A Broken Elevator Approach

“Statistics only capture one slice of the problem. But it is the renowned Harvard economist, Larry Katz, who offers the most compelling analogy. “Think of the American economy as a large apartment block,” says the softly spoken professor. “A century ago – even 30 years ago – it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most.”

Edward Luce in The Financial Times via Ezra Klein in the Washington Post

As I remember Immanual Wallerstein’s World System’s Theory (a memory that is almost certainly flawed), a primary reason there has been no global war between the world’s poorest and wealthiest nations is because those on the global periphery believe they can move through poverty into middle-class and eventually to wealth. As long as there is the belief that the earth’s poorest countries can become among the wealthiest, there will be relative global stability.

One could, and others surely have, applied this logic to domestic political stability as well. As long as the Horatio Alger story remains credible, there will be relative political stability in the U.S.; if those at the bottom of the economic ladder believe that with hard work and a little luck they can climb the ladder to – and through – the middle class then there will be relative political tranquility. Similarly, those at the top of the ladder need to sometimes fall. The middle class needs to be both attainable and fluid.

It’s not the big penthouses at the top of the building that are the problem but rather the broken elevator. (This also brings to mind J.G. Ballard’s novel, High Rise).

Seen in this light, advocates would be advised to promote policies and messages that speak to opportunity rather than outcomes. The point isn’t that everyone should have something, but rather everyone should have a realistic chance to have lots of things, and those with lots of things should be at risk of losing them. It’s about equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.

As an immediate political matter, such an understanding could create the larger narrative structure that has so far been missing from this Democratic president and Congress. Health care reform levels the playing field by opening opportunities for entrepreneurs and ensuring that everyone who gets sick can see a doctor; financial services reform levels the economic playing field and promotes accountability; investment in industry creates good jobs at good wages so that working Americans can again work their way up the system; and so forth. The story is one of a working elevator rather than one of wrecking a nice apartment in which we all believe that we may one day live or a series of patches to crumbling walls.