Progressive World Review

In classic conservative style, David Brooks, in his Washington Post column, laments the changes in this country over the last thirty or so years.  Not just the moral decadence for which he blames Hollywood and TV, but the “financial decadence” for which he mostly blames, well, us,

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.
…
The loosening of financial inhibition has meant more options for the well-educated but more temptation and chaos for the most vulnerable. Social norms, the invisible threads that guide behavior, have deteriorated. Over the past years, Americans have been more socially conscious about protecting the environment and inhaling tobacco. They have become less socially conscious about money and debt.

Brook’s timeline for this decline is interesting because it matches almost exactly the timeline I’ve used to chart the decline of the middle class.  It’s always easy to blame the victims but rarely does it make any sense.  What exactly has changed over the last few decades?  Have everyday working Americans really changed from being frugal and thrifty to spend crazy debt lovers?  Or has our country changed around us.

You used to be able to provide housing for yourself for less than 25% of your income.  There used to be jobs in this country that paid a living wage, layoffs were rare and if you were a loyal worker to your company you were rewarded with a lifetime of work and a pension to retire on.  Now the high paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced with low paying Wal-Mart jobs.  The products that are know being made overseas for slave wages still cost the same or more when we buy them, the corporations that can’t seem to survive without slashing their labor costs still seem to be able to afford lavish pay packages for their top executives.

What has changed over the last thirty or so years is the corporate take-over of this country that has been brought on by the conservative revolution.  The decadence that Brooks complains about, financial or otherwise coincides precisely with the conservative turn this country has taken and until we realize that, and do something about it, we can only expect more of the same.

–Paul Wilden

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