A better, but still mixed picture.
Question: How has America changed in your lifetime? Paul Krugman: Oh it’s become better. I mean the . . . Let’s be clear. The . . . the . . . I worry a lot about the growing inequality. We have become an elitist . . . we have entered a second gilded age. And that . . . that’s been a change for the worst. I think about the attitudes of ordinary American people. I think about the kind of . . . We’re more tolerant. We’re a more open society than we were. There were ways in which we were cramped, distorted that are now largely memories. Open racism, extreme sexism – those things still exist. Behind closed doors they exist more than we’d like to admit, but not in the way they used to. It’s . . . I do miss . . . I write in the book a lot that I do miss the sense of . . . of rough economic equality. I think that is a harmful thing. The dignity of the worker actually has diminished. So it’s a mixed picture. You know I . . . But I guess I’m looking forward. I think we have a prospect of getting much better. And I look at the attitudes of the public, and I’m encouraged and uplifted.