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| The Great Gatsby's world is every bit as unequal as Britain under the coalition | The Great Gatsby's world is every bit as unequal as Britain under the coalition |
| (4 months later) | |
| "Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor." | "Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor." |
| At its core, The Great Gatsby is the story of an American caste system. Jimmy Gatz, a Dakota farm kid turned army captain, tags along with fellow officers to a party, where he glimpses a woman from a different world. In his uniform, the penniless Gatz is not fenced off from Daisy Fay by the usual "indiscernible barbed wire". But in order to marry her, he must erase his history and turn into someone else: Jay Gatsby, former Oxford man, possessor of a vast fortune obscure in its origins but all too visible in its expenditure on parties and hydroplanes and shirts "piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high". | At its core, The Great Gatsby is the story of an American caste system. Jimmy Gatz, a Dakota farm kid turned army captain, tags along with fellow officers to a party, where he glimpses a woman from a different world. In his uniform, the penniless Gatz is not fenced off from Daisy Fay by the usual "indiscernible barbed wire". But in order to marry her, he must erase his history and turn into someone else: Jay Gatsby, former Oxford man, possessor of a vast fortune obscure in its origins but all too visible in its expenditure on parties and hydroplanes and shirts "piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high". |
| The rest you know – if not from F Scott Fitzgerald then perhaps from Baz Luhrmann's new film version. Although he normally can't see a subtlety without sending in a wrecking ball, Luhrmann has left intact the sense of tremendous human waste. At the top are the "careless people", such as Daisy and husband Tom Buchanan – and then there's everyone else, who cannot gain even a toehold in 1920s America except through some form of shadiness. The chasm between rich and poor puts the American Dream off-limits to most Americans. In Fitzgerald's telling, those such as Gatsby who gave it a shot were doomed to failure. As indeed, was the entire economy. The Jazz Age was followed by the Wall Street crash of 1929, and the Great Depression. | The rest you know – if not from F Scott Fitzgerald then perhaps from Baz Luhrmann's new film version. Although he normally can't see a subtlety without sending in a wrecking ball, Luhrmann has left intact the sense of tremendous human waste. At the top are the "careless people", such as Daisy and husband Tom Buchanan – and then there's everyone else, who cannot gain even a toehold in 1920s America except through some form of shadiness. The chasm between rich and poor puts the American Dream off-limits to most Americans. In Fitzgerald's telling, those such as Gatsby who gave it a shot were doomed to failure. As indeed, was the entire economy. The Jazz Age was followed by the Wall Street crash of 1929, and the Great Depression. |
| And yet, 90 years on from The Great Gatsby we are in a world that Fitzgerald would have recognised. Last year, the head of Barack Obama's in-house economic thinktank, Princeton professor Alan Krueger, unveiled a graph of what he dubbed "The Gatsby Curve". On the horizontal axis was measured economic inequality; plotted out vertically was to what extent children's chances of success were determined by their parents' wealth. At the bottom of the graph were countries such as Denmark and Sweden: relatively equal societies where children stand a reasonable chance of getting as far as their talent and hard work allowed. But at the top were the UK and the US: societies marked by a massive wealth gap, where poorer children are born with the dice already heavily loaded against them. | And yet, 90 years on from The Great Gatsby we are in a world that Fitzgerald would have recognised. Last year, the head of Barack Obama's in-house economic thinktank, Princeton professor Alan Krueger, unveiled a graph of what he dubbed "The Gatsby Curve". On the horizontal axis was measured economic inequality; plotted out vertically was to what extent children's chances of success were determined by their parents' wealth. At the bottom of the graph were countries such as Denmark and Sweden: relatively equal societies where children stand a reasonable chance of getting as far as their talent and hard work allowed. But at the top were the UK and the US: societies marked by a massive wealth gap, where poorer children are born with the dice already heavily loaded against them. |
| In Britain and America, inequality is now back to Gatsby-esque levels. Last year, prize-winning economic geographer Danny Dorling gave a speech in which he plotted how Britain's annual income had been divvied up down the ages. In 1923 the richest 1% of Britons took almost a quarter – 23.3% – of all income received. After the second world war came a long period of greater fairness so that by 1979 that proportion had dropped to only 6%. Then came Thatcher and Blair and soaraway inequality. By 2006, the year before the crash, we weren't quite at a Gatsby-esque divide, but we were heading that way: the top 1% of Britons were taking 15% of all income received in the country. This cash is then turned into houses, shares and other assets so that now the top 1% hold over 50% of all Britain's marketable wealth. And so inequality is passed down the generations. Today's headlines offer endless examples. The average London house now costs over half a