Faith in democracy shaken by economic inequality

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 21 January 2018

I believe that increasing economic inequality in the United States may be undermining our values supporting representative democracy. 

In October 2017, Pew Research Center published a 38 nation study on support for democracy (http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/10/16/globally-broad-support-for-representative-and-direct-democracy/).  The US data suggests that Americans, as much as anything we ever do agree on, overwhelmingly support representative democracy.  Such high levels of agreement suggest this is an American value. (This shouldn’t be surprising).  However, only 51 percent of Americans indicated they trusted the national government to do what is right for the US and even fewer, 46 percent, are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the United States.  Maybe high levels of distrust and dissatisfaction are characteristic of those who highly support representative democracy.

Twenty-three other nations who either had the same or more support for representative democracy  were similar (76-85 percent supporting).  These are nations who we can say share our values with respect to representative democracy.  Ten of the countries differ from the United States in showing more trust and more satisfaction with their national governments than the US (I define more as showing at least 56 and 51 percent trust and satisfaction).  The rest are either similar or show significantly less trust and satisfaction.  What accounts for these differences in nations with similar political values?

Pew offers little comparative analysis regarding these differences except that higher income countries tend to be more supportive of representative democracy, and those whose party is out of power are less satisfied and less trusting.  But, that doesn’t explain countries with political divides, like Germany, Sweden, and Canada who still highly trust and are satisfied with their national governments. 

Seventeen countries are considered high-income by Pew so I focused my comparisons there, although I eliminated those countries that did not enjoy at least 70 percent support for representative democracy.  I compared two measures of economic inequality, one focused on income inequality and another on wealth inequality.  A Gini coefficient varies from 0 to 1.0; scores closer to one indicates greater inequality and the closer to 0, greater equality.   I used two calculations of the Gini (using different data sources), one from the World Bank and the other from the CIA.  Wealth inequality, notoriously hard to obtain current data for, is from 2000 and calculated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.  Both charts can be found here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

The two Gini coefficients for US income are .41 and .47 while for wealth it is .84.  Four countries, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, show similar support (or more) for representative democracy and also are high income, developed countries but show much higher trust and satisfaction in their national governments.    Their Gini coefficients for income inequality vary from a low of .25 to a high of .34.  Similarly for wealth, they vary from a low of .65 and a high of .74.

Other developed, high income countries with similar support for representative democracy and similar trust and satisfaction with their national governments to the US are Australia, Israel, Japan, and the UK.  This group shows more income inequality than the previous group, Gini coefficients ranging from .32 to .43 but with wealth inequality about the same, .55 to .70.  To me, this suggests that there may be a tipping point where economic inequality, the data here suggests income inequality specifically, begin to undermine trust and satisfaction with a country’s national government, even when representative democracy is still highly supported.

There are five other countries with high levels of support for representative democracy (at least 70 percent) but who are low (35 percent or lower) on trust and satisfaction with their national governments (France, Greece, Italy, South Korea, and Spain).  Generally, these countries show similar levels of income inequality as the previous group of countries but more wealth inequality.  It is also important to note that each country with the exception of France was facing significant scandals or economic troubles during the time of the survey.  France was conducting a national election for president which might affect the trust and satisfaction data.  Examining trends of inequality leading up to time when Pew conducted this study might tell us more.

One thing stands out.  The US is the most unequal among the high income countries.  And only about half its citizens trust or are satisfied with the national government.  Which future is preferable?  The political climate of Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada, or France, Italy, South Korea and Spain?