We had a pretty good discussion yesterday about the general lack of progress over the last thirty years in creating a more equitable economy. Now that was the kind of discussion that shows why the Open Left community is so great!
In the post, I argued that previous incarnations of progressive movements made more gains toward social justice in relative terms than current progressive movements, but not in absolute terms. That is, progressives of the past achieved more for their time, but not greater social justice overall. As such, we should not lionize past incarnations of progressive movements over our own, because they did not achieve more overall than we have--they just kicked the ball down the road to roughly the same point where it now stands. We are stagnating, as are pretty much all other wealthy democracies, and have been such for a long time.
Whether or not people agree with that assertion, the reasons offered in the comments for a lack of ongoing progress were fascinating. The two explanations that generated the most discussion were by bruce.dixon, who focused on wildly expanded incarceration rates over the last forty years, and by Mark Wallace, who discussed television as a means of reinforcement of the status quo.
I think there is something to be said for each of those rationales. I also think it is important to remember that no trend as broad, long lasting, and international as this almost certainly has more than one cause. As such, allow me to offer a third explanation that no one in the comments touched on: the increasing inelasticity and stagnation in social policy in wealthy democracies is partially a factor of the increasing age of the population of those countries.
America, like all other wealthy democracies, is getting older, and fast. In the last two decades alone, the median age of the United States has increased from 32.9 years, to 36.7 years. This has real political ramifications. In 1976, 32% of the electorate was under the age of 30, compared to only 18% in 2008. If the electorate last year had been as young as it was in 1976, Obama would have won by a much larger margin--55.5%--43.7%--than even the 7.27% he actually won by. Democrats in Congress would have won at least a dozen more seats. Approval ratings for the Obama administration and Democratic policies would be higher, too. Simply put, the country would be more open to progressive policy changes.
Even beyond the short-term outlook of American politics, worldwide life expectancy has increased from 31 in 2000, to about 65 now. In the wealthy democracies, it has increased from about 45 to about 80. This has resulted in a far older population pretty much everywhere, which certainly plays an important role in reinforcing the status quo. The older one becomes, the less likely s/he is to pick up new tastes in clothes, food, music, or even slang. The older one becomes, the more intertwined his or her lifestyle and livelihood becomes on established, status quo institutions for employment and / or retirement. All of these trends are undoubtedly connected to political choices as well, resulting in a reinforcement of the status quo within those institutions as well.
While certainly not everyone experiences a solidification of their politics and trends toward a reinforcement of the status quo with age, it is probably safe to say that is generally true. As such, the continuing demographic trend older populations with the first 25 OECD countries must be a contributing factor to the general stagnation in economic and social policy in those countries over the last 25 years. It isn't the only factor in the slowed rate of progress and / or stagnation we are experiencing, but it is an important one. The older our population becomes, the fewer sweeping policy changes we will probably experience.
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