The following is the introduction to American Ideas of Equality: A Social History, 1750-2020 (Cambria Press, 2021). The book is available from the publisher in inexpensive e-book and hardcover at http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=5&bid=792
Introduction: The Problem of Equality
A Complicated Notion
In
my university classes on social stratification, I frequently ask students
whether they see “equality” as a desirable goal for a society. Inevitably, they
say that they do and they will characterize movement toward greater equality in
American society as progressive and as the way of social justice. So, I ask them, do you think that we should
all receive the same incomes or live in uniform houses? Very few students agree to that kind of
equality, but they often do say that smaller gaps in material well-being than
we have today would be desirable, without being able to specify just how small
or great those gaps should be. Pressed, they will generally explain that the
kind of equality they really favor is a competitive inequality. Everyone should have the same chance to
obtain unequal rewards. But wouldn’t competition for jobs or offices make the
desired positions more unequal, I ask, since increasing demand raises market
value? And wouldn’t the unequal results
tend to make future competition unequal, since more and less successful competitors,
or their children, would not be starting from the same places?
Sometimes
the students will tell me that what they mean by equality is really political
equality or equality under the law. But f political equality means that every
individual has exactly the same voice in governance as every other individual,
then the attainment of this state is unlikely in most real world situations if
it is ever possible at all. Even in a small community that practices direct
democracy some people will be more engaged, more vociferous, or more persuasive
than others, so that some will have greater influence. Coalitions and selective cooperation among
some sets of people will result in differences in power to direct decision-making.
Even
in that small community, wealth, as well as persuasive ability, weighs heavily
on decision-making. Those with greater resources have more influence. In a
large and complex society, access to means of communication or ownership of
those means greatly magnifies the influence, so that formal political equality
is not only consistent with inequality of power, but the former can contribute
to the latter.
Equality
under the law faces problems of both economic and political inequality. As
Anatole France wrote, “La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au
riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de
voler du pain” [“the law,
in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under
bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread].[i]
A
few students will tell me that for them equality means a true equality of
condition, with all individuals in the same situations. If this means that all
have the same shares in goods and resources, though, then some power must
control distribution, so that attempts to achieve and maintain economic
egalitarianism often imply concentration of political control. In Weberian
terms, control over distribution shifts inequality from Class to Party.
Other
students will say that they use the term “equality” to mean the equal
representation of members of racial, ethnic, or gender categories in desired
positions or equality of outcomes among those categories. This is a reasonable
response, given the inequities of our history. Again, though, this is a type of
unequal equality, since it would make variations in power or life chances
occurrences within these categories, instead of among them. The pursuit of what
I call “categorical equalization” in this book also entails the intensified use
of political control.
It
is not my intent to argue for or against any of these versions of equality in
this book. Nor do I propose to make a case for any particular brand of market
or socialist economy. Instead, my goal is to explore the ways in which the
fundamental American commitment to something called equality have evolved and
shifted over the course of the nation’s history. Although we often use this
term without reflection as if we know exactly what it means, it refers to a
protean concept that has taken different forms and received varying emphases in
different periods. The modern notion of equality among human beings is
ambiguous and involves self-contradictions and paradoxes. Social, economic, and political realities
have frequently been inconsistent with expressed ideals of equality, and
reconciling ideals with realities has entailed selective awareness.
In
the following pages, I argue that the essential but troublesome American
concept of equality has been a product of interrelated historical forces. One of these is cultural transmission. No
society creates its stock of ideas entirely anew, and the past remains always
with us, although the values and images we receive from the past require
modification to fit changing circumstances. Another force is the economic and political
setting of a given period. Equality of opportunity, for example, depends on the
availability of opportunities. Political equality depends on the structure of
government. Yet a third force is communication. Ideas clearly exist in
communication, so media shape ideas.
Summary of the argument
The
American nation began with debates over the nature of social and economic
equality and over the implications of equality for the establishment of
government. The break with European domination involved an ideological break
with hierarchies of inherited status, with aristocracy. Early American views of
equality, then, were founded on the independence of individuals from hierarchy.
But this very independence, some worried, might bring about a new inequality, in
the form of a “natural aristocracy.” This was an early form of the
contradiction between equality of condition and equality of opportunity. Over
the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an ideology of
individual, self-reliant upward mobility combined with the compartmentalization
of excluded groups to enable Americans to reconcile the contradictory parts of
the national ideal of equality.
The
ideology of the “self-made man,” communicated through the ubiquitous medium of
newspapers, came under pressure from a changing economic environment and
evolved over the decades, but continued to be a critical part of our system of
beliefs. In the late nineteenth century an expanding industrial economy, with
heavy immigration to fill the bottom ranks encouraged Americans to see their
society as providing perpetual opportunity for upward mobility. African
Americans, though, who provided much of the unskilled labor, particularly in
agriculture, continued to be compartmentalized. A distinction between gender-based
public and domestic spheres also continued to compartmentalize women.
