The University of Chicago from the Elites to The

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FROM THE ELITES TO THE STREETS: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT BY SÉAMUS ANTHONY POWER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2017 Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii List of Tables vi List of Figures vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Economic Inequality and Democracy 11 Chapter 2: Culture, Economics, and Psychology 45 Chapter 3: The 2008 global financial crisis and the Irish economy 86 Chapter 4: The Elites and the Unemployed 108 Chapter 5: Quantitative tests of qualitatively derived hypotheses 133 Chapter 6: How the perception of unfair economic inequality leads to civic unrest 162 Chapter 7: Conclusion 196 Appendix I: You reap what you sow condition 228 Appendix II: External factors condition 230 References 232 ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee - Professors Richard Shweder, John Lucy, David Nussbaum, and Alex Gillespie - for their guidance and support throughout the 5 years of my dissertation. I am eternally grateful to Rick Shweder who once told me that “being a researcher or an academic is not a process whereby you look around and see what the majority thinks and says ‘oh that’s what I’m going to believe’. One ‘follows the argument where it leads.’ Being willing to upset apple carts and question dogma is one of the responsibilities we have as scholars and intellectuals in the academy.” Rick has been a major influence on my thinking throughout this dissertation, and his words will guide me throughout my career. John Lucy has been a constant support throughout the process of obtaining a doctorate. In particular, his curiosity and keen insights helped guide me through my fieldwork, and to develop two competing stories of an Irish economic recovery: an official narrative based on aggregate gains, and subjective stories of the perception of unfair economic distribution. Dave Nussbaum opened up two new worlds for me. First, he made me think about cultural psychology in relation to the world of business and economics and actively created opportunities for me to pursue this hybrid. Second, he also encouraged me to write about my research to public audiences. This informed the clarity of my thoughts about my iii research, my writing style, and ensured broad dissemination of my research beyond the academy. Alex Gillespie has supported my work for a decade. He always managed to carve out time to talk, despite the time differences. I always appreciated his depth of thought, solid advice, and kind words from the other side of the Atlantic. Thank you all. Many other people played important roles in guiding my research. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Danny Dorling, Alex Georgiev, Larry Gianinno, Bill Goldstein, Resney Gugwor, Jonathan Haidt, Phil Hammack, Michael Jindra, Aaron Kay, Tara Mandalaywala, Dario Maestripieri, Matthew McGann, Fathali Moghaddam, Ara Norenzayan, Steven Pinker, Eugene Raikhel, Lindsey Richland, Brian Schiff, Jennifer-Sheehy Skeffington, Jim Sidanius, Margaret Spencer, Joseph Tennant, Gabriel Velez, Brady Wagoner, Zach Warren, and Jaan Valsiner. The Department of Comparative Human Development was a wonderful and rich academic environment to pursue research. Faculty, students, and staff all supported me throughout the last 5 years. In particular I would like to thank my cohort: Sean Coyne, Rebecca Frausel, Erin McFee, Kelsey Robbins, and Xu Qin. iv Professor Martha Van Haitsma and Uttama Patel read the dissertation and their comments greatly improved my work. Paul Bloom, Alan Fiske, Alex Gillespie, Hazel Markus, Jim Sidanius, and Elliot Turiel came to the University of Chicago to speak on the topics of conflict and morality. My conversations with each of these guests vastly improved the concepts underlying my dissertation. I thank them for asking big questions. My research was supported by the Society for Research on Adolescence, the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, by the Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropology Pre-Dissertation Award, made possible by a generous donation from The Robert Lemelson Foundation, and by a Mellon Fellowship. Prior to starting my PhD, James Meehan, Stephen Ronayne, and I did a trip around the world. Experiences with, and insights from, these two ethnographers and storytellers increased my curiosity regarding what was common to all people and what was culturally variable. My siblings, Ann-Marie, David, and Claire, as well as my parents, John and Kathleen, have always shown me love. I thank them for their patience and support while pursuing the PhD. v List of tables Table 1: Democratic engagement and civic discontent 138 Table 2: