Do you agree with my premise that the last 80 years has been a time of progress for most Americans? But that we’re due for some serious bumps in the road.
I think I would have agreed with that 20 years ago. I'm not certain that I can say that "most Americans" have seen better fortunes since the 00s. 2008 crippled many families who have never recovered, and COVID came along roughly a decade after that. The income gap has steadily been growing. My grandfather enjoyed a middle class lifestyle in rural Montana as a sawmill worker through the 1980s. My father's generation did not have the same opportunities -- extractive industries were nosediving in the 90s. And my generation has mirrored the national income split -- those with the means and ability to go to college have fared reasonably well, while many of those who stayed behind have fallen into poverty and addiction, prison and suicide.
I don't think figures like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump would have had any kind of political cachet if progress had been steady over that period. I met Steve Bullock, former governor of Montana, during his 2020 presidential bid. When I told him about the economic woes of my hometown (which he ought to have known better than me), he claimed that he was trying to bring broadband Internet to those places. But the severity of the problems associated with at least two generations of unemployment or underemployment, and the lack of skills necessary to utilize broadband as a tool for economic mobility made that an incredibly tone-deaf response.
Longwinded way of saying: it depends. My own life has generally improved over that period. But over the past 10 years, while I was still a college professor, I saw first-generation students like myself facing increasingly bleaker futures: higher real estate prices, higher college costs, and more years to dig out of that debt.
This graph suggests that plenty of Americans have been left behind over the last 80 years:
80 years is a healthy amount of time. Over that span I'd say yes. But narrow it down to the last 10-20 and I'd say, like the guy below, that "it depends." The rising tide of technological progress has lifted all boats, but people don't judge where they're at by how high the sea level is in relation to what it was beyond their memory. They judge it by where the other boats are and what size they are right now. It could be a dip, "some serious bumps" that will correct to trend, but it could also be the beginning of a big rollover. Your view often depends on where you're at. As William Gibson said, "The future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed." This Balkanization of experience might make it less easy to say whether progress for "most Americans" is the right way to ask the question.
Sorry I'm late to this party: I just discovered your Substack.
I think it should be clear to anyone that looks at the data that the past 80 years has been a time of great progress for almost everyone, in the USA and the rest of the world, in absolute terms. One of the clearest indicators of this is the increase in life expectancy (a good recap here, and note the map showing life expectancies per country in 1950: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-globally ) and related metric, decline in early childhood and infant mortality (in 1950, a bit over 1/4 of babies born died before they were five years old; now it's about 4%. See more here: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality). I think these are inarguable measures of absolute progress; while people might bicker about whether cell phones being cheaper is really a marker of progress, we can all agree that fewer kids dying is better.
I think that progress in absolute terms is obscured by declines in relative progress. Income inequality has gotten much worse, and it's much easier for me to compare myself to another person who exists right now than it is for me to accurately compare myself to a person in the past. It's easy to say that "in the past, a single income from a working class father was enough to support a family," and assume that "middle class" means the same level of material well-being as it does today. But it doesn't.
We have made so much progress on big things--like kids not dying, or the world generally being peaceful--that I think we're increasingly blind to it. Children not dying of infections is what we just accept as how the world is, not a hard-won victory that took generations of dedicated effort. Being tolerant enough of others' differences to not be at war is similarly seen as a native feature of humans, not the exotic and carefully cultivated trait it actually is.
I am concerned that it's this combination of views that will cause history to come for us, especially in the wealthy West. To use a current and obvious example: People see kids die of measles, they make and use a measles vaccine --> so kids stop dying of measles, basically no one has seen a kid with a bad measles case --> so there's more attention paid to kids with vaccine side effects --> "was measles really so bad? our grandparents did ok with it." --> measles vaccination rates drop, kids die of measles. I think the same thing is at risk of happening with many areas in which we have made real progress over the past 80 years.
