The detailing of national problems in the previous chapter is long. The reason
for presenting all of them here is that they all converge into the same syn-
drome that causes economic inequality to worsen. Not only are the rich
getting richer, but the poor are actually getting poorer in any realistic sense,
and so will the United States if recent trends cannot be reversed.

Looking for remedies, we are often countered by conventional estimates
that purport to show that little can be done; for instance, that we might
not be able to afford much more equality than was at hand in the 1970s
( Browning 1976), or that there is some inescapable tradeoff between
equality and efficiency ( Okun 1975). Attempts at fighting poverty in the
past have been found to backfire: The poor may even have lost ground
( Murray 1984). Such criticism may have merit, but only if we accept that
the economic system is essentially as it ought to be. If that is the premise,
then the system will, of course, continue to produce the same conse-
quences it has already produced so abundantly.

This goes to show that if we want important changes, the problems
must be approached in some systemic way, and not just piecemeal. Cor-
recting what is wrong looks simple on paper ( John Silber 1989). However,
it cannot really be done by going back to where we were some time ago,
when the problems seemed less pressing. Doing this, we would just start
the same decay process over again.

-141-