More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century

British journalist and historian Godfrey Hodgson dissects the rise of conservatism in the U.S. during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Hodgson is an unapologetic liberal, and though he's ultimately optimistic about America, he finds much to lament in this period. Even die-hard conservatives might be given pause by his warnings about growing social stratification and inequality. Hodgson's greatest contribution to the political discussion may be his examination of this time period from so many angles, exposing myths and misconceptions about each facet of society, especially the much-ballyhooed prosperity of the '90s. The book is plagued by inadequate fact-checking on minor issues, however, which could call his larger points into question, despite 43 pages of end notes and an extensive bibliography. Despite these flaws, we find this thoughtful study useful for anyone trying to understand American politics and future trends.

There is general agreement in the United States that the last few decades have been much more profitable for the wealthiest few percent of the population than for everyone else. "More Equal Than Others" makes the point that even this understanding of inequality is greatly underestimated by most Americans. Godfrey Hodgson, who is a long time Washington correspondent for the British media and who wrote this book for The Century Foundation in New York, believes that the US media have consistently presented a picture of the country that makes it appear more economically successful and more egalitarian compared to other countries than is in fact the case. He claims that recent statistics show that the US is, by some measures, the least egalitarian of the eleven most industrialized countries.Hodgson bases his case on a review of history from the 1970's through the first couple of years of this century. Much of what he presents will be entirely familiar to anyone who has lived in the US during that time. Indeed, the book has a tendency to present history by anecdote, rather than analysis. Nevertheless, it contains nuggets of information which should interest any close social or political observer of the country. Where he doesn't persuade, he certainly proves himself to be a worthy debating partner. Above all, he makes us think.Godfrey Hodgson's political concern is made transparent by both the book's title and its dust jacket, which shows two photographs: One is of a man in a suit looking at the skyline from a penthouse office; the other is of a group of people seated around a table under a freeway overpass. That neither photograph needed to be staged is unarguable. By chance, I am writing this review looking out from just such a luxury high-rise overlooking an empty lot where three men are asleep on the ground. They must remember better days, because they have lined up their pieces of cardboard against a wall like beds in a dormitory. Only feet away is one of the busiest freeways in the United States. The question is whether Hodgson's book will play only to the liberal choir, or whether he has introduced enough new facts, or presented existing facts in a sufficiently original manner, to persuade any of those freeway drivers to stop. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. - George Orwell, Animal Farm"

In this densely factual and amply documented explication of the conservative counterrevolution in the U.S. over the past quarter century, Godfrey Hodgson demonstrates how this brew of Christian cowboy populism and free market absolutism has undermined the United States' historically tolerant, egalitarian culture, installing in its place an unnatural system where the measure of every person, every motive and every institution is the dollar almighty. Full of counterexamples to the works of conservative think tanks, Hodgson deftly explodes the many myths manufactured by this melange of Ayn Rand "objectivists,' neo-liberal economists and reactionary sociologists. He shows, for example, how these apparatchiki provide the justifications and tools to blame and marginalize the poor for their poverty and non-whites for their non-whiteness. He also shows how as part of these efforts the think tankerites have used the 'objectivity' credo of journalism to insert erroneous, vicious "facts" into the so-called marketplace of ideas, e.g., that the U.S. is much "freer" in terms of economic mobility between the classes, a mobility created and supported by free-market capitalism. Hodgson shows this story, often used to justify the global spread of American capitalism is a patent falsehood. Citing a study of the top 16 industrialized nations, including, of course, Rumsfeld's "Old Europe," he notes the U.S. ranks dead last in this regard. All the right wing rhetoric is revealed as mere assertion. Hodgson shows how since mid-century the conservative ideology has replaced the liberal consensus and turned the U.S. into an increasingly brittle oligarchy whose citizens are now more polarized and class-bound than citizens in those countries America rebuilt after WWII. As Hodgson notes toward the end of MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: "Over the twelve years of Republican occupancy of the White House, from 1981 to 1993, the median American wage earner's income fell by 5 percent in real terms. The income of the top 5 percent of taxpayers rose by 30 percent, while the income of the top 1 percent rose by 78 percent. Inequality reigned" (page 291). Hodgson further contends the polarization is evident in a two party system that once sought consensus but is divided with one party now clearly aligned with the haves against the have-nots.Again, in Hodgson's words: "The politics of the past quarter century have been dominated by the reaction against the idea of a Great Society. There has been a racial dimension to this shift. There have been other dimensions, too: anger at American humiliations abroad; disgust at perceived moral decline, especially in sexual behavior and in the family: resentment of taxation, inflation, and economic change generally. All of this added up, a little perversely, to a rejection of government as the instrument of democracy and the elevation of unregulated free-market capitalism to share democracy's throne at the apex of the American system of belief.