Debunking the Rags to Riches Myth

marjorie says...

What’s really interesting is Tony Snow blaming the existence of an obviously large poor black community on someone like Jesse Jackson rather than the structural environment that African Americans have confronted historically. A new report by an economist at American University debunks the notion that the United States is a place of unbridled “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” opportunity for all. In his study, Tom Hertz shows that when compared to other wealthy countries the United States is woefully behind in terms of economic mobility. The poor don’t get richer inter-generationally, but not surprisingly the rich stay rich across generations. The two largest indicators of a person’s ability to surpass their parent’s standard of living is education, first, and then…you got it: race. As the Washington Post story notes, the study shows that “on average, 47 percent of poor families remain poor. But within this, 32 percent of whites stay poor while the figure for blacks is 63 percent.”

What is even more interesting to me is the rags to riches perception highlighted by the study. Hertz found that 80 percent of the people he polled believe that through “hard work” one can move from poverty to relative wealth in their lifetime, compared to less than 60 percent who felt the same back in the early 80s. Why would 80 percent of the people polled think this given the world we live in today? It’s simply amazing to me considering just about everyone I know can see around them anecdotal evidence that our parents did a lot better than we can on much less education.

I think much of this perception is due to unrelenting propaganda…disseminated by a system that is truly profound in its complexity and ingenuity.

To describe this system, some people refer to media echo chambers constructed by competing groups in order to push their agendas; others speak of master narratives as “dwelling places in which we live” -- in this case speaking of the unconsicious assumptions of journalists; and others break it down theoretically into a very compelling propaganda model based on corporate ownership and profit.

In my mind, one of the master narratives articulated through our system is the notion that everything can be devolved to the individual. And when Tony Snow blames Jesse Jackson rather than society itself for a large black underclass he’s contributing one more small bit toward keeping our attention on the individual rather than on the larger system itself. In reality, we have a constant tension between individual responsibility and the larger social responsibility for ensuring healthy communities. And when particular sectors of society are clearly disadvantaged as a group we have to look beyond individuals for explanations and solutions.