Charles Murray has joined the inequality debate with a provocative argument that challenges the prevailing liberal view. He, too, believes there is a class divide in white America, but he contends that it is rooted in cultural, rather than economic, change. In 1960, Murray says, white Americans shared a common culture. Although some people had white-collar jobs and others had b (...)
May 04, 2012
Books
The New Segregation
Coming ApartThe State of White America, 1960–2010Charles MurrayCrown Forum, $27, 407 pp.
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At readings end, I found myself wondering about the opening line suggesting that Murray's libertarian digression might inform a challenge worthy of reasoning people pondering.
The only paragraph that seem to make good on such promise was contributed by the author not Murray: "Murray makes a timely and important contribution to the inequality debate by focusing attention on the fragility and insecurity of marriage in white working-class family life—a factor that many liberals have been reluctant to acknowledge as an important part of the inequality story. He also deserves credit for calling attention, however unsympathetically, to the troubles of white working-class men."
I would however have liked to know more about the reviewer's the basis for the two conclusions expressed in this paragraph. In particular, how does an unsympathetic (i.e. broad-brush) portrayal of a exceptionally diverse population that nonetheless ends with a decidedly uniform outcome (wage stagnation) provide moral insight.
When I look at the 60 year curve of wage growth, in sources such as Krugman, I see a decisive break in slope from good to virtually none circa 1980. How can one rationalize that this phenomenon is the result of some instrinsic cultural factor?