Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 03:19:34 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: Golly Gee Beav, the poor are getting poorer?....


>Christian
>
>P.S. How much worse do the material conditions have to get before the general
>public look this problem in the face and call for a major overhaul of the
>systemic contradictions causing all these problems?

Like everybody else, I don't know the answer to this. I watched some of the
coverage of the National Issues Convention (Fishkin's experiment on
"deliberative polling" done at the University of Texas), though, and made
some interesting observations. Most of what I saw was devoted to the
economy. In general, the level of audience and expert was extremely low,
and the whole thing was a kick in the teeth to anyone who thinks that the
people understand the system better than the elite do. The people were
divided into "focus groups," each of which studied the issues and came up
with a question to ask one of the experts. During the course of the night,
at least three of the designated questioners mentioned the growing wealth
inequality in the country as an obvious problem, and asked what could be
done about it. Every time, the economic experts from the "left" and the
right and the political candidates said, in essence, "Ah'm not real worried
about people makin' a lot of money, ah just wan tew keep people from makin'
too little." Nobody tried to pin them down on their answers. Still, it's
clear that, even when they're told every day that rising wealth disparity
is "not a problem," they still see it as, in fact, a very serious one.

Rahul




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