textbooks present immigrant history as another heartening confirmation of
America as the land of unparalleled opportunity.
Again and again, textbooks emphasize how America has differed from
Europe in having less class stratification and more economic and social
mobility. This is another aspect of the archetype of American exceptionalism:
our society has been uniquely fair. It would never occur to historians in, say,
France or Australia, to claim that their society was exceptionally equalitarian.
Does this treatment of the United States prepare students for reality? It
certainly does not accurately describe our country today. Social scientists have
on many occasions compared the degree of economic equality in the United
States with that in other industrial nations. Depending on the measure used, the
United States has ranked sixth of six, seventh of seven, ninth of twelve,
thirteenth of thirteen, or fourteenth of fourteen.^27 In the United States the richest
fifth of the population earns twelve times as much income as the poorest fifth,
one of the highest ratios in the industrialized world; in Great Britain the ratio is
seven to one, in Japan just four to one.^28 In 1965 the average chief executive
officer in the United States made 26 times what the average worker made. By
2004, the CEO made 431 times an average worker’s pay. Meanwhile,
Japanese CEOs continue to make about 26 times as much as their average
workers, and it is hard to claim that the leadership of GM and Ford is that
much better than Toyota’s and Honda’s.^29 The Jeffersonian conceit of a nation
of independent farmers and merchants is also long gone: only one working
American in thirteen is self-employed, compared to one in eight in Western
Europe.^30 Thus, not only do we have far fewer independent entrepreneurs
compared to two hundred years ago, we have fewer compared to Europe
today.
Since textbooks claim that colonial America was radically less stratified
than Europe, they should tell their readers when inequality set in. It surely was
not a recent development. By 1910 the top 1 percent of the U.S. population
received more than a third of all personal income, while the bottom fifth got
less than one-eighth.^31 This level of inequality was on a par with that in
Germany or Great Britain.^32 If textbooks acknowledged inequality, then they
could describe the changes in our class structure over time, which would
introduce their students to fascinating historical debate.^33
For example, some historians argue that wealth in colonial society was more