Thanks for this comment and for subscribing. My thinking has evolved in the direction of your comment. You could have saved me a lot of time! (Just kidding, of course).
My last post, Wealth Envy Has Become Part Of the Cultural Air We Breathe is an exploration of my own (fairly ridiculous) wealth envy when I was younger. Below for ease of getting to it.
Oh, also: Here's an essay I wrote recently on a common problem that we have made so much progress on that people might be unaware that it ever existed, plus the resurgence of the perfectly-preventable disease of congenital syphilis. Posting because I think it's a good example of the kind of problem that was super common in the past, but that we've made so much progress on that people today cannot even imagine it existing, and thus underestimate how much better we have things today than people did in the past.
Lest his readers get confused, I would like to clarify that the January 6th David mentions is 1/6/21. NOT 1/6/88...the day his daughter (aka me) was born!
There can be no doubt that we have made progress in our lifetimes in many ways. That said, it is still a journey in the making. We have not arrived at some final destination in which all is well, all problems solved, so we must keep working to improve conditions -- our own, in our neighborhood and in the world writ large. It is also worth remembering that progress is never written in a straight line. An upward trend has dips in it and there will be dips to come, some harder to overcome than others. Using the Jewish people as an example much older than the US, I think antisemitism is not as bad as it was in times past, but it still exists and we will (this is not a maybe) see times when it flairs up here or there but we will continue to find ways to flourish. We learn to adapt as Jews and we will learn to adapt as a larger society.
An interesting Jewish history lesson was taught to me in my late teens, around 1967 I believe. Why are so many Jews brokers or engaged in practices of law or medicine or small one-man businesses (like tailors)? Because we could pick up our business and leave town on a moment's notice and you can't do that with a farm, store or factory and, as Jews, we knew we might have to flee once more. We knew that the cycle of oppression would likely return and we needed to be ready. It was not until finding a more secure home in the US that we began investing in more physical structures that we cannot pick up and carry away overnight.
David, I loved this post - I read it a couple of yesterday morning while I was waiting outside my kids' Arabic school, then my time ran out so I couldn't comment just then. Thoughts - and know that I am coming at this from a Canadian perspective rather than an American one:
I 100% agree with you that the last few decades were a time of overall progress for America (Canada) with the caveat that of course, there were haves and have-nots and we're speaking from the position of the haves within the country. Also, the country's position on the world stage was one of being a a) Completely unopposed super-powere (America), or b) Completely unopposed superpower's little brother (Canada) so we could basically do whatever we wanted.
Now that geopolitical circumstances are changing and other powers are rising up, I think America and Canada will see some bumps in the road, and that we may come to experience or feel some of what other countries have experienced.
I had this conversation with a friend during Covid (I posted about it a few weeks back - will link the article) that we who grew up during this time and place of unprecedented peace and plenty really don't know how to cope with tumult and uncertaintly. We've never had to work that muscle so we that muscle never grew and now we're gonna be facing a world of hurt...
Thanks for this comment and for the link to your post , which I enjoyed reading. I think all kids of a certain generation were scared of quicksand. I remember it being featured so prominently in cartoons and movies. What happened to quicksand?
As to your post, you and I are in general agreement that, recently, we've had a relatively benign overall situation compared to most places in history. On climate, I'm less worried because of technological progress and human ingenuity, which I do think will continue to increase on an accelerated basis. But the wealthy countries will be much more able to afford adaptation so that the second order effect of mass migrations could be the most significant. I'm far less confident that these migrations will be handled well by politicians. The stakes will be very high.
Quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle, right? I remember my parents going on a trip to Bermuda when I was about 13 and I was TERRIFIED they'd never be able to come home 😅.
