Will Wilkinson, proudly protecting the Cato line of "Americans actually want more risk and financial vulnerability!" against Ross Douthat's pro-populist heresies, is missing the point. While Ross is looking at trends, Will is looking at snapshots -- and not even the right ones. So Ross says, "the pressure of continued outsourcing may also increase the public’s appetite for a smart left populism," and Will replies, "according to another very recent Harris Poll, the level of overall satisfaction is up since 2003, well over half of Americans say their life situation has improved over the last few years, and nearly 2/3 expect it to improve over the next five." Checkmate?
Not quite. Notice, here, that Will uses "life satisfaction" rather than anything directly related to the economic numbers for his point. That's because the economic numbers are very bad for his point, But as Will -- who dearly loves his "alternative status hierarchies" -- fully knows, economic status is not the only determinant of life satisfaction. If you don't have health care but are really happy with your attempts to restore the heat and spark to your marriage, you may be both satisfied and a populist!
Moreover, invoking current polls is completely non-responsive to Ross's claims. Ross -- and Alan Blinder, and everyone else -- expect tens of millions of white collar jobs to come under pressure from outsourcing within the next few decades. If Will doesn't think this will upset anyone, he's got to construct a plausible theory as to why, not note that the Harris poll says many folks are satisfied with their lot now.
