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> A common answer from the chattering class is money. The conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-wedlock births. > But broken homes are a fa

> A common answer from the chattering class is money. The conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-wedlock births. > But broken homes are a fairly recent phenomenon. I don't get why the author dismisses income, and especially income inequality, so quickly. Since the 1960s the income gap between the affluent and the working class has grown a lot. The quality of "working class" jobs has also declined. Where in 1960, "working class" meant you could afford a house, a car, healthcare, and often had a pension provided by your employer. A 2022 working class job looks more like Amazon warehouse work where you can be fired at any time for failing to meet some algorithmic quota. It's no wonder then that respect plays a role: > Money usually becomes an issue because he seems unwilling to keep at a job for any length of time, usually because of issues related to respect. Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss. Perhaps the real failing of the upper class is creating jobs that treat the working class like disposable cogs, liable to be discarded at will. And yet the author subtly shifts the blame for onto the working class for not putting up with it.

PeterisP 5y ago
The 1960s USA is the exception rather than the norm, and thus is not a good point of comparison. It's a peak of the very peculiar post-WW2 global economy where most other industrial countries had their economies destroyed and this gave the USA middle class a unique privileged opportunity enabling conditions that weren't possible almost anywhere else, weren't possible for USA before, and most likely won't be possible for USA or anyone else ever again. Working conditions becoming unlike USA 1960s are an inevitable regression back to the norm as the rest of the world recovered after WW2. Look at the conditions of USA 1920s-1930s (or perhaps UK 1960s, or all of the non-Western countries today) for comparison instead; the society has to function well in these working conditions (which are quite ordinary in both historical and current global context) instead of hoping that a return to the 1960s-USA model (which simply won't happen) would fix the problems.

PeterisP 5y ago

The 1960s USA is the exception rather than the norm, and thus is not a good point of comparison. It's a peak of the very peculiar post-WW2 global economy where most other industrial countries had their economies destroyed and this gave the USA middle class a unique privileged opportunity enabling conditions that weren't possible almost anywhere else, weren't possible for USA before, and most likely won't be possible for USA or anyone else ever again. Working conditions becoming unlike USA 1960s are an inevitable regression back to the norm as the rest of the world recovered after WW2. Look at the conditions of USA 1920s-1930s (or perhaps UK 1960s, or all of the non-Western countries today) for comparison instead; the society has to function well in these working conditions (which are quite ordinary in both historical and current global context) instead of hoping that a return to the 1960s-USA model (which simply won't happen) would fix the problems.