The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

What caused the Great Convergence, and then what caused the Great Divergence? In recent years we have heard much debate about the latter, but relatively little about the former. It turns out that these are not two separate issues, because to a considerable extent the same factors are responsible for both the upswing in equality until the 1970s and the downturn after that. International factors are no doubt a significant part of the backstory, because the same basic U-shape across the twentieth century is found in most advanced countries.62 Globalization is a plausible suspect, because international flows of people and goods and money tended to diminish in the first half of the twentieth century and then to intensify in the second half.63 Other Western countries have experienced the same international pressures, however, while seeing a much less dramatic increase in inequality, suggesting that U.S. domestic institutions and policies have played a major role.