More Opportunity culture?
of life. Specifically, they forecast that post industrialism will provide more opportunities for
people to find creative, interesting, challenging, and rewarding work. They also say it will
generate more equality of opportunity, that is, better chances for all people to get an education,
influence government policy, and find good jobs. However, as you read this book, it
will become clear that although great strides have been made in providing economic and
education opportunities for women, limiting discrimination, and spreading democracy,
all of these seemingly happy stories have a dark underside. For example, it turns out that
the number of routine jobs with low pay and few benefits is growing faster than the number
of creative, high-paying jobs. Inequality between the wealthiest and poorest Americans
has grown in recent decades. An enormous opportunity gulf still separates women
from men. Racism and discrimination are still a part of our world. Our health care system
is in crisis just as our population is aging rapidly and most in need of health care. Disasters
sometimes follow technological advances—just think of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
in 2010, and the nuclear meltdown in Japan in 2011. Many of the world’s new democracies
are only superficially democratic, while Americans and citizens of other postindustrial
societies are increasingly cynical about the ability of their political systems to respond to
their needs. They are looking for alternative forms of political expression. The absolute
number of desperately poor people in the world continues to grow, as does the gap between
rich and poor nations. Many people attribute the world’s most serious problems to
globalization. They have formed organizations and movements—some of them violent
to oppose it. In short, equality of opportunity is an undeniably attractive ideal, but it is
unclear whether it is the inevitable outcome of a globalized, postindustrial society.
More Freedom?
We may say the same about the ideal of freedom. In an earlier era, most people retained
their religious, ethnic, racial, and sexual identities for a lifetime, even if they were not particularly
comfortable with them. They often remained in social relationships that made
them unhappy. One of the major themes of this book is that many people are now freer to
construct their identities and form social relationships in ways that suit them. To a greater
degree than ever before, it is possible to choose who you want to be, with whom you want
to associate, and how you want to associate with them. The postindustrial and global era
frees people from traditional constraints by encouraging virtually instant global communication,
international migration, greater acceptance of sexual diversity and a variety of
family forms, the growth of ethnically and racially diverse cities, and so on. For instance,
in the past, people often stayed in marriages even if they were dissatisfied with them.
Families often involved a father working in the paid labor force and a mother keeping
house and raising children without pay. Today, people are freer to end unhappy marriages
and create family structures that are more suited to their individual needs.
Again, however, we must face the less rosy aspects of post industrialism and globalization.
In the following chapters, we show how increased freedom is experienced only
within certain limits and how social diversity is limited by a strong push to conformity
in some spheres of life. For example, we can choose a far wider variety of consumer
products than ever before, but consumerism itself increasingly seems a compulsory way
of life. Moreover, it is a way of life that threatens the natural environment. Large, impersonal
bureaucracies and standardized products and services dehumanize both staff and
customers. The tastes and the profit motive of vast media conglomerates govern most
of our diverse cultural consumption and arguably threaten the survival of distinctive
national cultures. Powerful interests are trying to shore up the traditional nuclear family
Two guarantees should back every loan. First, borrowers should
have assets to cover the loan in case they can’t make payments.
Second, lenders should have enough money to keep operating if
some borrowers default.
Governments are generally responsible for ensuring these
guarantees. However, in recent years, the American government
failed to require that financial institutions have enough reserves
to deal with defaults. In addition, governments devised a scheme
to ensure that more Americans could become homeowners. They
encouraged financial institutions to offer so-called “Ninja” mortgages
(for people with no income, no job, and no assets). Effectively,
Ninja mortgages allowed people to buy houses at low
interest rates without collateral or a down payment.
Ninja mortgages usually offered teaser rates—especially low
interest in the first year or two of the mortgage, followed by a
substantial interest rate hike. Many people who took out Ninja
mortgages didn’t understand that they would soon face a rate
hike. The increases were manageable for most people as long
as house prices were rising because if they needed more money,
they could just take out a bigger mortgage.
The trouble began when house prices started to fall in 2007.
Suddenly, millions of Americans could no longer refinance their
homes, nor could they afford higher mortgage payments. Therefore,
they faced foreclosure. Making matters worse, many houses
that financial institutions repossessed could not be sold, and
those that were sold fetched only a fraction of their former value.
This situation caused house prices to plummet and bank losses
to skyrocket. Soon, many financial institutions didn’t have enough
cash to continue operating and went bankrupt. Others received
government bailouts. Between October 2007 and October 2008,
the stock market dropped 40 percent. Millions of Americans lost
their homes, jobs, and retirement savings. The Great Recession
of 2007–09 was in full swing.
As Americans slowly crawl out of the worst economic disaster
since the Great Depression of 1929–39, it is time to ask how
a repeat can be avoided. Some observers advocate banning
Ninja mortgages and requiring financial institutions to keep a
higher percentage of their money in reserve in case of loan defaults.
Other observers oppose such government regulation on
the grounds that it hampers economic growth and limits home
ownership.
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