Fascinating…And Complicated

One of the problems of living through the Trump/Musk attack on the rule of law is that their firehose of assaults distract us from considering longer-term issues. I know that I have neglected reading the meaty academic studies that used to help me understand our social and economic environment. I just don’t have enough energy to dive into a lengthy “think piece” after a day of hysteria over the latest illegal and unconstitutional Trumpian eruptions.

But every once in a while, I encounter a really compelling analysis that offers a new way of understanding American culture. And that is certainly the case with Yoni Applebaum’s cover story for the March Atlantic.  Applebaum’s article–“Stuck in Place”–considers the drastic reduction in American mobility that has occurred since the mid-twentieth century.

When I was young (late Ice Age), it was a given that lots of Americans moved each year.  I never considered the social consequences of that fact of American life until reading the essay in which Applebaum asserts that diminished mobility constitutes “the single most important social change of the past half century.” Mobility, he says, was key to the American character.

Entrepreneurship, innovation, growth, social equality—the most appealing features of the young republic all traced back to this single, foundational fact: Americans were always looking ahead to their next beginning, always seeking to move up by moving on. But over the past 50 years, this engine of American opportunity has stopped working. Americans have become less likely to move from one state to another, or to move within a state, or even to switch residences within a city. In the 1960s, about one out of every five Americans moved in any given year—down from one in three in the 19th century, but a frenetic rate nonetheless. In 2023, however, only one in 13 Americans moved.”

I was particularly struck by the connection Applebaum drew between mobility and acceptance of diversity.

These ceaseless migrations shaped a new way of thinking. “When the mobility of population was always so great,” the historian Carl Becker observed, “the strange face, the odd speech, the curious custom of dress, and the unaccustomed religious faith ceased to be a matter of comment or concern.” And as diverse peoples learned to live alongside one another, the possibilities of pluralism opened. The term stranger, in other lands synonymous with enemy, instead, Becker wrote, became “a common form of friendly salutation.” In a nation where people are forever arriving and departing, a newcomer can seem less like a threat than a welcome addition: Howdy, stranger.

The essay grapples with the reasons why Americans have abandoned our former itch to move, and largely blames the progressives whose insistence on preservation–historic and otherwise–has led, in his analysis at least, to NIMBYism, and a “defense of communities in their current form against those who might wish to join them. Mobility is what made this country prosperous and pluralistic, diverse and dynamic. Now progressives are destroying the very force that produced the values they claim to cherish.”

If this assertion is true–if the efforts to preserve and celebrate existing structures and places have morphed into resistance to a wide variety of changes we once embraced– it would seem that we are experiencing yet another lesson in unintended consequences.

Appelbaum argues that we should make an effort to restore the bygone mobility that led people to move for better jobs, less expensive homes, a better quality of life, and/or just a desire to try new things. He advocates for what he calls “three simple principles.” One is consistency; he says that rules applied uniformly across a city will tend to produce neighborhoods with diverse populations and uses. Another is tolerance; he notes that organic growth is messy and unpredictable, but the places that thrive over the long term are those that empower people to make their own decisions, and to build and adapt structures to suit their needs. The third is abundance; he argues that the best way to solve our current housing supply crunch is to add supply, especially in places that are attractive and growing, so that housing becomes a springboard.

I certainly agree with the argument that we need to build more housing; I’d have to think long and hard about the other two–but then, I’m undoubtedly one of those “progressives” that values historic districts and the zoning laws that prevent your friendly liquor store from locating next to my house. Surely there is a middle ground…

That said, arguments that tie mobility to entrepreneurship and acceptance of diversity echo similar concerns about the end of frontiers. They’re reasonable and persuasive.

It’s complicated.

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Meritocracy and Mobility

A great benefit of vacations is time to read. I loaded up the Kindle app on my IPad, and I’ve been going through the digital version of what used to be a pile of books on my nightstand.

Yesterday, I finished Chris Hayes “Twilight of the Elites,” and unlike so many of the entirely predictable books reliably pumped out by pundits of the left and right, I found this to be a thoughtful, nuanced examination of the political and social failures that account for our sour American mood. Hayes connects the angst of the Tea Party to that of the Occupy Movement, and sees both as part of a more widespread distrust of our common institutions.

I should probably note that this emphasis on institutional failure was also at the center of my 2010 book, Distrust, American Style. Hayes focuses on many of the same scandals  that I included in that book; however, my purpose was to show the effects of institutional distrust on social capital—to explore institutional failure as a cause of increased distrust of our neighbors, especially those who may not look or talk or worship as we do.

Hayes’ purpose is to explore what those institutional failures tell us about the failure of America’s approach to meritocracy.

There are so many worthwhile and illuminating passages in the book that picking any one out seems arbitrary, but here’s an example. Hayes notes that any meritocratic system—any system that purports to reward excellent performance rather than social or economic status—depends upon the existence of genuine social mobility. That genius child of poor parents must have a real shot at getting the scholarship, or the job, or the loan to start his business—in other words, a meritocratic society must have mechanisms that facilitate the discovery and advancement of the people who possess merit.

As Hayes points out, however,

            This ideal, appealing as it may be, runs up against the reality of what I’ll call the Iron Law of Meritocracy. The Iron Law of Meritocracy states that eventually the inequality produced by a meritocratic system will grow large enough to subvert the mechanisms of mobility. Unequal outcomes make equal opportunity impossible….Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies and kin to scramble up.

America used to be the land of social mobility; today, of the Western democratic nations only England has less social mobility than we do.

As Hayes says elsewhere, “A deep recognition of the slow death of the meritocratic dream underlies the decline in trust in public institutions and the crisis of authority in which we are now mired.”

Even if you aren’t on vacation, even if you are skeptical of his premises–you should read this book.

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