Bell Curve

5 14 Living Together The Way We Are Headed 5 1 5THE COALITION OF THE COGNITIVE ELITE AND THEAFFLUENTThe trends we have described would not constitute a threat to the republicif the government still played the same role in civic life that itplayed through the Eisenhower administration. As recently as 1960, itdid not make a lot of political difference what the cognitive elitethought, because its power to impose those values on the rest of Americawas limited. In most of the matters that counted-the way theschools were run, keeping order in the public square, opening a businessor running it-the nation remained decentralized. The still inchoatecognitive elite in 1960 may have had ideas about how it wanted to movethe world but, like Archimedes, it lacked a place to stand.We need not become embroiled here in a debate about whether thecentralization of authority since 1960 (or 1933, for those who take alonger view) was right or wrong. We may all agree as a statement of factthat such centralization occurred, through legislation, Supreme Courtdecisions, and accretions of executive authority in every domain of dailylife. With it came something that did not exist before: a place for thecognitive elite to stand. With the end of the historic limits on the federalreach, everything was up for grabs. If one political group could getenough votes on the Supreme Court, it could move the Constitutiontoward its goals. If it could get enough votes in Congress, it could dosimilarly with legislation.Through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the battle veered back andforth, with groups identifiably "liberal" and "conservative" bloodyingeach other's noses in accustomed ways. But in the Bush and Clinton administrations,the old lines began to blur. One may analyze these trendsconventionally in terms of the evolution of party politics. The rise ofthe New Democrats and the breakup of the Reagan coalition are theconventional way of looking at the evolution. We think something elseis happening as well, with potential dangers: the converging interests ofthe cognitive elite with the larger population of affluent Americans.For most of the century, intellectuals and the affluent have been antagonists.Intellectuals have been identified with the economic left andthe cultural avant-garde, while the affluent have been identified withbig business and cultural conservatism. These comfortable categorieshave become muddled in recent years, as faculty at the top universitiesput together salaries, consulting fees, speeches, and royalties that gar-ner them six-figure incomes while the New York Review of Books showsup in the mailbox of young corporate lawyers. The very bright have becomemuch more uniformly affluent than they used to be while, at thesame time, the universe of affluent people has become more densely populatedby the very bright, as Part I described. Not surprisingly, the interestsof affluence and the cognitive elite have begun to blend.This melding has its limits, particularly when the affluent person isnot part of the cognitive elite. The high-IQ Stanford professor with thehest-selling hook and the ordinary-IQ fellow who makes the same incomewith his small chain of shoe stores are hardly allies on everything.But in looking ahead to alliances and social trends, it is still useful tothink in terms of their increasing commonalities because, as any goodeconomist or politician will point out, there are theoretical interests andpractical interests. The Stanford professor's best+selling book may be adiatribe against the punitive criminal justice system, but that doesn'tmean that he doesn't vote with his feet to move to a safe neighborhood.Or his book may be a withering attack on outdated family norms, butthat doesn't mean that he isn't acting like an old-fashioned father inlooking after the interests of his children-and if that means sendinghis children to a lily-white private school so that they get a good education,so he it. Meanwhile, the man with the chain of shoe stores mayhe politically to the right of the Stanford professor, but he is looking forthe same safe neighborhood and the same good schools for his children.And even if he is more likely to vote Republican than the professor, heis unlikely to be the rugged individualist of yore. On the contrary, he islikely to have become quite comfortable with the idea that governmentis there to be used. He and the professor may not be so far apart at allon how they want to live their own personal lives and how governmentmight serve those joint and important interests.Consider the sheer size of this emerging coalition and how quicklythe affluent class as a whole (not just the cognitive elite) is growing.What is "affluence"? The median answer in 1992 when the Roper Organizationasked people how much annual income they would need "tofulfill all your dreams" was $82,100, which indicates where affluence isthought to start by most American~.~ For purposes of this exercise, wewill define affluence as beginning at an annual family income of$100,000 in 1990 dollars, about three times the median family income.By that definition, more than one out of twenty American families is