At the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago, keynote speakers Bill Bradley, Zell Miller and Barbara Jordan painted vivid pictures of an America gone awry. The socioeconomic gap between white and Black and rich and poor has always been vast, but since 1981 it seems to have widened even more. Politicians who play on Americans'' increasing fears of race and class strife may very well win the election.

True, George Bush has done nothing to soothe tensions, and the exceptional public-opinion poll boost the convention gave to Bill Clinton suggests that Americans might once again embrace "affirmative government."

But what does that mean? According to Mickey Kaus '73, a senior editor of The New Republic and author of The End of Equality,New Deal-Great Society Democrats think that government, if it wants to erase inequality, must pursue large-scale income-redistribution policies. Apparently, these appeals keep a small, hard core of voters from breaking ranks.

As November draws near and Clinton's huge lead inevitably shrinks, the Arkansas governor may promise redistribution in order to hold on to his party's most faithful. And maybe that's not so bad. If you're a Democrat tired of losing all the time, you can conclude that whatever pulls in another million votes it fair game, right?

Well, not really. First of all, class warfare doesn't win elections. The Republican coalition of the wealthy and the suburban middle class outnumbers and out-participates the Democrats' volatile supporters of money equality.

More significantly, if you want to improve the sorry state of fin-de-siecle America, you can't just play around with the income bell curve. Even if tax-and-transfer policies actually effected a substantial reallocation of income (they don't) Kaus doubts that any social benefits would result.

Kaus divides egalitarian sentiment into two major threads. Money egalitarianism seeks primarily to level differences in income. The "Civic Liberal" partisans of social egalitarianism, by contrast, don't care who makes how much , as long as people treat each other with respect.

Social and money equality don't travel together. Kaus's data suggest that money equality increased greatly between around 1950 and 1973, and then slipped back slightly after 1973. Yet between 1950 and 1984 social equality nosedived.

Here Kaus invokes the stereotypical picture of a nation united by "Ozzie and Harriet" and World War II. By 1984 some amalgam of investment bankers and $1000 watches dominated the American culture scene. In spite of the money inequality of the 1950s, Kaus says (maybe a bit implausibly), Americans were happier then.

The main difference between the 1950s and the 1980s, Kaus concludes, lies in the size of the public sphere. The ever-decreasing frequency of interactions between individuals from different backgrounds has nearly destroyed social equality. More and more, Americans equate salary earned with intrinsic worth, and so a shrinking public sphere allows snobbery and status envy to geed upon income differences.

The End of Equality

by Mickey Kaus '73

Basic Books

$25.00

Kaus wants to convince Americans that money doesn't mean anything. As long as everyone has enough to eat, it doesn't matter that some people are rich and others aren't. Indeed, the free market and the work ethic that goes with it require this inventive. He concludes that we can resolve social inequality by reinventing the institutions that used to keep our culture from falling to pieces.