
All Hollowed Out  the lonely poverty of America’s white working class - prostoalex
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/white-working-class-poverty/424341/?single_page=true
======
OliverJones
Interesting.

Useful cross-references:

Thomas Franks, book, Listen, Liberal. [http://www.worldcat.org/title/listen-
liberal-or-what-ever-ha...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/listen-liberal-or-
what-ever-happened-to-the-party-of-the-people/oclc/908628802)

Franks makes the point that the USA is the only developed nation in the world
where the major leftward-leaning political party does not appeal to working
people, but rather to elites.

A Bloomberg piece on how Larry Summers, president of Harvard, economic bigshot
in Obama 44's first term, blasted Trump's move to keep some United
Technologies (Carrier) mfg jobs in Indiana instead of moving them to a
maquiladora. He blasted Trump on the grounds that politicians have no business
trying to influence keeping jobs in their districts. That's an astonishing
position.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/summers-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/summers-
slams-trump-s-carrier-move-as-threat-to-u-s-capitalism)

Max Weber, book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism)
This three-generation-old work digs in to the moral roots of lonely striving.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>A Bloomberg piece on how Larry Summers, president of Harvard, economic
bigshot in Obama 44's first term, blasted Trump's move to keep some United
Technologies (Carrier) mfg jobs in Indiana instead of moving them to a
maquiladora. He blasted Trump on the grounds that politicians have no business
trying to influence keeping jobs in their districts. That's an astonishing
position.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/summers-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/summers-s..).

True, especially since there are fine grounds to oppose Trump's "deal", namely
that the same amount of government money could have just paid the workers'
salaries directly, or the government could seize the factory and put it under
worker ownership, or the government could use the money as part of the
proposed trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.

Bribing a company to "save jobs" with more money than it will actually pay out
in salaries is just plain wasteful.

~~~
EvanAnderson
I find your use of "Obama 44" amusing. It's as though you've fallen through a
wormhole from a future in which there has been a second Obama presidency
(Michelle, perhaps, or a second Barack Obama administration after passage of
an amendment to repeal the 22nd?). If prior convention held true were Barack
Obama ever re-elected it would be considered a different presidency distinct
from the 44th. (A poorly attributed State Department "ruling" that I'm seeing
references to says the two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland are
considered two different presidencies-- the 22nd and 24th. See:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/27/opinion/l-cleveland-
makes-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/27/opinion/l-cleveland-makes-
two-767089.html))

~~~
eli_gottlieb
It was in a paragraph I quoted from my parent poster.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Sad to hear you don't have information from the future. Quoting on here is a
hot mess but having poor reading skills is my fault.

------
dwc
This article agrees with other articles and books I've been reading on the
topic.

One interesting and troubling aside:

This is focused on the working class and so doesn't talk very much about
college educated people. But it does mention education, and still holds it up
as a way forward. Well, that's also being hollowed out.

There's a large and growing number of college graduates who cannot find a
decent job and who amass large amounts of student debt. They did everything
they were supposed to, but the jobs aren't there. Or the jobs are not what
they used to be (see adjuncts v. tenure in academia, for instance). Or after
all that schooling and debt, you have to "pay to play" by taking long term
unpaid internships in expensive cities, which only the affluent can afford.

This is bad on its own for people who would normally go to college and get
white collar jobs, but it also destroys upward mobility for the working class.

It's not just about unions and manufacturing any more. Hollowing out the
middle class has become structural.

~~~
jwhitlark
> They did everything they were supposed to...

I think That sentiment is a big part of the problem right there. College isn't
a checkbox, it's a tool to increase the value you can provide to others and
yourself. Any credential is, at its core, just a proxy for expected value. If
you give higher regard to the credential than the expected value, you're
likely to have a bad time.

~~~
dwc
While your statement is true, it doesn't explain nearly all of the problems.

The shift from tenured to adjunct positions in academia doesn't have anything
to do with the quality of applicants. The shift in tech from salaried
employees to contractors (offshored or not) has nothing to do with the pool of
qualified applicants. Lower pay for positions that create the same value are
not the fault of the worker.

When these sorts of issues become structural there are far fewer options for
individuals to pursue. Whatever path they choose, their chances of success is
less.

------
throw2016
The country has become a simulation of democracy. It principally exists for
corporates and to further their interests, within the US and outside.

Lobbying, regulatory capture, bankers, bailouts, a brazenly corrupt financial
system, foreign policy warmongering, the security state, surveillance have
been out of control for years now and show a state completely divorced from
its citizens interests. Yet there is hardly a peep because there is no civic
society.

Structurally it seems the hatred between the various groups that form our
society is so visceral and deep that a credible pushback is a near
impossibility.

Without any pushback what does one imagine happens? Entire sections of society
have been thrown under the bus with hand waving and manufactured economic
ideology. This is not how democracy works.

------
calibraxis
"an extreme individualism has stepped in as the alternative—a go-it-alone
perspective narrowly focused on getting an education and becoming successful
on one’s own merit."

It's ironic. Corporations are anything but individualist. They're collectives.
Almost always top-down authoritarian structures that resemble fascism closer
than most fascist governments. And full of bureaucracies that have nothing to
do with making products, like marketing & finance depts.

And in this article, "education" is a euphemism synonymous with college. Not
talking about self-learning. Some administration that gives people
certificates.

~~~
vixen99
"resemble fascism closer than most fascist governments".

Except of course that (1) the corporation only survives ultimately by selling
a product or service that someone of their own free will, wishes to purchase;
i.e., it is of more value to them than their cash. (2) local conditions
excepted (no other job available), people are not forced to work in these
organizations.

Making products is all very well but if your potential customer doesn't know
about it and/or its production is not financed properly, the activity is a
waste of time.

~~~
hyperdunc
"own free will"

Well that's had highly debatable. Consider the amount of resources
corporations spend trying to convince people what their will should be.

