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We have done a number of posts on commentators letting Charles Murray have it for his "Coming Apart" book, in which he argues that the great inequality in America is due to the slack morals of the lower classes. Well, this is the same 'thinker' that wrote a magnum opus on the natural intellectual inferiority of colored people, "The Bell Curve". Nevertheless, I want to do one more, in which the conservative Ross Douthat raises a fair point about liberal criticism.
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That said, much of the criticism that “Coming Apart” has received from liberals is exasperating as well. Murray’s critics accuse him of essentially blaming the victim: the social breakdown he described may be real enough, they allow, but it’s an inevitable consequence of an economic system that Republicans have rigged to benefit the rich. In the liberal view, there’s nothing wrong with America’s working class that can’t be solved by taxing the wealthy and using the revenue to weave a stronger safety net.
If Murray’s prescription for the social crisis is an exercise in libertarian wishful thinking, this liberal alternative is a mix of partisan demonization and budgetary fantasy. It was globalization, not Republicans, that killed the private-sector union and reduced the returns to blue-collar work. It’s arithmetic, not plutocracy, that’s standing between the left and its dream of a much more activist government. Even if liberals get the higher tax rates on the rich they so ardently desire, the money won’t be adequate to finance our existing entitlements, let alone a New Deal 2.0.
-- Ross Douthat at The New York Times
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I take his point that even if we gave the rich a thorough soaking, we probably could not provide the masses with the kind of living that, say, Douthat would consider decent for his own family. However, considering how obscenely wealthy our top few percent are, it seems only reasonable to expect a better effort at being fair to the marginalized masses.
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That said, much of the criticism that “Coming Apart” has received from liberals is exasperating as well. Murray’s critics accuse him of essentially blaming the victim: the social breakdown he described may be real enough, they allow, but it’s an inevitable consequence of an economic system that Republicans have rigged to benefit the rich. In the liberal view, there’s nothing wrong with America’s working class that can’t be solved by taxing the wealthy and using the revenue to weave a stronger safety net.
If Murray’s prescription for the social crisis is an exercise in libertarian wishful thinking, this liberal alternative is a mix of partisan demonization and budgetary fantasy. It was globalization, not Republicans, that killed the private-sector union and reduced the returns to blue-collar work. It’s arithmetic, not plutocracy, that’s standing between the left and its dream of a much more activist government. Even if liberals get the higher tax rates on the rich they so ardently desire, the money won’t be adequate to finance our existing entitlements, let alone a New Deal 2.0.
-- Ross Douthat at The New York Times
_ _ _
I take his point that even if we gave the rich a thorough soaking, we probably could not provide the masses with the kind of living that, say, Douthat would consider decent for his own family. However, considering how obscenely wealthy our top few percent are, it seems only reasonable to expect a better effort at being fair to the marginalized masses.
