Ezra’s got an interesting post up today. It’s about class inequality, but with a different twist — instead of looking at how the gap is widening between rich and poor, he looks at how despite the income gap, the tastes and habits of the rich are becoming more mainstream.
One odd cross-indicator of rising income inequality has been the determined democratization of culture in this country. Containers of garlic hummus and free range eggs that would have been judged luxury items a few decades ago now dot the shelves at Safeway, mega-bookstores of the kind only available in wealth urban centers now populate every shopping mall, espresso drinks that could only have been procured at fine Italian and French restaurants are now offered on every street corner
[snip]
There’s no doubt that wealth inequality has increased in this country, and that primary expenses ranging from housing to fuel to health have rapidly increased in cost. But there’s simultaneously been, I’d argue, a drop in consumptive inequality, and a significant convergence in the experiences of the rich and, if not the poor, the middle.
It’s a valid insight and one worth thinking about. Sadly, I’m off to work, so I don’t have the time right now.