All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
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Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#2My biggest takeaway is that in 2013 two-thirds of the North American workforce did not have a 4 year degree.
[1] http://victortanchen.com/educational-attainment-united-state...
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#3It's been obvious for a decade that the "go to the factory every week for 40 years and retire" job sector is on the decline, a decline which has accelerated rapidly more recently. There is no place in our economy for a bolt turner to earn $25 an hour, end of discussion.
This is why I like the idea of at least reducing the cost of a college education, or preferably eliminating it. A regular high school degree is quickly becoming useless to have, if you don't have some white collar skill-set to apply after your school, you're going to be very hungry. It's not fair in my mind to raise the standards of what it means to be "qualified" without giving the various social groups a fair chance to get there.
And of course the problem here is that there aren't enough service jobs for everyone, which is also why I support basic income so that while we retain the option for people to achieve more if they want to that we don't leave everyone else who either doesn't have a particular skill (yet) or just doesn't want to out in the cold to freeze and die. If nothing else, they're valuable consumers.
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#4My biggest takeaway is that in 2013 two-thirds of the North American workforce did not have a 4 year degree. [1] http://victortanchen.com/educational-attainment-united-state...
That in itself isn't such a bad thing because an economy can't actually function if everyone has a degree and expects a high-value white-collar job. The problem is that no effort has been made to guard against the outflow of jobs for less skilled workers that pay well enough to live comfortably.
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#5It's been obvious for a decade that the "go to the factory every week for 40 years and retire" job sector is on the decline, a decline which has accelerated rapidly more recently. There is no place in our economy for a bolt turner to earn $25 an hour, end of discussion. This is why I like the idea of at least reducing the cost of a college education, or preferably eliminating it. A regular high school degree is quick…
I personally disagree that college is the solution. Some people lack the financial stability required to excel in what is essentially a long, expensive vacation learning things that won't directly impact their earnings. I vehemently believe in liberal arts and the importance of people studying philosophy/literature/etc., but studying impractical things is a luxury.
Other countries have robust retraining programs, so the bolt turner could become something else when bolt turning isn't useful anymore. This works in tandem with trade schools, which are also better-supported by governments outside the US.
(And I also am a huge fan of the concept of universal basic income!)
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#6My biggest takeaway is that in 2013 two-thirds of the North American workforce did not have a 4 year degree. [1] http://victortanchen.com/educational-attainment-united-state...
That in itself isn't such a bad thing because an economy can't actually function if everyone has a degree and expects a high-value white-collar job. The problem is that no effort has been made to guard against the outflow of jobs for less skilled workers that pay well enough to live comfortably.
When you "guard against the outflow of jobs for less skilled workers", you are both implying that those people are capable of nothing more, and guarding against rapid progress in less advanced countries where the world's poor suffer terribly from poverty.
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#7I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more efficient filtering mechanisms (like a test-based credentialism where instruction and assessment are separated) would be very useful but they will not increase the amount of people with the mental characteristics (high intelligence and conscientiousness) that are becoming increasingly valuable in the modern economy, nor will it decrease the portion that lack these things. Panning does not create gold.
I think a good assumption is this separation was and is a basicly unavoidable result of technology and economics, not any policy or set of policies. We wrestle not with flesh and blood:http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/07/we-wrestle-not-with-fle...
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#8I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more eff…
What you are describing is the signaling model of education (, which I agree with).[1]
[1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed....
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#9[deleted]
Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class
#10What is society's ideal for the average white working class? What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food? Is it getting to live in a very expensive nursing home when they retire? Is it equality where both husband and wife are responsible exactly 50% in finances, chores and taking care of the kids? Or have the time & money to spend a lot more time with the kids; Will welfare help that cause?
Or are the ideals something America's white working class is leaving behind? Such as, belonging in religion with compassionate & authentic people; as people no longer believe in religion and the ones who still do are less compassionate and less authentic? Or, is it to be in an marriage with a partner who you can trust will stay with you through thick and thin, until death; as society thinks a marriage where one partner is unhappy should end in divorce, because society thinks that will be better for the children than to be in a unhappy marriage? Or is it to have children who you can trust will take care of you when you grow old; as society says children have the right to do whatever they choose to do and should not be burdened with the responsibility of taking care of their parents, because that's the government's obligation?
Are America's white working class ideals in front of them, or behind them?
I suggest when as a collective, they finally have clarity to see what they really do want, rather than what other people say they should be wanting, they will move towards their ideals, instead of away from them, and then things will get "better" all on their own.