You're much more positive regarding climate change. I do see that we have all the tech to deal with it, but I see that we have almost none of the political will and we're falling apart as a society to be so profit focused and individualistic, so I think things will be bad both in wealthy countries (where the rich will get richer) and in countries without the money. Look at what's happening with extreme weather events already, hurricanes, etc. and how much rebuilding is being shirked. Governments aren't as willing to take on these mass investments in infrastructure that they were even a century ago. Then add to that the mass migrations (which, again, we've already seen the start of with refugees and asylum seekers, and seen how people and governments have responded.) I think a lot of upheaval is coming...
It is lacking of any rigor. What exactly do you mean that “history is coming for us”? Your comparison is to the last 80 years as being the golden age of America is interesting but poorly defined; what about it was a golden age?
Pick a decade in the last 80 years and it’s filled with pretty wild stuff; the Korean wars in the 50s, the Kennedy assassination, civil rights movement, the Cuban mistake crisis of the 60s, Vietnam, the oil shock, high inflation and the constitutional crisis caused by watergate in the 70s, Iran contra and the aids epidemic of the 80s, the gulf war, bill Clinton and the Eastern European mess of the 90s, 9/11, 2 wars and the Great Recession of the 00s
And this a short synopsis; never mind all of the cultural and political changes that took place or the international shenanigans. I listed some of the events in America to point out we sometimes look back on the past with rose color glasses but America has always been wacky and wild. I do think some of the problems it’s facing today is unique, but that’s true of almost every big problem that happens.
Never mind that America has some real strengths. From AI to space ships, the US is still dominating in innovation, is blessed with natural resources and talent. And millions still seem to want to live here
Yes America will no longer be the only global power. But it will still be a great one. And yes wacky shut happen in America. But it always does. History isn’t coming from us. It never left.
Do you agree with my premise that the last 80 years has been a time of progress for most Americans? But that we’re due for some serious bumps in the road.
I think I would have agreed with that 20 years ago. I'm not certain that I can say that "most Americans" have seen better fortunes since the 00s. 2008 crippled many families who have never recovered, and COVID came along roughly a decade after that. The income gap has steadily been growing. My grandfather enjoyed a middle class lifestyle in rural Montana as a sawmill worker through the 1980s. My father's generation did not have the same opportunities -- extractive industries were nosediving in the 90s. And my generation has mirrored the national income split -- those with the means and ability to go to college have fared reasonably well, while many of those who stayed behind have fallen into poverty and addiction, prison and suicide.
I don't think figures like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump would have had any kind of political cachet if progress had been steady over that period. I met Steve Bullock, former governor of Montana, during his 2020 presidential bid. When I told him about the economic woes of my hometown (which he ought to have known better than me), he claimed that he was trying to bring broadband Internet to those places. But the severity of the problems associated with at least two generations of unemployment or underemployment, and the lack of skills necessary to utilize broadband as a tool for economic mobility made that an incredibly tone-deaf response.
Longwinded way of saying: it depends. My own life has generally improved over that period. But over the past 10 years, while I was still a college professor, I saw first-generation students like myself facing increasingly bleaker futures: higher real estate prices, higher college costs, and more years to dig out of that debt.
This graph suggests that plenty of Americans have been left behind over the last 80 years:
https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2023/06/geographic-inequality-rise-us#:~:text=It%20increased%20from%200.22%20to,with%20one%20near%20the%20bottom.
80 years is a healthy amount of time. Over that span I'd say yes. But narrow it down to the last 10-20 and I'd say, like the guy below, that "it depends." The rising tide of technological progress has lifted all boats, but people don't judge where they're at by how high the sea level is in relation to what it was beyond their memory. They judge it by where the other boats are and what size they are right now. It could be a dip, "some serious bumps" that will correct to trend, but it could also be the beginning of a big rollover. Your view often depends on where you're at. As William Gibson said, "The future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed." This Balkanization of experience might make it less easy to say whether progress for "most Americans" is the right way to ask the question.
Good point about relative prosperity. I agree that inequality corrodes both a sense of fairness and a sense of wellbeing.
Sorry I'm late to this party: I just discovered your Substack.
