Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend

Whatever happened to the belief that any American could get to the top?

The United States likes to think of itself as the very embodiment of meritoc­racy: a country where people are judged on their individual abilities rather than their family connections. The original col­onies were settled by refugees from a Eu­rope in which the restrictions on social mobility were woven into the fabric of the state, and the American revolution was partly a revolt against feudalism. From the outset, Americans believed that equality of opportunity gave them an edge over the Old World, freeing them from debilitating snobberies and at the same time enabling everyone to benefit from the abilities of the entire population. They still do.

To be sure, America has often betrayed its fine ideals. The Founding Fathers did not admit women or blacks to their merit­ocratic republic. The country's elites have repeatedly flirted with the aristocratic principle, whether among the brahmins of Boston or, more flagrantly, the rural ruling class in the South. Yet America has repeat­edly succeeded in living up to its best self, and today most Americans believe that their country still does a reasonable job of providing opportunities for everybody, in­cluding blacks and women. In Europe, ma­jorities of people in every country except Britain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia believe that forces beyond their personal control determine their success. In Amer­ica only 32% take such a fatalistic view.

But are they right? A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income in­equality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But so­cial mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society.

The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washing­ton think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earn­ers) grew by 6.4%, while that of house­holds in the top fifth grew by 70%. The fam­ily income of the top 1% grew by 184%-and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth.

Thirty years ago the average real annual compensation of the top 100 chief executives was $1.3m: 39 times the pay of the av­erage worker. Today it is $37.5m: over 1,000 times the pay of the average worker. In 2001 the top 1% of households earned 20% of all income and held 33.4% of all net worth. Not since pre-Depression days has the top 1% taken such a big whack.

More dynastic than dynamic

Most Americans see nothing wrong with inequality of income so long as it comes with plenty of social mobility: it is simply the price paid for a dynamic economy. But the new rise in inequality does not seem to have come with a commensurate rise in mobility. There may even have been a fall.

The most vivid evidence of social scle­rosis comes from politics. A country where every child is supposed to be able to dream of becoming president is beginning to pro­duce a self-perpetuating political elite. George Bush is the son of a president, the grandson of a senator, and the sprig of America's business aristocracy. John Kerry, thanks to a rich wife, is the richest man in a Senate full of plutocrats. He is also a Boston brahmin, educated at St Paul's, a posh private school, and Yale— where, like the Bushes, he belonged to the ultra-select Skull and Bones society.

Mr Kerry's predecessor as the Demo­crats' presidential nominee, Al Gore, was the son of a senator. Mr Gore, too, was educated at a posh private school, St Al­bans, and then at Harvard. And Mr Kerry's main challenger from the left of his party? Howard Brush Dean was the product of the same blue-blooded world of private schools and unchanging middle names as Mr Bush (one of Mr Bush's grandmothers was even a bridesmaid to one of Mr Dean's). Mr Dean grew up in the Hamp­tons and on New York's Park Avenue.

The most remarkable feature of the continuing power of America's elite-and its growing grip on the political system—is how little comment it arouses. Britain would be in high dudgeon if its party lead­ers all came from Eton and Harrow. Per­haps one reason why the rise of caste poli­tics raises so little comment is that something similar is happening through­out American society. Everywhere you look in modern America-in the Holly-woo d Hills or the canyons of Wall Street, in the Nashville recording studios or the clap­board houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts – you see elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves. America is increasingly looking like imperial Britain, with dynastic ties proliferating, social cir­cles interlocking, mechanisms of social ex­clusion strengthening and a gap widening between the people who make the deci­sions and shape the culture and the vast majority of ordinary working stiffs.