In
1893, Friedrich Engels wrote from London to Friedrich Adolph Sorge,
another German Communist then living in New York, lamenting how
America’s diversity hindered efforts to establish a workers’ party in
the United States. Was it possible to unify Poles, Germans, Irish, “the
many small groups, each of which understands only itself”? All the
bourgeoisie had to do was wait, “and the dissimilar elements of the
working class fall apart again.”
America’s
mix of peoples has changed in its 200-plus years. Yet when Barack Obama
delivered his bracing speech on race, he was grappling with a similar
challenge. “Realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense
of my dreams,” he said. “Investing in the health, welfare and education
of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of
America prosper.”
It
is a tall order. Ten years ago, William Julius Wilson wrote that
American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using
their hard-earned taxes to give blacks “medical and legal services that
many of them could not afford for their own families.”
As
obviously sensible as Mr. Obama’s proposition might be in a nation of
as many hues, tongues and creeds as the United States, it struggles
against self-defeating human behavior: racial and ethnic diversity
undermine support for public investment in social welfare. For all the
appeal of America’s melting pot, the country’s diverse ethnic mix is
one main reason for entrenched opposition to public spending on the
public good.
Among
the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, a club of industrial countries, only Mexicans, Koreans and
Greeks pay less in taxes than Americans, as a share of the economy. The
United States also ranks near the bottom on public spending on social
programs: 19 percent of the nation’s total output in 2003, compared with
29 percent in Sweden, 23 percent in Portugal and almost 30 percent in
France.
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The
Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser correlated public
spending in Western Europe and the United States with diversity and
concluded that half the social-spending gap was due to the United
States’ more varied racial and ethnic mix. The other half was mostly due
to the existence of stronger left-wing parties in Europe.
Americans
are not less generous than Europeans. When private charities are
included, they probably spend more money for social purposes than
Europeans do. But philanthropy allows them to target spending on those
they personally believe are deserving, instead of allowing the
government to choose.
Mr.
Glaeser’s and Mr. Alesina’s work suggests that white Europeans support a
big welfare state because they believe the money will probably go to
other white Europeans. In America, the Harvard economist Erzo F. P.
Luttmer found that support for social spending among respondents to
General Social Survey polls increased in tandem with the share of
welfare recipients in the area who were in their own racial group. A
study of charity by Daniel Hungerman, a Notre Dame economist, found
that all-white congregations become less charitably active as the share
of black residents in the local community grows.
This
breakdown of solidarity should be unacceptable in a country that is,
after all, mainly a nation of immigrants, glued together by a common
project and many shared values. The United States has showed an
unparalleled capacity to pull together in challenging times. Americans
have invested blood and treasure to serve a broad national purpose and
to rescue and protect their allies across the Atlantic.
Still,
racial and ethnic antagonism all too frequently limit generosity at
home. In one study, Mr. Alesina, with Reza Baqir of the International
Monetary Fund and William Easterly of New York University, found that
the share of municipal spending in the United States devoted to social
good — roads, sewage, education and trash clearance — was smaller in
more racially diverse cities.
While
this tension manifests mainly along racial lines, it has broader
ethnic, religious and even linguistic dimensions. A 2003 study by Julian
Betts of the University of California, San Diego, and Robert Fairlie of
the University of California, Santa Cruz, found that for every four
immigrants who arrived in public high schools, one native student
switched to a private school.
Politicians,
from Richard Nixon to Tom Tancredo, have long exploited racial
tensions. But there is nothing inevitable about ethnic animosities, as
Senator Obama argued in his speech, which came at an important moment.
Globalization
presents the United States with an enormous challenge. Rising to the
test will require big investments in the public good — from
infrastructure to education to a safety net protecting those most
vulnerable to change. Americans must once again show their ability to
transcend group interests for a common national cause.
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