I think it should be clear to anyone that looks at the data that the past 80 years has been a time of great progress for almost everyone, in the USA and the rest of the world, in absolute terms. One of the clearest indicators of this is the increase in life expectancy (a good recap here, and note the map showing life expectancies per country in 1950: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-globally ) and related metric, decline in early childhood and infant mortality (in 1950, a bit over 1/4 of babies born died before they were five years old; now it's about 4%. See more here: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality). I think these are inarguable measures of absolute progress; while people might bicker about whether cell phones being cheaper is really a marker of progress, we can all agree that fewer kids dying is better.
I think that progress in absolute terms is obscured by declines in relative progress. Income inequality has gotten much worse, and it's much easier for me to compare myself to another person who exists right now than it is for me to accurately compare myself to a person in the past. It's easy to say that "in the past, a single income from a working class father was enough to support a family," and assume that "middle class" means the same level of material well-being as it does today. But it doesn't.
We have made so much progress on big things--like kids not dying, or the world generally being peaceful--that I think we're increasingly blind to it. Children not dying of infections is what we just accept as how the world is, not a hard-won victory that took generations of dedicated effort. Being tolerant enough of others' differences to not be at war is similarly seen as a native feature of humans, not the exotic and carefully cultivated trait it actually is.
I am concerned that it's this combination of views that will cause history to come for us, especially in the wealthy West. To use a current and obvious example: People see kids die of measles, they make and use a measles vaccine --> so kids stop dying of measles, basically no one has seen a kid with a bad measles case --> so there's more attention paid to kids with vaccine side effects --> "was measles really so bad? our grandparents did ok with it." --> measles vaccination rates drop, kids die of measles. I think the same thing is at risk of happening with many areas in which we have made real progress over the past 80 years.
Thanks for this comment and for subscribing. My thinking has evolved in the direction of your comment. You could have saved me a lot of time! (Just kidding, of course).
My last post, Wealth Envy Has Become Part Of the Cultural Air We Breathe is an exploration of my own (fairly ridiculous) wealth envy when I was younger. Below for ease of getting to it.
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/wealth-envy-has-become-part-of-the
That's actually the next one I had clicked on to read, before I had gotten this note! Looking forward to it.
Oh, also: Here's an essay I wrote recently on a common problem that we have made so much progress on that people might be unaware that it ever existed, plus the resurgence of the perfectly-preventable disease of congenital syphilis. Posting because I think it's a good example of the kind of problem that was super common in the past, but that we've made so much progress on that people today cannot even imagine it existing, and thus underestimate how much better we have things today than people did in the past.
https://open.substack.com/pub/doctrixperiwinkle/p/born-blind?r=7jlkd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I subscribed and read it. Great research!
Thank you!
The great melting pot isn’t dead yet. Hopefully the majority will keep working together. Love “trumps “ hate.
I remember learning about the Hegelian Dialectic in school. Maybe we are in the thesis/antithesis period.
Lest his readers get confused, I would like to clarify that the January 6th David mentions is 1/6/21. NOT 1/6/88...the day his daughter (aka me) was born!
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain
There can be no doubt that we have made progress in our lifetimes in many ways. That said, it is still a journey in the making. We have not arrived at some final destination in which all is well, all problems solved, so we must keep working to improve conditions -- our own, in our neighborhood and in the world writ large. It is also worth remembering that progress is never written in a straight line. An upward trend has dips in it and there will be dips to come, some harder to overcome than others. Using the Jewish people as an example much older than the US, I think antisemitism is not as bad as it was in times past, but it still exists and we will (this is not a maybe) see times when it flairs up here or there but we will continue to find ways to flourish. We learn to adapt as Jews and we will learn to adapt as a larger society.
An interesting Jewish history lesson was taught to me in my late teens, around 1967 I believe. Why are so many Jews brokers or engaged in practices of law or medicine or small one-man businesses (like tailors)? Because we could pick up our business and leave town on a moment's notice and you can't do that with a farm, store or factory and, as Jews, we knew we might have to flee once more. We knew that the cycle of oppression would likely return and we needed to be ready. It was not until finding a more secure home in the US that we began investing in more physical structures that we cannot pick up and carry away overnight.
