Poor children, Western Canada 1910
Something very very bad happened in the last few decades, while we Boomers were sleeping. Well, not sleeping at all,in fact, while we were raising our kids and worrying over each and every danger to their fragile little bodies and minds: dangers from their heirloom cribs; dangers from PVC blinds, the cord and the lead; dangers from eating too many McNuggets; dangers from pesticides; dangers from videogames; dangers from not getting outside for exercise; dangers from getting outside because of kidnappers; and the danger of not passing advanced math -and without advanced math they HAD NO FUTURE in a tech-based society. So, while we were NOT sleeping, the United States became a plutocracy, with, as it stands today, 1 percent of the population holding 34 percent of the net worth.
I guess that’s how it always happens. (And now our kids really have no future, even with great math skills. (Let’s blame it all on those highly-motivated Chinese students, taking over our universities. Why not? Have to blame someone and a Goldman Sachs trader is hard to picture up in his Ivory Tower.)
A plutocracy is a highly unstable form of economy, the kind in place in many banana republics, or European countries with entrenched class systems. Except that many South American countries are doing better than the US in this respect, as explained in the New York Times today, A Hedge Fund Republic?.
No wonder Canadian families are visiting the food banks in record numbers, these days, another story in the news this week. We’re in lockstep with the US, right? (I bet these cash-strapped families aren’t giving up their Internet or cell-phones, though, because these are now necessities.)
So, how are things in our fair land? Well, I found this stat on the Web for a few years ago: Overall, the top 20% had 69.2% of total net worth, while the bottom 20% had 2.4% and the bottom 60% had 10.8%.
This Flo in the City blog is about the Laurier Era, or the Edwardian Era in England, where the horribly uneven distribution of wealth meant, well, that slavery has many forms.
That’s why so many poor Britishers wanted to move to Canada, which was a meritocracy, at least in comparison to the Royal Throne of Kings.
A few blogs ago I quoted an article that claimed this: “No position in the social structure is impossible to a Canadian. He recognizes no caste nor much pprecedence, at times not enough. He does not feel handicapped by the thought that his grandfather or his father was a horse-thief. Canada lies before him a world where nothing is as yet established. He can pick and chose his work. The one fact before him is that he must work and work harder than the next man, or else wake some morning to find that the next man has outstripped him and stands in the way of his progress….
Well. According to a book The Edwardians, by Paul Thompson,in England in 1900 “1 percent of the population died owning 40 percent of the entire value capital left.” That’s a quote. Hmm. That’s pretty well the modern US figure. Go figure.
How does this relate to Tighsolas, or Flo in the City, my novel in progress? HUGELY. Just a short surf of the web and its treasures, I discovered that in Canada in the late 19th century, 1870-1900, there was a decrease in inequality of distribution of wealth. And this was just the time Norman Nicholson was DOING WELL. Another document revealed that it was primary White Men of Scotch origin who were doing better. That would be Norman. Another article said that in the 1870-1890′s, in Canada, the EXPECTATION of wealth was growing. That explains the Nicholsons and their cronies. But, apparently, this all turned around, around the turn of the century, again, just when Norman fell on hard times.
In 1900 Canada, according to a credible source, one – fifth held at least 65 per cent of all assessed wealth and the poorest 40 per cent never more than 8 per cent, even though inequality did decline between 1871 and 1899.
Distribution of wealth is complicated to assess and, in the past, it was usually measured in land ownership. Hence on paper, the Nicholsons were not POOR in 1910, because they owned Tighsolas, the house. But tell that to Norman and Margaret and Marion and Edith and Flo. (Not that I understand these figures, I failed advanced math. But in 1972, no one cared.)
Hmm. I just read that Will and Kate’s wedding will cost 50 million pounds or more, but that the Royal Family will pay ‘its share’. 50 Million Pounds!! Just so teary-eyed television announcers can ressurrect all that “Fairy Tale” claptrap on the day in question. I still remember a certain Canadian commentator talking about Princess Di’s big feet, “but she’s a dancer and all dancers have big feet.” And this was a Cinderella Story! How inappropriate.
(Then again, one movie can cost that or more – and this is as much a show…for us peasants.)
Poor Kate. She’s kind of wash-and-wear pretty now but soon she’ll be needing to spend 500,000 a week on her hair and makeup and clothes, and starving herself on rice cakes to keep the papparazi (or is it paparrazzi) happy -and in work. Just like poor Lady Diana. It’s hard being a symbol. However rich.
