NRO Weekend, December 22, 2000 to January 1, 2001
Prosperity’s Challenge
An interrogatory with author Dinesh D'Souza.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

inesh D'Souza, a research scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is author, most recently, of The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno-Affluence. His website is dineshdsouza.com, and the preface to his latest book can be found on NRO.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What made you come to write a book on technology and prosperity?

Dnesh D'Souza: It became obvious to me that a massive cultural shift has taken place in the past couple of decades in which the entrepreneur has replaced the bureaucrat as the embodiment of American idealism and heroism. I was curious about who these new people were, what they believed, what were the social and political consequences of the "new economy" they were spearheading.

So The Virtue of Prosperity is a book that profiles the champions of techno-capitalism, as well as their critics both on the right and the left. The issue I try to adjudicate is: Will technology and wealth make our society better?

Lopez: Will technology and wealth make our society better?

D'Souza: Yes. Techno-capitalism has plenty of powerful enemies. The critique on the left is in the name of inequality. The critique on the right is in the name of community and morality. Basically the critics are saying that our portfolios may be up but our values are down. They insist that material progress has not produced moral progress-on the contrary, it has produced cultural and moral decline. They critics say that there was a time in the past when people enjoyed closer relationships to nature, to family, and to community. In this view those relationships have been damaged beyond repair. My book takes these criticisms seriously, but ultimately it argues that technology and affluence can be powerful forces for good.

Lopez: How so?

D'Souza: Consider the left-wing critique. The old mantra was that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. In the past few decades, this has not been the case. The rich have gotten richer and the poor have also gotten richer, although not at the same pace. Yes, there are glaring inequalities in our society, but the wealth and income gaps that so many people bemoan are actually a necessary byproduct of a rising tide of prosperity. In 1980, for instance, America was a far more egalitarian country. The vast majority of people earned between $15,000 a year and $50,000. If you earned $55,000 in 1980 you would be in the top 5 percent of income earners in this country. Now adjusting for inflation, $55,000 in 1980 equals $75,000 today. But today if you want to be in the top 5 percent you have to earn $150,000. Another example: In 1980, there were only around 750,000 American families with a net worth of $1 million or more. Today the number of millionaire households has soared to 5 million. Five million families — that's 20 million people!

To be sure, inequality is greater. But the reason it is greater is that lots of people who used to be in the middle class have moved up. They have become well off. They have joined a new group that I call the Overclass. In doing so they have increased the gap between themselves and the rest of the population. So inequality is greater. But an exclusive focus on inequality carries the implication that the emergence of the Overclass is a bad thing. Actually, it is a very good thing. America has created the first mass affluent class in world history. This country has extended to millions of ordinary people the same avenues of personal fulfillment-and, let me also concede, debauchery-previously available only to the aristocratic few.

Lopez: How would you answer the conservative critique that technology and prosperity undermine family and community?

D'Souza: The old economy did those things, but the new economy is the best prospect for undoing the harm. For instance, the Industrial Revolution forced a separation between home and work. It drove the man, and then later the woman, out of the home and into the workplace. But now technology is allowing many women to work part time at home. It is even enabling many men to work full-time out of their homes. This, to me, is a triumph for family values. And it is also a triumph for community because technology and wealth are giving people the resources and the means to move to traditional neighborhoods where they can enjoy enduring friendships and civic associations.

Lopez: So there is a way to go back to the past?

D'Souza: No. The virtues of the past were based on scarcity and war. The virtues of the "greatest generation," in Tom Brokaw's phrase, were the product of the Depression and World War II. The reason people borrowed sugar from their neighbors was that they often didn't have any. I assume that we don't want to reverse moral and cultural problems by plunging the nation into another depression or starting another war. So what we have to figure out is how to preserve old values in a new situation. How can we maintain decency and integrity and community and spirituality in an age of unprecedented prosperity? That's what my book is about. And the good news is that the new economy is giving us the means to choose to live full and morally coherent lives.

Lopez: What's next for you?

D'Souza: I'm writing a book called Becoming an American: The Superiority of American Civilization. I could say more, but perhaps at this point I'll let the title speak for itself.