In the late
twentieth century, two developments, along with the rise of mass visual media,
began to bring the contradictions in our commitment to equality to the surface.
First, the rise of the affluent society after World War II created the
expectation that upward mobility should not simply be an opportunity for all
individuals, but a reality for all members of society. Second, the recognition
that previously compartmentalized groups had been excluded stimulated demands
for promoting and subsidizing the upward mobility of the least advantaged.
In the
twenty-first century, expanding demands for categorical equality came
increasingly into conflict with inherited and more individualistic notions. The
technology-finance economy caused economic opportunities to contract even as
expectations that universal upward mobility should be the norm continued. New
electronic media gave rise to a boutique communication economy catering to
specialized identities, perceptions, and resentments. Technological change both
fostered economic concentration and stimulated the flourishing of identity
groups competing over narrowing resources in an era of fragmentation and
polarization.
Readers may
note, especially in the later chapters of the book that treat more recent
historical developments, that I offer few solutions to problems of inequality.
This is intentional. My goal is to provide a descriptive and interpretive
history of concepts of equality for the sake of understanding, not to engage in
prescribing remedies for social problems. Nevertheless, I do include some very
brief thoughts at the end about the importance of compromise in a diverse
society with differing and frequently conflicting views on the meaning of one
of its foundational principles.
Readers
should also keep in mind that this book is an effort to identify how ideas of
inequality have evolved over the course of American history. As I have observed
in the opening paragraphs, inequality is a complicated notion. My concern is
not with analyzing every kind of inequality or equality, but at exploring which
kinds have received public attention over the course of our history and why.
Plan of the Book
Chapter 1 examines
equality as a foundational ideal of the early American republic. Although there
were wide regional variations in stratification at the time of the American
Revolution, the rural nature of early North America and the availability of
land for settlement and speculation encouraged the desire for independence from
England and the idea that equality was a matter of individual independence from
Old World hierarchy. The agrarian basis of this equality of independence made
advocates of urban, commercial interests suspect in the eyes of Jeffersonian
egalitarians. The reaction against hierarchy also raised an early version of
debate over the implications of individual achievement. Might the old
aristocracy of birth be replaced by a “natural aristocracy” of ability, effort,
and luck that would re-establish hierarchy? The ideal of an equality of
independence was also deeply inconsistent with the institution of slavery, an inconsistency
generally managed by compartmentalizing an entire racial category.
Chapter 2 describes
how the independent yeoman of the early years of the American republic became
the “self-made man” in the years before the Civil War. The expanding boundaries
of the nation, increasing opportunities for farm ownership and for success in
manufacturing enterprises. The chapter looks at equality and mobility in the
expanding nation through the eyes of two foreign observers, Alexis de
Tocqueville and Fanny Trollope. It explores the centrality of the image of the
self-made man in the politics of an era characterized by widening male suffrage
and by popular communication by newspapers, which became a primary way of
expressing and popularizing equality as the opportunity for individual self-creation.
The chapter ends with sections on two major contradictions of the belief in the
self-made individual: slaves and women.
Chapter 3 follows
the transformation of the concept of the self-made man during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time that saw the growth of major
corporations, rapid urbanization, the growth of formal organizations such as
public schools, and massive immigration. It explores the movement known as
“Progressivism” as a response to political, economic, and social centralization
and bureaucratization. In the increasingly bureaucratic setting of the time,
equality began to take on the implication of the equality of citizens before a
central, organizing state. The popularity of success literature reflected the
view that self-made men were those who could draw upon their own talents and
energies to rise in a corporate bureaucratic environment. This environment also
placed an increased emphasis on formal education as a way of fitting individuals
into a corporate environment and as a way of enabling the competition for
success. The great wave of immigration that accompanied the expanding economy
both fostered the ideal of America as the land of opportunity and it produced a
system of ethnic stratification. While racial segregation maintained African
Americans in many ways at the bottom of the stratification system, it also
provided, in ideals at least, a parallel path to self-made success, as
reflected in the popular autobiography of Booker T. Washington. Although women
were still generally compartmentalized in a separate domestic sphere, the
concept of the abstract citizen, equal in formal organizations began to
challenge gender segregation.
