It's an election year. So we seem to be hearing a lot about the hardships facing the middle class. Hard working folks are getting "squeezed." They're finding it difficult to "make ends meet." Or so we're told.
Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs blame immigrants and globalization. Nicholas Carr's new book, The Big Switch, even suggests the Internet will wipe out middle class jobs. But is this empirically true? At Reason.TV, host Drew Carey offers a different perspective.
If you measure the amount of time it takes to accumulate most of today's amenities and necessities, you find that we are all doing much better than ever. We live like rich people a generation past. While Gordan Gekko walked around with a ludicrously large fat phone in Wall Street, just about everyone you know has a wafer thin one that gets much better reception. Can you hear me now?
The one thing that needs to be considered here is the tendency of the "squeezed " middle class to squeeze itself. There's seems to be far too little spending and budgeting discipline; far too much social encouragement to blow one's wages on toys -- running up bad debts in the process. (Not knocking consumerism, per se. Nothing "crass" about buying nice things that make you happy. But it is crass to senselessly run up debts in the present that will severely diminish your quality of life later on.)
Revolving credit card debt, which averages slightly over $8,400 per household in the United States, is arguably a symptom of lost personal control -- a step on the road to financial serfdom.
But we can't blame this absence of fiscal discipline and financial literacy on globalization. We can't blame the Internet. We can't even decry lost jobs when unemployment remains remarkably low by the standards of the developed world. One can't even buy the case that the Internet will wipe out jobs when executives speak up every day about their unmet demand for skilled and creative talent.
Those who lack discipline and initiative will almost certainly fall behind in the coming years as the next economy plays out. But we can't blame impersonal, external forces for our inability to seize the seizable opportunities all around us. (Please see Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind for relevant examples of the empathic and creative roles that are now emerging -- lucrative opportunities that, contrary to another popular myth, won't revolve around extensive academic experience.)
Bottom line: The middle class is doing just fine. Maybe too fine, in fact. It may be hard for a nation to reach the next level of economic dynamism if the natural forces of capitalism keep delivering the goods -- the boats, cars and HDTVs. People may just decide to buy toys now, absorb the debt, retire later (or never), and enter their elder years in a precariously uncertain state.
Many people will settle for unsatisfying, yet secure jobs. They will fail to realize their own personal potential in an economy that would surely welcome their hidden aspirations. We're not talking quiet lives of desperation here; just unimaginative, unfulfilled ones. Ironically, the bountifulness of capitalism may be the enemy of excellence and true personal fulfillment.
I am going to quote some of this information in my next workshop and will give you credit. It is amazing how much more we all have and how more unhappy and anxious we are. Thank you for addressing this!
The Naked Accountant.com
Posted by: Ici | June 14, 2008 at 06:36 PM