Tim Wise, Under the Affluence *** 1/2

I agree with Wise's premise –– that in our culture "the conditions of the impoverished, the underemployed and the struggling are justified as the inevitable result of inadequate effort on their part, or of cultural flaws, while the wealth and success of the rich are likewise rationalized as owing to their superior talent or value systems" –– and I believe that this misconception underlies our biggest issues as a nation. He is preaching to the converted with me. But would his book convince a less liberal reader?

Alas, I think the answer is no. Wise musters a lot of data to support his argument, but he would be less than fully compelling for three reasons:

• While explaining how the poor's condition is not the result of laziness or a lack of values, he buries his conceptual points under an avalanche of statistics.
• While arguing that it's the super-rich who have a value problem, he resorts to the anecdotal claims that he rightly derided when they were targeted at the poor. ("It's entirely the norm, it seems, for rich parents to pay psychologists thousands of dollars for a 'learning disability' diagnosis for their kids, so those children can get extra time on standardized tests.")
• He recognizes that progressives need a compelling counter-narrative if they're going to overturn the myth of the meritocracy, but he doesn't supply one or even the outlines of one. His thoughts on the subject sound naïve and utopian.