(By Robert Samuelson, Washington Post, April 28, 2013)
We are passing through something more than
a period of disappointing economic growth and increasing political
polarization. What’s happening is more powerful: the collapse of “entitlement.”
By this, I do not mean primarily cuts in specific government benefits, most
prominently Social Security, but the demise of a broader mind-set — attitudes
and beliefs — that, in one form or another, has gripped Americans since the
1960s. The breakdown of these ideas has rattled us psychologically as well as
politically and economically. In my 1995
book, “The Good Life and Its Discontents,” I defined entitlement as our
expectations “about the kind of nation we were creating and what that meant for
all of us individually”:
We had a grand vision. We didn’t merely
expect things to get better. We expected all social problems to be solved. We
expected business cycles, economic insecurity, poverty, and racism to end. We
expected almost limitless personal freedom and self-fulfillment. For those who
couldn’t live life to its fullest (as a result of old age, disability, or bad
luck), we expected a generous social safety net to guarantee decent lives. We
blurred the distinction between progress and perfection.
Bill Clinton has a pithier formulation: “If you work hard and play by the rules,
you’ll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams.” That’s
entitlement. “Responsible” Americans should be able to attain realistic
ambitions.
No more. Millions of Americans who have
“played by the rules” are in distress or fear that they might be. In a new Allstate-National
Journal survey, 65
percent of respondents said today’s middle class has less “job and financial
security” than their parents’ generation; 52 percent asserted there is less
“opportunity to get ahead.” The middle class is “more anxious than
aspirational,” concluded the poll’s sponsors. Similarly, the Employee Benefit
Research Institute found
that only 51 percent of workers are confident they’ll have enough money to
retire comfortably, down from 70 percent in 2007. Popular national goals remain elusive. Poverty
is stubborn. Many schools seem inadequate. The “safety net,” private and
public, is besieged. Our expansive notion of entitlement rested on optimistic
and, ultimately, unrealistic assumptions:
First, that economists knew enough to
moderate the business cycle, guaranteeing jobs for most people who wanted them.
This seemed true for many years; from 1980 to 2007, the economy created 47 million non-farm
jobs. The Great Recession
revealed the limits of economic management. The faith in a crude stability
vanished.
Second, that large corporations (think:
General Motors, AT&T) were so dominant that they could provide secure jobs
and generous benefits — health insurance, pensions — for much of the labor
force. Deregulation, foreign competition and new technologies changed all this.
Companies became more cost-conscious, cutting jobs and squeezing fringe
benefits. The private “safety net” has shrunk.
Third, that improvements in economic
efficiency (a.k.a. “productivity”) would lift living standards and finance
bigger government without steeper taxes. Government could pay for new programs
by taking a fixed share of rising incomes. In reality, greater income
inequality has dampened middle-class living standards, while existing programs
— soaring health costs and the effects of an aging population — have claimed an
ever-larger share of taxes.
Fourth, that lifestyle choices — to marry,
have children or divorce — would expand individual freedom without inflicting
adverse social consequences. Wrong. Family breakdown has deepened poverty and
worsened children’s prospects. About 30 percent of
children live with either one parent or no parent; on average, their life chances are poorer than those
in two-parent households. Weighed down
by these contradictions, entitlement has been slowly crumbling for decades. The
Great Recession merely applied the decisive blow. We’re not entitled to many
things: not to a dynamic economy; not to secure jobs; not to homeownership; not
to ever-more protective government; not to fixed tax burdens; not to a college
education. Sooner or later, the programs called “entitlements,” including
Social Security, will be trimmed because they’re expensive and some recipients
are less deserving than others.
The collision between present realities
and past expectations helps explain the public’s extraordinary moodiness. The
pandering to the middle class by both parties (and much of the media)
represents one crude attempt to muffle the disappointment, a false reassurance
that the pleasing past can be reclaimed. It can’t. This does not mean the
economy can’t improve. Derek Thompson, writing in the Atlantic, suggests that
when “millennials” end their delays in marrying, having children and buying
homes, they will administer a welcome stimulus to
growth. The trouble is
that today’s grievances transcend the economy.
In the post-entitlement era, people’s expectations may be more grounded.
But political conflicts — who gets, who gives — and social resentments will be,
as they already are, sharper. Entitlement implied an almost-limitless future.
Facing limits is a contentious exercise in making choices.
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