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I think there are quite a few alternative explanations for the data cited in the article than the ones the author proposes: > "Today, one in six American men b
by photochemsyn 5y ago
I think there are quite a few alternative explanations for the data cited in the article than the ones the author proposes:
> "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10 million men. This number has more than doubled since the 1970s."
We have this place in the USA called "The Rust Belt" which was once a dynamic and active manufacturing center providing millions of well-paid jobs for these now unemployed American men. California once had a world-class electronics manufacturing industry (and a garment manufacturing industry) that provided hundreds of thousands of such jobs. Under the rubric of neoliberal globalization, those jobs were shipped out to Mexico, China, Indonesia, India and other low-wage centers, and the huge cut in labor costs went right into the pockets of a small fraction of now-extremely wealthy Americans. Why neglect that phenomenon?
> "Over the past half-century, the number of men per capita behind bars has more than quadrupled."
Again, we have a robust alternative explanation: the explosion in incarceration under the War on Drugs program launched by Nixon in the early 1970s and continued and amplified by successive Democratic and Republican administrations. This resulted in the explosive growth of the quite profitable private prison complex (which did not exist before the 1970s), and of course enforcement was highly skewed towards poor and minority groups. These groups were far more likely to smoke crack on the street corner than to snort cocaine in private clubs, and a 100-wt of cocaine powder was considered equivalent to a 1-wt of crack crystal in sentencing.
So if the author wants solutions to these problems, why not promote rewriting domestic and international law to exert significant penalties on corporations who outsource manufacturing overseas, and also end the War on Drugs by eliminating incarceration for possession of drugs, and instead focus on a public education approach emphasizing the benefits of getting off drugs and alcohol?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>This resulted in the explosive growth of the quite profitable private prison complex (which did not exist before the 1970s) The government prison complex is orders of magnitude larger. Welfare is how they keep the poors from rocking the boat. Government jobs is the same tranquilizer but for people slightly better off. Edit: fine, maybe it's only one order of magnitude bigger.
- photochemsyn 5y agoI think you need to check your data sources. > "Private prisons in the United States incarcerated 115,428 people in 2019, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people housed in private prisons has increased 32% compared to an overall rise in the prison population of 3%." https://nicic.gov/private-prisons-united-states-2021 https://nicic.gov/private-prisons-united-states-2021
- s1artibartfast 5y agoSo a single order of magnitude larger
- imtringued 5y agoHonestly, what if full time jobs (40 hour work weeks) are just a form of day care for men? Someone who worked "hard" all day and is the bread winner has way more leeway to get away with more anti social behavior than someone who is at home all day and doing the same thing. The politics of endless growth are actually just a way to keep people busy. No wonder depressions and their massive loss of jobs lead to so much instability.
- jelly 5y agoThose are certainly causal explanations for the data, but once those phenomena are here they impact people's expectations. Change in expectations is clearly what the author is focusing on. For example, the emergence of the rust belt leaves a lot of unemployed men - the impacted parts of society won't continue to expect the same work ethic and commitment from their men 40-50 years later.
- photochemsyn 5y agoAs in, "In the past young men could look to the example of their fathers, who had well-paid automotive manufacturing / steel mill / electronics assembly jobs that allowed them to care for their families and even put a downpayment on a small home, but now they have no such examples and no such expectations of moving into that kind of position at adulthood." Okay, that's an expectation issue. Why is the author ignoring the change in conditions that led to that change in expectations?
- hotpotamus 5y agoFrom what I've seen, there's an entire industry of conservative economists Like Arthur Laffer and Larry Kudlow (to name a mere two, there are entire billionaire funded thinktanks like AEI dedicated to this) to deny the reality of the issues you mention, not unlike scientists paid to deny Climate Change or Tobacco's cancer links. And because of this, conservatives don't even believe that such issues exist.
- ryan93 5y agowhats the solution? people in poor countries will work 60-70 hrs a week for a fraction of the pay
- rayiner 5y agoThere’s also a couple of billion people in Asia who think the exact same way as the author about families and culture. I’ve never read Laffer or Kudlow. I’m interpreting society through the values of my Bangladeshi parents. And they lead me to the same conclusion. And given the remarkably higher income mobility of Asian kids raised in the bottom income compared to white kids, I think social liberals are sticking their heads in the sand by trying to hand wave away these social trends and blaming conservative think tanks.