Most Americans have no idea how unequal wealth as well as income is in the United States. This is the thesis of Les Leopold, who wrote How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour. In an essay, he points out that the economic inequality increased through the twentieth century. His explanation hinges on financial deregulation. I submit that reducing the answer to deregulation does not work, for it does not go far enough.
In 1928, the top one percent of Americans earned more than 23% of all income. By the 1970’s the share had fallen to less than 9 percent. Leopold attributes this enabling of a middle class to the financial regulation erected as part of the New Deal in the context of the Great Depression. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs made $40 for every dollar earned by the average worker. By 2006, the CEOs were receiving $1,723 for every worker dollar. In the meantime was a period of deregulation beginning with Carter’s deregulation of the airline industry in the late 1970s and Reagan’s more widespread deregulation. Even Clinton got into the act, agreeing to shelve the Glass-Steagall Act, which since 1933 had kept commercial banking from the excesses of investment banking. The upshot of Leopold’s argument is that financial regulation strengthens the middle class and reduces inequality by tempering the wealth and income of those “on the top.” Deregulation has the reverse effect.
In 1928, the top one percent of Americans earned more than 23% of all income. By the 1970’s the share had fallen to less than 9 percent. Leopold attributes this enabling of a middle class to the financial regulation erected as part of the New Deal in the context of the Great Depression. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs made $40 for every dollar earned by the average worker. By 2006, the CEOs were receiving $1,723 for every worker dollar. In the meantime was a period of deregulation beginning with Carter’s deregulation of the airline industry in the late 1970s and Reagan’s more widespread deregulation. Even Clinton got into the act, agreeing to shelve the Glass-Steagall Act, which since 1933 had kept commercial banking from the excesses of investment banking. The upshot of Leopold’s argument is that financial regulation strengthens the middle class and reduces inequality by tempering the wealth and income of those “on the top.” Deregulation has the reverse effect.
Leopold misses the increasing proportion of the financial sector in GDP from the end of World War II to 2002. The ending of the Glass-Steagall act in 1998 does not translate into more output on Wall Street relative to other sectors. Indeed, the trajectory of the increasing role of finance in the U.S. economy is independent of even the deregulatory period. Leopold’s explanation can be turned aside, moreover, by merely recognizing that the “young Turks” on Wall Street have generally been able to walk circles around the products of their regulators. Even though financial deregulation can open the floodgates to excessive risk-taking, such as in selling and trading sub-prime-mortgage-based derivatives and the related insurance swaps, I suspect that the rising compensation on Wall Street has had more to do with the increasing role of the financial sector in the American economy.
The larger question, which Leopold misses in his essay, is whether the “output” of Wall Street is as “real” as that of the manufacturing and retail sectors, for example. Is there any added value to brokering financial transactions, which in turn are means to investments in such things as plants and equipment used to “make real things”? Surely there is value to the function of intermediaries, but as that function takes on an increasing share of GDP, it is fair to ask whether the overall value of “production” is inferior.
The larger question, which Leopold misses in his essay, is whether the “output” of Wall Street is as “real” as that of the manufacturing and retail sectors, for example. Is there any added value to brokering financial transactions, which in turn are means to investments in such things as plants and equipment used to “make real things”? Surely there is value to the function of intermediaries, but as that function takes on an increasing share of GDP, it is fair to ask whether the overall value of “production” is inferior.
Given the steady increase of the financial sector as a percent of GDP, one would expect a more steady divergence of these two lines. Reagan's deregulation fits the divergence pictured, though one would expect a further increase in divergence after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1998. Source: Les Leopold
As for the rising income and wealth of Wall Streeters, increasing risk, which is admittedly encouraged by deregulation, is likely only part of the story. If the financial products are premium goods as distinct from the goods sold at Walmart, for instance, then as the instruments are increasingly complex one would expect the compensation to increase as well.
Leopold is on firmest ground in his observation that Americans are largely oblivious to the extent of economic inequality in the United States. Few Americans have a sense of how much more economic inequality there is in the U.S. than in the E.U., where the ratio of CEO to average worker compensation is much lower. One question worth asking centers on what in American society, such as in what is valued in it, allows or even perpetuates such inequality, both in absolute and relative terms. The relative terms suggest that part of the explanation lies in cultural values having relative salience in American society. Possible candidates include property rights and the related notion of economic liberty, the value placed on wealth itself as a good thing, and the illusion of upward mobility that allows for sympathy for the rich from those “below.”
In short, beyond actual regulations, particular values esteemed in American society and the increasing role of the financial sector in the American GDP may provide us with a fuller explanation of why economic inequality increased so during the last quarter of the twentieth century and showed no signs of stopping during the first decade of the next century. Americans by in large were wholly unaware of the role of their values in facilitating the growing inequality, and even of the sheer extent of the inequality itself. In a culture where political equality has been so mythologized, the acceptance of so much economic inequality is perplexing. At the very least, the co-existence of the two seems like a highly unstable mixture from the standpoint of the viability of the American republics “for which we stand.” Yet absent a re-calibration of societal values, the mixture may be an enduring paradox of American society even if the democratic element succumbs.
Leopold is on firmest ground in his observation that Americans are largely oblivious to the extent of economic inequality in the United States. Few Americans have a sense of how much more economic inequality there is in the U.S. than in the E.U., where the ratio of CEO to average worker compensation is much lower. One question worth asking centers on what in American society, such as in what is valued in it, allows or even perpetuates such inequality, both in absolute and relative terms. The relative terms suggest that part of the explanation lies in cultural values having relative salience in American society. Possible candidates include property rights and the related notion of economic liberty, the value placed on wealth itself as a good thing, and the illusion of upward mobility that allows for sympathy for the rich from those “below.”
In short, beyond actual regulations, particular values esteemed in American society and the increasing role of the financial sector in the American GDP may provide us with a fuller explanation of why economic inequality increased so during the last quarter of the twentieth century and showed no signs of stopping during the first decade of the next century. Americans by in large were wholly unaware of the role of their values in facilitating the growing inequality, and even of the sheer extent of the inequality itself. In a culture where political equality has been so mythologized, the acceptance of so much economic inequality is perplexing. At the very least, the co-existence of the two seems like a highly unstable mixture from the standpoint of the viability of the American republics “for which we stand.” Yet absent a re-calibration of societal values, the mixture may be an enduring paradox of American society even if the democratic element succumbs.
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