Upon Further Review: A CRB discussion of Economic Inequality

[Valin]

Claremont Review of Books:

William Voegeli & Timothy Noah

9/12/12

 

 

Noah: Thanks for your review of my book, The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis And What We Can Do About It. It's crisply written, thoughtful, and witty. It's also unfavorable, of course, and wrong. But you did me the great favor of paying the book close attention, grasping its subtler points to a degree that some favorable reviews (the book received mostly favorable reviews) did not. How refreshing to answer a reviewer on the basis of honest disagreement rather than error or bad faith. The sentence, "The obligation to consider differing viewpoints can't hide Noah's irritation at their existence" was alone worth the $6.95 cover price. I winced (because it's true), then laughed out loud.

 

Our chief disagreement is about whether income inequality matters. I think it does; you think it does not, and that the book never presents a compelling justification for itself. Rather than litigate what the book says or doesn't say—I don't want to sound like one of those people who complain about bad reviews in the New York Times Book Review ("I did too point out that Krakatoa was west, not east of Java, right there on page 137, damn you!")—let's start afresh.

 

Voegeli

 

(Snip)

You and Fairlie are correct that sustaining a democracy requires the respect ungrudgingly offered and confidently expected by countrymen who believe their common, equal citizenship trumps differences of rank, wealth, ability, and attainment. I don't take Divergence to be arguing that social equality is simply and solely a function of economic inequality, so that any reduction of income differentials will necessarily bind us together more closely. But your rejection of the null hypothesis that economic inequality has no bearing on social equality is persuasive. The questions, then, concern: 1) economic equality's importance, vis-à-vis such other factors as family cohesion, civic beliefs, and the strength of social mediating structures like churches and bowling leagues, in sustaining social equality; and 2) the justice and prudence of public policies that promote economic equality, for the sake of social equality, by enhancing the government's powers to regulate the processes or redistribute the results when consenting adults buy and sell goods and services. It's not much of a spoiler alert to forecast that you'll think economic equality is more important to social equality than I do, and that vigorous government interventions for the sake of promoting economic equality are less ominous.

 

(Snip)