Since the Great Depression, there has been a strong national political consensus supporting policies that help middle-class families cope with the multiple risks in our market economy. These include the risks of illness, destitution in old age, hazards from defective products, polluted natural resources, industrial accidents, corporate frauds, high unemployment, and other assaults largely beyond the individual's control. Such policies are not, by and large, targeted redistributions to the poor but protections for the broad middle class. Many government activities reflect this concern, including social investments financed by a progressive tax code and a wide array of regulatory protections, almost all the result of necessary responses to past abuses by the market.

Social Security is center stage in the presidential campaign, as it should be. The stakes are enormous. George W. Bush and some Democrats want to divert part of the program to individual retirement accounts. Al Gore would maintain the present system, but supplement it with government-subsidized personal accounts to help low- and middle-income families build financial wealth. Though it is rarely appreciated as such, the Social Security debate is substantially a debate about inequality.