The L-Curve

By David Chandler

(Published in the April 2000 Friends Bulletin)

One couple in our local Meeting has a bumper sticker that says, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Another possibility is that you just may not understand the numbers.

I have heard many talks and read many articles over the last few years that spell out the gross inequities in the distribution of income and wealth in this country. Yet I see people’s eyes glaze over as they sit passively and let the outrageous statistics float past them. Is this simply apathy? Not entirely.

I have gained an insight into people’s response to numbers through my experience teaching astronomy in a community college setting. Introductory astronomy is a survey course with no prerequisites. People walk in off the street out of interest in the subject matter, or to fulfill a science requirement. In astronomy we deal with "astronomical numbers," so one of the questions I put on the pre-test the first day of class is, "How many times larger is a Billion compared to a Million?" The last time I gave this question 83% of the class got it wrong (a typical result). Many said twice as large, or 10 times as large, or simply left the question blank. [A Billion is in fact 1000 times larger than a Million.]

Even people who use numbers all the time generally use them abstractly for computation rather than concretely for visualization. I am often guilty of this myself. When I want to really understand the significance of a set of numbers I draw a graph.

During the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles I discussed the inequitable distribution of income with my class. Out of habit I tried sketching a graph. I chose the vertical scale so that $100,000 would be a point 10-cm (4-inches) high on the graph. (It just so happens that this is the height of a stack of $100 bills totaling $100,000!) On this scale $1 Million would be a stack of $100 bills 1-meter high. $1 Billion would be a stack of $100 bills1-kilometer high! The distribution looks like a long, gradual rise from zero to about 4-inches high at the 95% mark, a little over 1-foot high at the 99% mark, and then, in the last 1% of the graph, a steep ascent to the edge of space! By making it concrete I surprised even myself. (A picture is worth a thousand abstractions!) There was no apathy in that class as the picture emerged. Everyone immediately connected with the numbers, and it changed the whole nature of the discussion. The U.S. income distribution looks very much like an "L": a very tall thin, backward "L," but I call it the "L-Curve" in contrast to the "Bell Curve."

Graphing the income distribution was a consciousness-raising experience. The sheer magnitude of the inequality has profound implications. The shape and proportions of this graph need to be seen and understood by everyone who votes. I have been looking for ways to share this insight and have recently turned to the Internet. I have created a web page with the two-part graph shown here and some discussion of the issues. I hope all of you who have web access will bookmark the page and share it with others.

The maldistribution of income and wealth is a truly outrageous fact of life, both in this country and worldwide. It perpetuates poverty even in a land of plenty. It may well be an inherent property of an unrestrained capitalist economy, but it also makes a charade of democracy. It puts disproportionate political power in the hands of those on the vertical spike who can use their money to buy influence. Those on the horizontal spike have the votes, but those on the vertical spike have the power to influence elected officials, through campaign contributions and outright corruption, and to influence the public at large, by monopolizing the media.

One major example of government of, by, and for the very rich is the rewrite of the income tax laws. From FDR to Eisenhower the top tax bracket was 90%. Under Reagan it was pushed down to about 30%. [Math quiz: How much did this change enhance the after-tax income of the very rich? Did it increase by 60%? Sorry, wrong answer. Answer: Instead of keeping 10% they keep 70%: a 700% increase. That’s one reason there are so many Billionaires today.] The various "Flat Tax" plans being proposed would continue this trend even further. The cost of government has been shifted from those on the vertical spike to those on the horizontal spike. Tax cutting cuts the taxes of the very rich and cuts the programs that benefit everyone.

How can we overcome? The only way the dollar can dominate over the vote in a democracy is for the very rich to get the rest of us to vote in their interest instead of our own. It is in their interest to foster divisions and resentments between the middle class and the poor and to keep us isolated in front of our TV sets, distracted by O.J., Princes Di, and Monica. The only way "we the people" can prevail is to raise our consciousness and to organize ourselves effectively. We have to turn off our TVs and talk to each other directly. We have to build community. We need dialog. The solution won’t come to us on the Nightly News. We have to build it up from the grass roots. These are all areas where the Quaker community has provided leadership to the nation throughout our history. We need to find our voice once again.