Lucius Flatley led a recent coffee-shop discussion on the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the United States. The group wondered why the 1960s revolution in sex, long hair and rock ’n’ roll that led the way for voting rights, ecology, a black president, and gay rights never gained traction in economic equality. In fact, quite the opposite: The country is sliding into a hole where 1 percent of Americans possess such desirable things as a lake lodging, a Lamborghini and their own Lindsay Lohan – while, the other 99 percent drive an old Plymouth, struggle with payments on the family house, and make do with the old marital bed.

Lucius offered a solution.

The American social pattern on the one hand and the economic structure on the other are woven from the same cloth of individualism. Hippies and corporate America both cherish extreme self-reliance (read selfishness). Neither wants to accept other people’s problems. And this is really nothing new. From the time of the Pilgrims, America has suffered between radical individualism and the common good.

Potentially, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are selfishness enabled. The potential conflict between a slave’s liberty and Jeff Davis’ pursuit of happiness are obvious. The writer of that phrase also wrote, “Self-love creates propensities to self-gratification that lead us constantly to violation of our moral duties to others.”

In the pursuit of happiness, America has always suffered from “economic” self-gratification. Check out the 1800s, when the Robber Barons robbed; the Gilded Age, when “the 400” ate oysters in Newport palaces; and the Roaring Twenties, when Wall Street answered to no one. After each period of economic debauchery, the American ship was kept from sinking and was rebalanced – but only after pain and suffering. Those who remember the stock market of the ’20s and the bread lines of the ’30s also remember how blind the country was just before those wrenching experiences, and they smell rain in the air.

After the 1940s, there was social conformity. Sex outside marriage was shameful, beards and divorce were outre? – and so was boasting of one’s wealth. Individual expression, like homosexuality, was buried deep in the closet. To buy and tear down a $4 million house and replace it with a garage for 12 automobiles was something no candidate for the presidency would even remotely consider. No CEOs could get away with paying themselves 300 or 400 times what they paid an employee. When Eisenhower was president during the vibrant 1950s, the top income tax was 91 percent.

Then came the 1960s and the unleashing of social individualism. Youth was encouraged to indulge in self-expressive, hedonistic impulses. On the money side, the wacko Ayn Rand preached economic selfishness and the Libertarian movement prospered. The way was paved for the brokers and bankers to indulge their own search for happiness with less and less regulation – or taxes.

“Do your own thing” is not so different from “every man for himself.” If it feels good, do it, whether that means smoking weed and never wearing a necktie, or taking a company through bankruptcy to destroy workers’ retirement benefits. Going topless in public is the close partner of allowing banks to become financial speculators. The self-absorbed “me” expands to encompass the economy.

People on the right blame the scandalous behavior of the ’60s on individual freedom. People on the left blame the scandalous financial excesses of the Bush years on individual freedom. In fact, they are flip sides of the same coin. Both are shamelessly selfish.

Jefferson wrote that liberty and pursuit of happiness require “correctives” which are supplied by education, by “the moralist, the preacher, and legislator.”

Professor Flatley claimed he was a poor moralist and no legislator, but thought he was doing his small preacherly bit.

Thought for the week:

Last year the typical salary for CEOs was $9.6 million. A skilled mechanic would have to work 229 years to earn that much.

Rodney Quinn, who died Oct. 27, wrote several columns in advance for publication, which the newspaper will print through the coming weeks.

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