I just heard someone say the phrase “The Red Queen Effect.” I didn’t know this one, but basically it’s when you have to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place. It’s a perfect descriptor for America’s economy in the 2020s. With inflation rising everywhere on everything and wages staying essentially stagnant, our economy is in Wonderland right now…and the advice we get from the media, our political leaders, even our families feels eerily similar to Mad Hatter tea party logic.
If I weren’t legally mandated to pity them, I’d feel sorry for the kids today. The standard American parenting advice – work hard, raise a family, if you live right you’ll do better than your parents – doesn’t function in an economy as rigged as ours currently is, unless your parents are really rich.
I still feel that America can once again become a Land of Opportunity. The foundation is still there despite constant attempts by the billionaires to destroy it. The desire is still there. The myth is still alive and well (OK, it’s not well, it’s on life support, but it isn’t dead).
You probably don’t truly know much about Horatio Alger, but you’ve surely heard the phrase “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” even though no one knows what a bootstrap is. Alger wrote a ton of books in the late 19th Century, the most famous being Ragged Dick (The poor guy had no idea how pornographic that title would eventually sound.). All of his books were about a young man who gets tempted by sloth and lust and alcohol and games of chance, really whatever they considered sinful back then. The young man follows the path of temptation for a while, but eventually learns that hard work, religion and family are the keys to a good life. The dude wrote a TON of books, and that was the plot to pretty much all of them.
Even though the books were objectively bad, they were popular in their time and their basic idea not only survived but thrived to such an extent that the notion of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps got woven into the ethos of the country, leading to wave after wave of huddled masses, yearning to breathe free…and work, and work some more. The American Dream has always been about money on the surface of the Atlantic, but it used to represent much more underneath, churning currents of community values, neighborly aid, and human decency.
We’ve thrown all of that out the damn window. Sure, we still have the money and we still have opportunities to make it, but the pathway to success is simply not as available to as many people. The system is so rigged now that voters are, once again, considering mild Socialism as a viable alternative.
This is what always happens when the economy sags for an extended period of time. We hate Socialism (without really understanding it), but we’re not entirely sure what it is…until we see generational poverty on the horizon. Then it doesn’t look so bad. Then it looks like salvation.
Personally, I’d prefer a more equitable version of Capitalism, with a progressive income tax and a renewed sense of noblesse oblige. Instead of rich guys setting up philanthropic organizations in order to avoid paying taxes on their income, how about philanthropy that actually helps people? They can still get a tax break for it, but it has to actually do some good. How about a national dole for basic living expenses and then we have to work hard and earn money to get “The Good Life?”
Like it or not, a national dole is soon going to be necessary or we’ll have another Great Depression. This AI investment bubble is not going to last long, and without it the economy looks terrible. Bubbles burst. IT happened in 2000, then again in 2008 (different types of bubbles but they both burst). Bubbles, by their very nature, burst. Even redneck children’s twisted, round coat hanger soap bubbles burst.
The Red Queen Effect has consequences for the national mood. We’re a generally hopeful people, but damn, it’s hard to have hope when, no matter how fast you run, your feet are sinking into the same sloppy Wonderland mud they were when you started.