WASP Rot

For those of you who grew up in New England, this is an interesting op-ed comparing America's decline to the decline of the old WASP aristocracy. Henry Allen does a great job of comparing the United States' inability to come to grips with debt, wars, and deficits to that of a declining WASP family that feels the need to continue to keep up appearances. The best part is when he creates a fictional dialogue between a WASP couple; it's worth quoting at length:

Imagine a cocktail hour.

“I hate living like this,” says a wife — we’ll call her Martha. She rattles the ice in her glass.

“Do we have any choice?” asks her husband — we’ll call him George. “Do you really want to pull Ted out of Dartmouth? Do you want to move into an apartment?”

“I could get a job,” Martha says. “I could manage a bookstore, like when you met me. It’s odd — we were poorer then, but we seemed so much richer.”

“We didn’t have money, but we did have a future,” says George. “Freshen up that drink for you?”

The conversation usually goes this way: proposals for impossible cuts in spending are met by equally impossible refusals to make them. Slash Medicare? Stop saving oppressed foreigners from tyranny? Raise taxes? The rock and the hard place. It’s a question of standards.

“We have to face the facts,” says Martha.

“I’m so goddam sick of the facts,” says George.

“If your brother would come to his senses, we could sell Seely’s Cove,” Martha says, referring to a summer house with porches and a mossy roof and photo albums from the days when men wore neckties as they sailed.

“We have to sell it or put a new roof on it, but Buell is happy just to let it molder,” George says. “He says keeping it in the family is a matter of principle.”

“You could call Tom about getting another loan from the bank. “

“We’re at the point where we’re just using loans to pay off other loans.”

For me this is about right, but it also reminds me of Britain's decline in the post-World War II world. Britain clung to the last vestiges of Empire -- Malaya, Hong Kong, the African colonies -- because it gave it purposes. At the same time it moved ever closer to the United States, because it found further purpose in playing the junior partner to the U.S. This worked well for Britain for most of the Cold War. But inevitably it found that it had to trim defense spending, reduce the size of its armed forces, and slowly give up its colonies.

I am not suggesting that the United States will see the same end as the British Empire -- this country still has a stronger economy, stronger trade, and a larger population than the UK. But as Allen points out, we are facing decline and decay. And just as the old New England WASP families and Britain tried to postpone the inevitable by taking loans to pay loans, using those connections cultivated because of the right schools and clubs. Allen is correct, this is the United States. The sooner we recognize this fact, the better off we'll be. However, until then, we are simply sitting in a run-down living room with moldy oriental carpets, drinking scotch. As he says, shall I freshen your drink?