Love and Money

David Brooks has an interesting column in the New York Times today (subscription only). He is ready to acknowledge the fact that income equality is getting way out of wack in America and is creating both a class of super-rich and a class of perpetually poor:

Nonetheless, certain conclusions are unavoidable. First, the gap between rich and poor is widening. It's like global warming; you can resist the evidence for a while, but eventually you have to succumb. Second, while standards of living are rising for almost everybody, people at the middle and the bottom of the income scale aren't seeing the gains you'd expect. Third, while mobility rates probably haven't changed much, new stratifications are replacing old ones. Race and sex discrimination matter less, but family background — a child's home environment — matters more.

Once you acknowledge that there is a basic tear in the way the market economy is evolving, you begin trying to figure out the causes. In declining order of importance, they seem to be:

First, the generally rising education premium. The economy rewards people who can thrive in meetings and adapt to technical change. Second, the widening marriage gap. Middle-class people are increasingly likely to raise kids in stable two-parent homes, while kids in poorer families are increasingly less likely to have these advantages. Third, the emergence of millions of low-skill workers in China and India. That's bound to push down low-skill wages. Fourth, changes in salary structures. Employees deemed irreplaceable get big salary raises, while employees deemed fungible do not.

What Brooks fails to address here is the fact that what "the economy rewards" is behavior that is diametrically opposed to supporting stable families. This is the result of the movement from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. The post-WWII economy was built by good paying jobs that were available to people with little education. They could go straight from high school to a factory job, stay put their entire lives, and comfortably support a family. There were always pockets of the population where it didn't work as well, but for much of America it did. And it allowed the baby-boom generation to live comfortably, educate their kids, and have a stable family situation.

For much of America those days are gone. Now, entry level jobs are found in Wal-Mart and Target. There is virtually no opportunity for supporting a family, buying a home, settling comfortably in a community. There is very little opportunity for upward mobility unless you are highly educated. And even then, the security blanket of stable communities and families isn't guaranteed. Movement is a must, often frequently. And a growing swath of the population is simply being left behind as more and more good paying jobs are outsourced. Brooks is right that those who are nimble enough and educated enough can succeed, but at what cost?

Then there is this comment on income redistribution:

Some economists believe we should reduce inequality by restructuring the economy — raising taxes on the rich and redistributing money to the poor. That's fine, but it won't get you very far. In Britain, Gordon Brown has redistributed large amounts of money from rich to poor regions, but regional inequality has increased faster under the current government than under Margaret Thatcher.

This misses the point, really. Taking money from the rich might not automatically help the poor but it would address the simple demands of justice. It is simply immoral to have such an enormous gap between the rich and poor. No person or job is worth what the rich are getting paid today. Or even if you allow that the market dictates otherwise, a just society would call on them to sacrifice more of their wealth for the good of the whole.

Moreover, we are creating a class of people in America that is completely divorced from the reality of life for the rest of America. They are insulated from the healthcare crisis in this country that is eating away at the wealth and well-being of every other American. They are insulated from the down-side of the global economy that is holding wages stagnant for most Americans and causing enormous pain for a significant minority whose jobs are being outsourced. They are able to hide and shift their wealth all around the world. They are under no obligation to serve the country in the military or in any other way. We are doing long-term damage to the essence of the American dream of equality if we don't reign them in and bring them back to eating at the same table as the rest of America.

And we don't have to give the money to the poor. We have an enormous debt that is going to choke our children and grandchilden. Better yet, we have a healthcare crisis that is crying out for a single-payer solution. Increasing taxes on the wealthiest to take away the healthcare burden that is hurting families and companies would be a sensible and just action.

Brooks really gets interesting when he talks about the brain formation of children and needing to start at the very earliest ages to get children ready for life, especially poor children:

When you turn your attention to human capital formation, you begin by thinking about job training and schools. But you discover that while learning is like nutrition (you have to do it every day), earlier is better. That's because, as James Heckman puts it, learners learn and skill begets skill. Children who've developed good brain functions by age 3 have advantages that accumulate through life.

That takes us to where the debate is today. How do we inculcate good brain functions across a wider swath of the 3-year-old population? Forty-one states are tinkering with or creating preschool programs. Oklahoma is leading the way with preschool and pro-family efforts. California is considering universal preschool.

Getting this right is tricky. Head Start produces only modest benefits, as a study from the Department of Health and Human Services has reminded us again. Small, intensive preschool programs yield tremendous results, but realistically, they cannot be done on a giant scale.

The problem is this: How does government provide millions of kids with the stable, loving structures they are not getting sufficiently at home?

If there's one thing that leaps out of all the brain literature, it is that, as Daniel J. Siegel puts it, "emotion serves as a central organizing process within the brain." Kids learn from people they love. If we want young people to develop the social and self-regulating skills they need to thrive, we need to establish stable long-term relationships between love-hungry children and love-providing adults.

Two observations here. First, Brooks is essentially saying that for a significant number of children in America, their family situation is so bad that we need to get them out of their homes as soon as possible, by age 3, into preschools where they can get in the preschools what they can't get at home: love, attention, safety, and healthy brain stimulation. That is a remarkable statement about the quality of life in America today.

But then he says that the solution isn't possible because what has proven to work - intensive preschool programs - can't be done on a massive scale. This is where Brooks reverts to typical conservative form. Why can't it be done? Because it would require government involvement, funding, and oversight.

The real question ought to be what is going to happen to these children, their families, and our country if it isn't done. If the situation is as dire as Brooks suggests it is, then we are going to need to bite the bullet to make it happen.

It appears obvious to me that we are approaching a point in our life together in our nation when small-minded politians and small thinking about problems need to give way to vision, dreams, and leaders capable of calling the country to a higher purpose and greater sacrifice.