America divided – this concept increasingly graces political discourse in the U.S., pitting left against right, conservative thought against the liberal agenda. But for decades, Americans have been rearranging along another divide, one just as stark if not far more significant – a chasm once bridged by a flourishing middle class.
Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, believes the ongoing death of “middle America” has sparked the emergence of two countries within one, the hallmark of developing nations. In his new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Temin paints a bleak picture where one country has a bounty of resources and power, and the other toils day after day with minimal access to the long-coveted American dream.
In his view, the United States is shifting toward an economic and political makeup more similar to developing nations than the wealthy, economically stable nation it has long been. Temin applied W. Arthur Lewis’s economic model – designed to understand the workings of developing countries – to the United States in an effort to document how inequality has grown in America.
The 2017 World Economic Forum had the answer: "The people who have not benefited from globalization need to try harder to emulate those who have succeeded," and, "'People have to take more ownership of upgrading themselves on a continuous basis.'"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:38AM (2 children)
It's amusing that people now talk about the US becoming a third-world nation, because the third world originally designated countries that weren't aligned with the US or with the Soviet Union during the cold war.
It's true in a sense though: the US today isn't aligned with what the US once stood for. Not that it ever was a fair nation to its citizens, but at least there was a sense that opportunities were available to those who worked hard enough to grab them. Now it's just a crass plutocracy where only the rich have any chance of getting richer...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:56AM
With the socio-economic Cuisinart of globalization running at puree speed, how could it be otherwise?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:58PM
Terms "old world" and "new world" go back centuries, first, second and third world are much newer terms, see for example,
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=old+world%2Cnew+world%2Cfirst+world%2Csecond+world%2Cthird+world&year_start=1600&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cold%20world%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cnew%20world%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cfirst%20world%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csecond%20world%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthird%20world%3B%2Cc0 [google.com]
I made the jump (mistake?) of equating "old world" and "new world" with "first world" and "second world", but it seems that there isn't much correlation?
Change the Ngram filter to 1 or 0 for a slightly different (and lumpier) view.