In the early 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting our young nation, was struck by the "general equality of condition among American people." Few were very rich, and few were terribly poor, and de Tocqueville felt that this was fertile soil for the development of true democracy.

Somewhere between there and now we changed. Today, perhaps the most noticeable aspect of American economics and perhaps the most dangerous aspect of American politics, is the growing gap between rich and poor.

Bidding farewell to my German exchange student last year I asked, "What will be your most vivid memory which you will take back to Germany with you after a year in Durham?"

He replied, "Armen and Elend." Poverty and misery. He had never really experienced grinding, pervasive poverty until he entered neighborhoods not a mile from this campus. Some memory of America.