David, I loved this post - I read it a couple of yesterday morning while I was waiting outside my kids' Arabic school, then my time ran out so I couldn't comment just then. Thoughts - and know that I am coming at this from a Canadian perspective rather than an American one:
I 100% agree with you that the last few decades were a time of overall progress for America (Canada) with the caveat that of course, there were haves and have-nots and we're speaking from the position of the haves within the country. Also, the country's position on the world stage was one of being a a) Completely unopposed super-powere (America), or b) Completely unopposed superpower's little brother (Canada) so we could basically do whatever we wanted.
Now that geopolitical circumstances are changing and other powers are rising up, I think America and Canada will see some bumps in the road, and that we may come to experience or feel some of what other countries have experienced.
I had this conversation with a friend during Covid (I posted about it a few weeks back - will link the article) that we who grew up during this time and place of unprecedented peace and plenty really don't know how to cope with tumult and uncertaintly. We've never had to work that muscle so we that muscle never grew and now we're gonna be facing a world of hurt...
(here's the link: https://pronetohyperbole.substack.com/p/the-opposite-of-calm)
Hi Noha,
Thanks for this comment and for the link to your post , which I enjoyed reading. I think all kids of a certain generation were scared of quicksand. I remember it being featured so prominently in cartoons and movies. What happened to quicksand?
As to your post, you and I are in general agreement that, recently, we've had a relatively benign overall situation compared to most places in history. On climate, I'm less worried because of technological progress and human ingenuity, which I do think will continue to increase on an accelerated basis. But the wealthy countries will be much more able to afford adaptation so that the second order effect of mass migrations could be the most significant. I'm far less confident that these migrations will be handled well by politicians. The stakes will be very high.
Quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle, right? I remember my parents going on a trip to Bermuda when I was about 13 and I was TERRIFIED they'd never be able to come home 😅.
You're much more positive regarding climate change. I do see that we have all the tech to deal with it, but I see that we have almost none of the political will and we're falling apart as a society to be so profit focused and individualistic, so I think things will be bad both in wealthy countries (where the rich will get richer) and in countries without the money. Look at what's happening with extreme weather events already, hurricanes, etc. and how much rebuilding is being shirked. Governments aren't as willing to take on these mass investments in infrastructure that they were even a century ago. Then add to that the mass migrations (which, again, we've already seen the start of with refugees and asylum seekers, and seen how people and governments have responded.) I think a lot of upheaval is coming...
While at a high level I enjoyed your post to be,
It is lacking of any rigor. What exactly do you mean that “history is coming for us”? Your comparison is to the last 80 years as being the golden age of America is interesting but poorly defined; what about it was a golden age?
Pick a decade in the last 80 years and it’s filled with pretty wild stuff; the Korean wars in the 50s, the Kennedy assassination, civil rights movement, the Cuban mistake crisis of the 60s, Vietnam, the oil shock, high inflation and the constitutional crisis caused by watergate in the 70s, Iran contra and the aids epidemic of the 80s, the gulf war, bill Clinton and the Eastern European mess of the 90s, 9/11, 2 wars and the Great Recession of the 00s
And this a short synopsis; never mind all of the cultural and political changes that took place or the international shenanigans. I listed some of the events in America to point out we sometimes look back on the past with rose color glasses but America has always been wacky and wild. I do think some of the problems it’s facing today is unique, but that’s true of almost every big problem that happens.
Never mind that America has some real strengths. From AI to space ships, the US is still dominating in innovation, is blessed with natural resources and talent. And millions still seem to want to live here
Yes America will no longer be the only global power. But it will still be a great one. And yes wacky shut happen in America. But it always does. History isn’t coming from us. It never left.