Nothing rankles quite so much as perceived unfairness. Yesterday at our day camp for inner-city kids, Xavier threw a fit because his classmate Marika was getting rides between our Family Center and the local school. Both children have asthma, and Xavier couldn't comprehend why Marika should receive special treatment. It was difficult for him to understand that his asthma was not as serious as hers, that he was better able to make the trek on foot than was she.
There's something very American about getting agitated over inequalities – after all, we proudly proclaim that "all men are created equal." On the other hand, our love for freedom and opportunity legitimizes differences: most of us accept an economic system that rewards those who work harder or perform better.
In recent years, however, a significant number of opinion shapers – Robert Reich, during his tenure as Labor Secretary; the editors at the New York Times, Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, the American Prospec t , and other elite journals; politicians such as Richard Gephardt and Pat Buchanaa; economists such as Lester Thurow and Lawrence Mishel; and writers such as Michael Lind, Robert Frank, and Philip Cook – have asserted that today's brand of American capitalism encourages an unacceptable degree of income inequality. These commentators argue that the gap between the rich and poor has grown at an alarming rate in recent years. They worry that middle-class Americans are so pinched by stagnating wages that they cannot afford the American dream. Mishel claims that middle-class family incomes stalled during the 1980s, and that between 1989 and 1993, median family incomes actually fell as hourly compensation declined. Union leader Ronald Blackmore asserts that "60 percent of families' [incomes] have actually fallen . . . despite the fact that today workers are working longer hours than they ever have, the American worker is more productive than ever, and the country is richer than it has ever been." Simply put, many commentators contend that middle- and lower-class families just aren't "making it" any more. Some even argue that today's families are actually worse off than their parents' generation.
These writers and politicians complain that the robust picture of aggregate economic growth in the United States is misleading, because the rising tide isn't lifting all boats. Instead, they claim, a few Americans – those with technical skills and many years of formal education – are capturing windfall gains as economic competition intensifies, technology advances at breakneck speed, and the American economy becomes globally enmeshed. Meanwhile, blue-collar workers and service sector employees are increasingly excluded from the economic pie as companies "outsource" manufacturing to cheaper labor in the Third World, enervate labor unions, and funnel ever greater proportions of corporate profits into CEO salaries and stock dividends instead of employee wages and benefits.
Concerns over CEO compensation have reached such heights that even the Wall Street Journal felt compelled to tackle the issue in a lengthy special section. There, author Joann Lublin wrote that the
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