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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/opinion/blow-bitter-politics-of-envy.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212&pagewanted=print#">Reprints</a></li></div><br></div>
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<div class="timestamp">January 13, 2012</div>
<h1>Bitter Politics of Envy?</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By CHARLES M. BLOW</h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
You’re just jealous. At least that’s how Mitt Romney sees it. The millionaire <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/picture-of-the-day-mitt-romneys-money-shot/246658/">who posed for a picture</a>
with the boys at Bain Capital with the long green clinched between
their teeth and poking out of their collars and jackets now says that
people who question what he did there, and what rich people do now, are
just green with envy. </p>
<p>
In his New Hampshire victory speech on Tuesday, Romney lambasted his
Republican opponents (who have raised real issues about his role at the
private equity firm Bain Capital) for following the lead of President
Obama, whom he described as a leader who divides us “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-victorious-romney-warns-against-bitter-politics-of-envy-20120110,0,5706450.story">with the bitter politics of envy</a>.” </p>
<p>
The next day on “Today” on NBC, Romney defended the statement, rejecting
the notion that there were questions about Wall Street behavior, saying
the whole discussion was about class warfare. He even went so far as to
suggest that such talk shouldn’t even be openly entertained. When the
interviewer asked, “Are there no fair questions about the distribution
of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?” Romney responded, “I
think it’s fine to talk about those things <a href="http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/romney-slams-foes-as-practicing-politics-of-envy.php">in quiet rooms</a> and discussions about tax policy and the like.” </p>
<p>
In quiet rooms? That’s the problem. Too many have been too quiet for too
long. And, on this point, we must applaud the efforts of the Occupy
Wall Street movement. It took income inequality and corporate
responsibility out of the shadows and into the streets. </p>
<p>
A report released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that
about two-thirds of Americans now perceive a strong conflict between the
rich and poor in this country. That was up 19 percentage points from
2009. </p>
<p>
<a title="The Times’s article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/us/more-conflict-seen-between-rich-and-poor-survey-finds.html">As The New York Times pointed out</a>
in regard to the report, “conflict between rich and poor now eclipses
racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the
greatest source of tension in American society.” </p>
<p>
And this has nothing to do with envy and everything to do with fairness. </p>
<p>
Elizabeth Warren, who is now running for the Senate seat that Romney ran
for in 1994 and didn’t get, probably rebuts this myth of class warfare
best by reframing the discussion in terms of a “social contract” between
the rich and the rest of society. At one of her campaign events,<a title="A video" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOyDR2b71ag"> she explained</a>: </p>
<p>
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You
built a factory out there, good for you. But, I want to be clear: you
moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You
hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your
factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us
paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and
seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against
this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a
factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God
bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract
is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes
along.” </p>
<p>
That is the corporate Contract With America: societal symbiosis. We
create a society in which smart, hard-working people can be safe and
prosper, and they in turn reinvest a fair share of that prosperity back
into society for posterity. </p>
<p>
Everyone benefits. </p>
<p>
But somewhere along the way this got lost. Greed got good. The rich
wanted all of the societal benefits and none of the societal
responsibilities. They got addicted to seeing profits go up and taxes go
down, by any means necessary, no matter the damage to the individual or
the collective. Those Maseratis weren’t going to pay for themselves.
</p>
<p>
And the resulting income inequality helped to stall economic mobility. </p>
<p>
As <a title="The Times’s article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html">The New York Times reported last week</a>,
“many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional
wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their
peers in Canada and much of Western Europe.” The Times report speculated
that: “One reason for the mobility gap may be the depth of American
poverty, which leaves poor children starting especially far behind.
Another may be the unusually large premiums that American employers pay
for college degrees. Since children generally follow their parents’
educational trajectory, that premium increases the importance of family
background and stymies people with less schooling.” </p>
<p>
Indeed, a November report by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic
Mobility Project pointed out, “In the United States, there is a stronger
link between parental education and children’s economic, educational,
and socio-emotional outcomes than in any other country investigated.”
</p>
<p>
Pew has found that most children raised at the top of the income
spectrum stay there and most raised at the bottom stay at the bottom.
</p>
<p>
An equal opportunity to success is central to this country’s optimistic
ethos, but income inequality and corporate greed are making a lie of
that most basic American truism. The rich and their handmaidens on the
political right have consolidated America’s wealth on the ever-narrowing
peak of a steep hill and greased the slope. And they want to cast
everyone at the bottom as lazy or jealous, without acknowledging the
accident of birth and collusion of policies that helped grant them their
perch. </p>
<p>
Income inequality is a threat to this country and the middle class that
made her great. If Romney wants to be president, he needs to understand
that. </p>
<p>
As Alan Krueger, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/kruegers-inequality-speech-seals-obamas-2012-inequality-message.php">said on Thursday</a>,
“I think it is clear that we can’t go back to the type of policies that
exacerbated the rise in inequality and threatened economic mobility in
the first place if we want an economy that builds the middle class.”
</p>
<p>
Not envy Mr. Romney. Opportunity. </p>
<div class="authorIdentification">
<p style="text-align:center">•</p> <p>I invite you to join me on
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow">Facebook</a> and follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow">Twitter</a>, or e-mail me at <a href="mailto:chblow@nytimes.com">chblow@nytimes.com</a>. </p> </div>
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