Wealth in America
In class Pomona brought up how the presentation of class struggle in
Ragtime is Michael Mooresque, starting from building sympathy towards the
working class by laying out the facts of their plights and then switching to a
scene of overindulgent wealth. Clearly, Doctorow does not kindly look upon the
rich that dominated the early 1900s as he points out how greed creates and
feeds the wealthy’s mentality that they are superior to other people through
the line, “the laboring man would be protected and cared for not by the labor
agitators, said one man, but the Christian men to whom God in His infinite
wisdom had given the control of the property interests of this country.” Then Doctorow
elicits disgust, as he nonchalantly describes the workers’ deaths and maiming that
allow the wealthy to fund balls that make a farce of charity. When reading this
passage, I felt disillusionment with the regulatory system that upheld the rich
at the expense of the poor and I realized that the themes of class differences
still feel contemporary.
The abuse of charity through gaudy charity balls especially
resonate with the abuses of modern-day charity by the ultra-wealthy. Take for
example the Rick Singer college admission scandal, where rich individuals were
paying bribes, which were tax-deductible, for places at top universities. How
in the face of meritocracy is that? It completely dispels the myth that college
admissions are an equalizer between the rich and poor because the rich can use
their money and privilege to take away spots from deserving others. The scandal
was also a harsh reminder of how the “American Dream” is unattainable for some
people because of the cycle of poverty that exists in this country.
Another example of how our societal system allows the rich to undermine
the system itself is the current weaponization of charity. The Koch brothers,
while donating to arts and cancer research, have also been able to donate to political
groups through their charitable foundations. While it’s completely fine to
donate to political causes, the methods and influence the brothers have gained
should be in question if the New York Times is publishing articles such as “How David Koch and His Brother Shaped American Politics.” Through
their wealth and power they have been able to shut down mass transit projects
around the country and Greenpeace describes them as “secretly funding
the climate denial machine.” The Koch brothers are just one example of how our charitable
system allows the undermining of the democratic ideals this country is built on
because they are drowning out the voices of ordinary American citizens.
Doctorow’s ironic portrayal of the wealthy really made me think
more deeply about the flaws in our society and I think his goal was to illicit disillusionment
to make us more open to the revolutionary and radical thinkers in the novel. His
quips about how JP Morgan benefiting from his inheritance and the fact that the
Koch brothers got a sizeable head-start from their father demonstrate how our
system allows the creation of something like an aristocratic class in America. I
believe that the idea of the “American Dream,” where the poorest of us can become
the richest, does more harm than good because of the implication that the rich
have gained their wealth through pure hard work when in reality the vast
majority of the ultra-wealthy have inherited their wealth. What do you think?
A recent study by some Harvard/Berkeley economists showed that it's more likely to get into Stanford than to achieve the "American Dream" of moving from the bottom to top quintile of wealth. But we've known this right? It's so unlikely, and while America is a place where you have the freedom to recreate yourself in some sense, both in the novel and now, there are still so many ways in which it is fundamentally the 1% who are in control. It's also interesting to see that while working conditions and other things have gotten better, this truth still holds.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how Doctorow described Houdini as “embodying the American ideal,” but also chose to show how the rich saw him as a lower class being, on par with a circus performer. The character who Doctorow explicitly described as a perfect American, a rags-to-riches story, is not at all respected by the upper crust of Americans he has supposedly reached the level of. I felt like Doctorow was subtly pointing out how the rich in America, the upper class in America, aren’t the American ideal. Or at least, they didn’t follow the all-American, bootstrap method to get to where they are – and so they can’t recognize or appreciate Houdini or his journey. And you’re completely right that Doctorow’s arguments still resonate today (which is depressing, to say the least). Reading the mirror-images lives of Mother/Father and Tateh/Mameh, for example? It doesn’t make me think of 1900. It makes me think about today, and everything money, light skin, and a passport can still buy you.
ReplyDeleteI think you brought up a lot of meaningful and crucial points to fully understand how our society isn't too different from this world we critique in the perspective of a "modern society". It's interesting that you explain what the Koch brothers have done in the past because the idea that charity is for the poor only is clearly not present in what work they do. I agree with Pomona and your point because I definitely feel like the poor was brought in a better light than the rich in this book, especially as Doctorow created a personality for Ford and Morgan that doesn't sit well with the majority of the people today.
ReplyDeleteRagtime definitely made me think about the society today and what Doctorow may have been trying to tell us.
I think that Doctorow's critique of the American dream is even more relevant today. We are supposed to idealize the self made and the talented while the real winners are the rich. There are a handful of self-made billionaires while hundreds of thousands of Americans are homeless. This problem is at the forefront of current political debate.
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