Fairness of austerity measures 139 Table 3: Attribution of blame for the 2008 economic crisis 140 vi List of figures Figure 1: Income inequality in Europe & US, 1900 - 2010 13 Figure 2: Wealth inequality in Europe & US, 1870 - 2010 14 Figure 3: Income inequality in emerging countries, 1910 – 2010 15 Figure 4: “Hockey stick graph:” A measure of historical growth of GDP 23 Figure 5: The Equality – Difference Paradox 59 Figure 6: The Equality-Difference Paradox with reference to 19 countries 60 Figure 7: GDP in the Republic of Ireland, 2000 – 2016 92 Figure 8: GNP in the Republic of Ireland, 2000 – 2016 93 Figure 9: Employment in Ireland from the year 2000 – 2016 94 Figure 10: GDP of Ireland, Spain, Greece, and the average of OECD, 2000 – 2016 96 Figure 11: Satisfaction with the Economy 97 Figure 12: Political Engagement 99 Figure 13: Willingness to Petition 100 Figure 14: Support for Protest 101 Figure 15: You reap what you sow condition 228 Figure 16: External factors condition 230 i Introduction Global economic inequality is increasing (Atkinson, 2015; Chin & Culotta, 2014; Dorling, 2015; Piketty, 2014; Piketty & Suez, 2014). This trend can generate frustration for people who are not benefitting from economic growth. In turn, this frustration has the potential to manifest in protesting. But economic protests and riots can occur due to the perception of economic inequality, not only from economic inequality itself. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to understand the psychological dynamics behind responses to increases in wealth and income disparities. The larger questions addressed throughout this dissertation are to comprehend how people experience and understand economic inequality from a psychological perspective: under what conditions can and do people living in democratic nations accept inequality without engaging in democratic activities to effect social change? And under what circumstances does their tolerance turn to protest and other forms of democratic engagement and civic discontent? The dissertation is divided into three parts. Chapters 1-3 provide the theoretical framing. I report the empirical research in Chapters 4-6. Finally, Chapter 7 is the conclusion. I. Preview of theoretical chapters In the opening chapter I outline two popular narratives about contemporary capitalism. The first story focuses on the ubiquity of rising economic inequality, particularly income inequality, throughout the world since the 1970s. I discuss the omnipresence and moralizing discussion of this phenomenon among social scientists, economists, and 1 politicians. Rising wealth and income inequality is considered unfair and immoral: it is a phenomenon that must be alleviated. Yet we live in the most prosperous and peaceful time in human history (Pinker, 2011). That is the second story of capitalism. This second narrative emphasizes how industrial capitalism began lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It led to increased life expectancy, and the formalization of educational opportunities. I argue that these master narratives of capitalism are two sides of the same coin because both narratives co-exist and modulate one another, often through democratic processes like voting and protesting. An overemphasis on inequality belittles the substantial benefits of capitalism, yet an overemphasis on economic growth belittles the problems that associated extremes of inequality bring. I then review social psychological literature that concludes people do not expect parity of economic distributions: they tolerate inequality, but only to a point. When people living in non-totalitarian societies become intolerant, they can engage in democratic processes, such as protests, in an effort to modulate the overemphasis placed on economic growth, at the expense of the perceived fairness of economic distributions. But social psychological phenomena – such as judgments about the fairness of distribution and access to economic resources – occur within cultural and moral contexts. In Chapter 2 I review the literature linking culture, economics, and development. I argue that it is important to consider the role of culture in economic development because comprehending the role of cultural values, beliefs, and moral reasoning can help explain historical rates of economic growth, various reactions to financial crises, and perceptions of 2 fairness of economic distributions. I discuss the Equality – Difference Paradox that is based on the observation that culturally homogenous countries (in terms of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity), like Ireland, have more equal distributions of income than heterogeneous countries like the USA. The Equality- Difference Paradox

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