million, or more than 19 times what the average British worker makes in a year. A Labour MP points out that of the 159 top civil servants, only five went to comprehensives. | In Britain and America, inequality is now back to Gatsby-esque levels. Last year, prize-winning economic geographer Danny Dorling gave a speech in which he plotted how Britain's annual income had been divvied up down the ages. In 1923 the richest 1% of Britons took almost a quarter – 23.3% – of all income received. After the second world war came a long period of greater fairness so that by 1979 that proportion had dropped to only 6%. Then came Thatcher and Blair and soaraway inequality. By 2006, the year before the crash, we weren't quite at a Gatsby-esque divide, but we were heading that way: the top 1% of Britons were taking 15% of all income received in the country. This cash is then turned into houses, shares and other assets so that now the top 1% hold over 50% of all Britain's marketable wealth. And so inequality is passed down the generations. Today's headlines offer endless examples. The average London house now costs over half a million, or more than 19 times what the average British worker makes in a year. A Labour MP points out that of the 159 top civil servants, only five went to comprehensives. |
| David Cameron and Nick Clegg both know there is a problem with a society that only gives rich kids a chance. Both have made speeches denouncing the lack of social mobility in Britain; the government even has a social mobility strategy. Yet Clegg refuses to accept that there's a link between inequality and immobility. Despite academics advising him otherwise. Despite Alan Milburn's report on Britain's top jobs for the Cabinet Office last year that found: "A majority of employees offering the best-paid graduate jobs target … only 19 universities. The students who attend those 19 universities disproportionately spent their childhoods in the south of England." | David Cameron and Nick Clegg both know there is a problem with a society that only gives rich kids a chance. Both have made speeches denouncing the lack of social mobility in Britain; the government even has a social mobility strategy. Yet Clegg refuses to accept that there's a link between inequality and immobility. Despite academics advising him otherwise. Despite Alan Milburn's report on Britain's top jobs for the Cabinet Office last year that found: "A majority of employees offering the best-paid graduate jobs target … only 19 universities. The students who attend those 19 universities disproportionately spent their childhoods in the south of England." |
| The wealthy in America and Britain no longer resemble the prewar elite. They work, for one thing, and you may find the odd ethnic minority or woman in their ranks. But appearances cannot mask how cut off they are from the rest of us. It is still the case that 70% of high court judges were privately educated, even though only 7% of British children attend fee-paying schools. Last week, the Sunday Times reported that Bristol University tutors are considering treating applicants from state schools as "disadvantaged". We used to talk of oppressed minorities; now, it seems, we are in the age of oppressed vast majority. | The wealthy in America and Britain no longer resemble the prewar elite. They work, for one thing, and you may find the odd ethnic minority or woman in their ranks. But appearances cannot mask how cut off they are from the rest of us. It is still the case that 70% of high court judges were privately educated, even though only 7% of British children attend fee-paying schools. Last week, the Sunday Times reported that Bristol University tutors are considering treating applicants from state schools as "disadvantaged". We used to talk of oppressed minorities; now, it seems, we are in the age of oppressed vast majority. |
| For those state-school children whose parents can afford it, there is private tuition. Again, this is a world the young Gatsby would have recognised, with his hour each evening devoted to practising "elocution, poise and how to attain it". But for parents who don't need to scrimp and save, there are plenty more places to spend your money to gain advantage for your offspring. If you can, visit the Westminster school website. The insitution attended by our deputy prime minister is holding an auction of internships, often donated by alumni or present parents. For £500 you can buy your teenager two weeks with designer Amanda Wakeley; £600 a spell with a private-equity firm on Jermyn Street; while £300 buys work experience at Coutts. | For those state-school children whose parents can afford it, there is private tuition. Again, this is a world the young Gatsby would have recognised, with his hour each evening devoted to practising "elocution, poise and how to attain it". But for parents who don't need to scrimp and save, there are plenty more places to spend your money to gain advantage for your offspring. If you can, visit the Westminster school website. The insitution attended by our deputy prime minister is holding an auction of internships, often donated by alumni or present parents. For £500 you can buy your teenager two weeks with designer Amanda Wakeley; £600 a spell with a private-equity firm on Jermyn Street; while £300 buys work experience at Coutts. |
| Fitzgerald would have recognised such a world. Because this is what a 21st-century caste system looks like. | Fitzgerald would have recognised such a world. Because this is what a 21st-century caste system looks like. |
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