The Velvet Rope Economy shows how the ultra-wealthy can pay their way past all the inconveniences in their lives and turn every experience into a luxury. This includes not having to wait in line at amusement parks, getting box seats at sports games that allow for face time with athletes, retaining doctors on-call, donating so much money to an Ivy League school that their children are admitted, and so much more. On the surface, this book seems like a worthwhile read, but it actually left me frustrated and annoyed, and I'm going to try to articulate why.
To begin with, this book conflates two completely different things into one. Citizens of a first world country are entitled to certain things, such as access to quality health care and opportunities to have an affordable education that will lead to middle-class earnings. However, people are not entitled to skip lines, nor have access to famous athletes so they can get their ball signed, nor partake in luxurious air travel or cruises. Yet this book spends the majority of the time complaining about the latter, and only a portion of it talking about the real issues of the former.
In terms of the latter, the author just hasn't convinced me with his argument. He's essentially saying that it's bad that people can pay more to have a better experience than those who pay less, and that worsens the divide between the classes. For example, you pay more to sit in first class on an airplane, which comes with more leg room, lounge access, earlier boarding, etc. Then the people who have economy seats look with envy at those in first class, which causes the divide between the classes to expand. I don't know... that seems like many jumps to get to that conclusion. But even if true, I'm not sure how to process that.
There is an implied argument here that I'm not sure I agree with, which is that it's wrong for someone to pay more to get more. But that's the basis of any economy. If I pay for a business class ticket, of course I expect to get more service and value than if I pay for an economy class ticket. Otherwise, customers have no incentive to pay more, which then means the airlines would have no incentive to offer more. And if that was the case, the result isn't that every customer would receive first class treatment; rather, it's that the airlines would give everyone the economy treatment.
But more odious than that, the book also implies that when people pay more for something, it's because they are "rich" or otherwise privileged, and they don't deserve to be so. There is a tone of both envy and resentment that permeates this section, and it rubs me the wrong way.
I think a better question is this: is the tiered system of goods what's worsening the class divide; or is it that in our inter-connected world, where everyone can peer into everyone else's lives, envy becomes more of an issue? Because in one case, the blame is on the "rich." In the other case, the blame is on those who feels envious of others for having what they lack. But realistically, any one person can never have it all. We each have limited resources and must use those up as we see fit. For example, people with kids might see value in spending their money to fast-track the lines at an amusement park, while older and less mobile people might see value in maid service or having a nurse on call.
Unless somehow we do away with human nature or we get rid of internet and TV so that people can't see what the Joneses are up to, envy and jealousy are just part of the norm. And everyone will just have to live with the fact that others will have things which they themselves do not have, because they chose to spend their resources on other things.
Now we finally get to the part of the book where it addresses the real issues, such as the lack of good health care and quality education for the poor. But even here, the book was a disappointment. It treats each issue superficially and doesn't get to the root of the problems. For example, people with limited means generally have bad or no health insurance because it is tied to their (lack of) employment. Now, people with good private insurance from their employers are free to leave struggling hospitals for better care elsewhere. But the book misses the discussion on why this is even an issue to begin with. It's because we live in a country where a person's health insurance is based on whatever their employer wants to offer or not, versus in every other industrialized country where health insurance is uniformly provided by the government. And the book does not address this crucial point at all.
Another example of a miss is around education. The book talks about how money for field trips, teacher's aids, sports/music classes, etc. often comes from parent-led fundraisers. So in a struggling school district, parents often do not have the means to raise that kind of money. But the solution proposed in the book is that the money raised by wealthier districts should partially be given to poorer districts. That might work in an idealized world, but in this actual world, I'd bet that would be a hard sell. And what's not addressed? The reason we are even in this predicament is because recent policy changes have diverted money out of education, which then force public officials to go begging to tax payers every time they need more money to cover the shortfall. And unsurprisingly, people hardly ever want to pay more taxes on an item-by-item basis.
The book also spends a large amount of time bashing on parents who set their children up for admission into Ivy League schools by making donations, and offering their kids college-prep, tutoring, and extracurriculars. Sure, that's rather unfair, but harping on it misses other relevant points. For example, Ivy League schools are on a level of competitiveness that is unreal. They accept like 3% of the students who apply, even though every applicant probably has the academic rigor to succeed. So the schools are forced to somehow differentiate between this 4.0 GPA student they accept from these thirty other 4.0 GPA students they reject, and the only way to do so is through standards that have little to do with academic success, such as how well-spoken they are, what community service contributions they've made, and their extracurriculars. But Ivy League schools are private, and can accept/reject using whatever standards they want. The point isn't to force them to accept everybody; that would be impossible and counterproductive. It's to realize that public schools are where funding should go if we want quality education to be accessible to all.
But the book also misses the most important point of all when it comes to college education, which is that the school someone gets into is not nearly as important as what major they choose to study. In this day and age, certain majors, such as math, science, and engineering, ensure job opportunities, while others make it almost impossible to find jobs, even for an Ivy League graduate.
There is so much potential that this book could have explored, yet it focuses so much energy implying that the rich is out to game the system by paying thousands for first class tickets or the ability to cute in line at amusement parks. In the flying example, it completely glosses over the fact that air travel is now cheap enough for the masses. And to achieve this, airlines essentially had to cut every amenity and pack in as many people as possible. Sure, it's uncomfortable, but compared to the alternative of the past when flying was dignified but out of reach for everyone except the wealthiest, that isn't something I would want to change back.
I could go on and rebut almost every topic covered in this book, but taking mercy on the kind souls who actually read my reviews, I must stop. This book left me irritated and dissatisfied. It spent so much time both mooning over and whining about pointless aspirational crap, and missed a real opportunity to address the policy shortfalls in essential services that every citizen should be entitled to. By lumping the two completely disparate issues together, the book makes almost no coherent argument.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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