In Chapter
4, I look at the further development of the bureaucratic society during the
time of the New Deal. I argue that one of the chief characteristics of the
bureaucratic society was the unequal equality of individuals in hierarchical
organizations, which laid the foundation for what would later become known as
“meritocracy.” The enhanced role of government in this bureaucratic society
also encouraged the development of a concept of social citizenship, which
included enhanced federal responsibilities for the welfare of citizens. The
equality of citizens lay in their claims on the benefits and resources provided
by government. Economic distribution, as measured by shares of income, became
more equal during this period, setting expectations for greater equality of
condition that would be promoted by governmental intervention and regulation,
with the equality of citizens seen in terms of consumption. The emergence of
mass media, in the form of radio, helped to absorb individuals into the social
citizenship of the bureaucratic society. Political attempts to spread benefits
and guarantees of participation and material security across broad swathes of a
national population stimulated thinking of equality in categorical terms,
largely defined by social classes. Formal education also responded to the
corporate setting, as it took on more of a role of the political shaping social
citizens. Despite the beginning of thinking about equality in terms of social
categories, political pressures continued the bracketing out of African
American citizens. The chapter ends with looking at the emergence of contested
ideas of equality during the New Deal period.
Chapter 5
describes these contested ideas as largely slipping into the background during
the boom post-World War II years, mainly the late 1940s and 1950s. Following
the war, the country enjoyed rapidly increasing levels of production and
consumption, along with a relative equalization of incomes known as “the Great
Compression.” A wider distribution of income was accompanied by structural
upward mobility, an increase in desirable, well-paid, prestigious occupations
requiring high levels of education. American society began to look like a race
that everyone had the opportunity to win, and, following a pattern established
by the New Deal, government played an active role in subsidizing these
opportunities through support for mortgages, education, and other sources of
upward mobility. In higher education, in particular, one of the consequences
was the appearance of a new “natural aristocracy,” in the form of what was now
called a “meritocracy.” At the time, though, the questions that an elite of
achievement might pose about social and economic equality, raised in the early
republic, were obscured by the increasing structural mobility, making it look
like there was “room at the top” for everyone. An undercurrent of criticism of
what appeared to be a homogenizing, conformist culture did appear, though.
Along with this critical undercurrent, the very expectation that success and
material well-being should be universally available provoked objections from
other social critics, who pointed out that some were still excluded. Faith in
the capacity of policy led these critics to argue for more active political
intervention, to bring all into the realm of abundance and opportunity.
Television contributed high consumer expectations and to national
centralization. The period saw the ideal of categorical equality, of equality
applied to groups as opposed to individuals, begin to challenge traditional
individual-level concepts. Legal challenges to racial discrimination in
schooling were initially based on meritocratic ideals of individual
opportunity, but these would also lead to efforts at categorical equalization.
Chapter 6
follows by tracing efforts at group equalization during the 1960s and early
1970s. The era of the Civil Rights
movement placed a new focus on group equalization, drawing attention to
previously suppressed contradictions in traditional American concepts of
equality. This was the consequence of four main developments. First, the material
abundance of the postwar years had encouraged thinking of the nation’s primary
challenge as one of extending high standards of living throughout the society.
Second, mass communication promoted consumer expectations across all parts of
the society. Third, mass communication also provided a national theater for
members of groups excluded from benefits and opportunities. Fourth, the
expansion of governmental social intervention encouraged thinking about
improving standards of living in general and equalizing life chances across
categories of people as problems that could be solved by means of public
policy. The chapter gives particular attention to how the model for thinking
about equality developed by the Civil Rights movement expanded to categories beyond
race. It considers how policies of categorical equalization in employment and
education both incorporated earlier individual-level concepts of equality and
conflicted with those concepts.
The final
chapter brings the history up to the present time. In a discussion of the
economic setting, the chapter points out that by the late 1970s the trend of
general income equalization and structural upward mobility were over, even as
Americans continued to expect that life chances and opportunities should improve.
The development of an economy dominated by advanced technology and finance was
one of the most important characteristics of this setting. Centralized mass
communication gave way to the new social media that were part of the
technology-finance economy. The new social media were both centralizing and
decentralizing. In terms of ownership, knowledge-intensive and
capital-intensive promoted an oligopoly. At the same time, though, they
produced a boutique economy of communication, encouraging the splitting of the
society into interest and identity groups. This fragmentation contributed to
the growth of a form of populism in American politics. At the same time, the
narrowing of opportunities heightened the contradictions involved in trying to
subsidize upward mobility for group equalization. This narrowing of
opportunities during a time that government policies attempted to increase
opportunities for excluded groups combined with competing forms of identity
politics to reinforce partisan political polarization, as shown in voting
patterns. Competing ideas about the nature of equality and the role of
government in equalization encouraged disenchantment with the American
political system, as well as polarization. The chapter concludes by considering
how historically developed, conflicting ideas about equality had come to
reflect a polarized and fragmented society.
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