The twentieth century was, by any serious measure, the age of the lowest inequality in the history of mankind. Several distinct forces brought this about.
First, there was the general rise in living standards and the broad enrichment of the population. The situation of the poor improved far more dramatically than that of the rich. It is technically much easier to ensure that every family has a warm meal on the table each day than it is to double the size of aristocratic estates.
Second, the shocks of history fell hardest on accumulated wealth. Two world wars, waves of inflation, economic crises, and postwar reforms all eroded the fortunes of the wealthy. Much ink has been spilled on the few families that managed to grow their assets, but as a social class, the rich lost a great deal between 1914 and 1960.
Third, once even the poorest reach a certain standard of life, expanding inequality becomes more difficult. Of course, one may hold a bank balance a million times larger than one’s neighbors, but this does not alter one’s way of life more than if the sum were merely a hundred thousand times larger. The difference between a suburban apartment and a gilded palace is modest compared to the difference between homelessness and middle-class security.
Fourth, for the gifted child of a poor family, it was possible to rise. The poor had access to reasonably good primary and secondary schools. If exceptional ability revealed itself, scholarships to elite universities could be won. It was rare and difficult, but not impossible.
Yet the political and economic regimes that made all this possible collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s. In the East, people spoke of velvet revolutions and the end of communism; in the West, of reforms. But the results were the same, and so were the consequences.
-
A general impoverishment of the lower two-thirds of society.
-
A decline in public services, including education. Today, a talented child from a poor family is far more likely to attend a failing school where no one notices his abilities. The bottom 90 percent may aspire to an ordinary university, but not to Harvard.
-
A cultural environment saturated with propaganda convincing us that a modest but contented life is shameful. Every man and woman is told they must live as the wealthy do, and if they refuse, they risk contempt even from their closest kin. The subjective experience of poverty is now far worse than in the past.
Socially, we are drifting back before the twentieth century—and perhaps even before the modern age itself. And from this return flow many other consequences still to be reckoned with.