Power Play

How economic inequality threatens the nature of an equal democracy

Larry Bartels Unequal Democracy. Princeton University Press. 2008.

“Let me tell you about the very rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. “They are very different from you and me.” To this, Ernest Hemingway famously replied: “Yes, they have more money.”

This exchange occurred in 1926, a time in America that was very good for the very rich – rivaled only by today. Hemingway’s rebuke is comforting. If it’s true that being rich simply means having more money, having a bigger house and a fancier car, than that might be the just rewards for market success.

But it’s also wrong. Larry Bartels’ book Unequal Democracy is a sophisticated, data-driven study of the myriad ways that the very rich have more than just more money. His book, a collection of previously published papers, traces the socially mediated processes that transform economic disparities into political inequality. He creates a model for understanding democracy that (given recent political and economic events) is utterly relevant, even urgent so.

The Political Economy

From the mid-1970s until today, economic inequality has risen precipitously in America – the average income of the richest Americans has grown six times faster than that of the poorest and the share of the income pie going to the rich has more than doubled.

The key, provocative insight of Bartels’ book is that this is not inevitable. The conventional notion that inequality is due only to “market forces,” to the impersonal economic trends that hum along absent of any governmental policies, is vigorously refuted by Bartels. His central claim is that rising inequality is an artifact of partisan political choice. “The most important single influence on the changing U.S. income distribution,” he writes, “[is] the contrasting policy choices of Democratic and Republican presidents.” To state this more provocatively: Republicans cause rising inequality. And his data here are very compelling. Controlling for macroeconomic factors, Bartels demonstrates that on average, since WWII, Republicans have grown income much faster for the rich than for the middle- and lower-classes, while Democrats have grown income equally between percentiles and faster than Republicans for everyone (including the top 95th percentile).

Unresponsive Democracy

His findings strike me as remarkable, but incomplete. The reader is never told exactly how such a substantial change in income distribution can occur. While he briefly suggests Republican principles of inflationary control over expansion and their vocal support for regressive taxation and spending, he admits that it would take a “small army of economists” to fully account for the connection. However, even without a causal mechanism, the implication is clear. The tides of inequality can be turned back, but only if we so choose.

The obvious question that follows is: if these data are true (and income growth is indeed faster and more equal under Democrats) then why do Republicans keep getting voted into office? Bartels dismisses the notion that low-income voters have been “seduced” into voting for cultural issues against their economic interests. Instead, he suggests that voter “myopia” – such as the peculiar sensitivities of the poor to the income growth of the rich and the tendency of the electorate to judge an incumbent on election-year economic growth – has greatly advantaged Republicans. He also points to widespread misinformation and a general unresponsiveness of political representatives to their poor constituents. Taken together, these effects lead to the break down of a democratic feedback loop that keeps politicians accountable for their inegalitarian policies.

Breaking the Cycle

Some of this might seem commonsensical – of course Democrats are better for the poor! and of course politicians rarely listen to the marginalized! But Bartels’ book, taken as a whole, puts forward a provocative and compelling model of democratic change. Income inequality in the economic sphere challenges the basic premise of democratic equality in the political sphere. One wonders at times whether Bartels is too cautious to state forcefully the nature of this relationship: the very rich are “very different from you and me.” They, whose political representation is greatest, have the power to affect the very policy changes necessary to perpetuate their own advantages.

But there’s a way out. Simply: politics matters. If it is elites that run our country, there is still a difference in the nature of those elites. And these differences matter; the choice at the ballot box is utterly consequential for the landscape of social justice. For those who doubt Bartels’ conclusions, the 2008 election provides a case study. We ought to pay close attention to its aftermath.