Cowboys on a Spaceship

I don't know why David Brooks seems to keep giving me good material, but this week he takes on income inequality ($). His political conclusion?

The Democratic Party is now divided between moderates — who emphasize individual responsibility and education to ameliorate inequality — and progressive populists, who advocate an activist state that will protect people from forces beyond their control. Given the deep forces in American history, the centrists will almost certainly win out.

According to Brooks, America, despite its enormous wealth and income gaps, is still so devoted to meritocracy and individualism that it will refuse to accept social welfarist policies. Perhaps. Let me tell a story, however.

For an environmental law class, I once read an author (I'll post the citation when I find it) who talked about the two types of people/societies: the Cowboy and the Spaceman. The Cowboy faces a frontier with limitless resources. He only cares about procedural equality - equality of opportunity; as long as he can find a patch of land as big as his neighbor's, he's happy. And if he uses up all his resources quickly, no matter - go west, young man!

The Spaceman, on the other hand, views his world as an astronaut would - a world of limited space and resources. He cares about substantive equality - if any person takes too much, it means less for everyone else. He conserves his resources.

America, obviously, is a nation of Cowboys - a fact displayed nowhere better than in the demeanor of our President. Unfortunately, many of us have not yet come to grips with the closing of the frontier. We are acting like cowboys on a spaceship. If America believes what Brooks says it does, then it is all part of the same mindset that thinks it's okay to drive SUVs and thinks they deserve tax cuts because, as W would say, "it's their money."

While the American dream is still certainly possible, it is, in many ways, an illusion. Education (or whatever our country passes for education) and personal responsibility are not always enough for success. I do not, as Brooks would say, "advocate an activist state that will protect people from forces beyond their control." No, I advocate an activist state that will prevent people from the runaway capitalist cowboys whose definition of compassion includes giving millionaires tax breaks and paying employees too little to afford health care while public schools are (quite literally) falling apart.