradiction is the key to so much of the stress and polarization in today’s society. The widening political inclusion is real, and it makes an implicit promise – that equality of opportunity is rising, that the world is everyone’s oyster.
But the tax data the Brookings study draws upon is real, too, and it sends the opposite message. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing, and membership in each group is increasingly fixed.
Politics tells a story of increasing inclusion; economics tells a story of a widening and permanent class divide. You don’t need a PhD in economics to feel cheated by these clashing messages. Our public political ideology is promising – and delivering – ever-greater openness and inclusion. Our paychecks are cementing the class divide. No wonder people are so confused and American politics is so scrambled.
Article Appeared @http://blogs.reuters.com/chrystia-freeland/2013/03/22/the-permanent-class-divide/