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MiddleClassCulpability 6 - 08 Feb 2010 - Main.AmandaBell
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| | The Culpability of the Middle Class
Too often in class, an important point that has been stifled before it can be developed is the culpability of the middle class for the woeful state of affairs in which our nation is currently mired. By this I do not mean that working-class Americans should take the brunt of the blame for the egregious wealth disparity that exists in our nation or the recent subprime mortgage crisis that has further driven hard-working individuals into financial ruin. That blame falls primarily on wealthy individuals who give little regard to the human beings their uninhibited wealth-acquisition harms. However, we would be remiss in not recognizing that some of the actors who executed these evils, like Charles Prince (one of the architects of the recent mortgage crisis), are products of the middle class themselves. | | | >fail, the favorite sons that actually make it in America will
>continue to return as predators, not saviors.
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< | This is true, although I would also say that fear is a big factor in addition to under-analyzed self-interest. (More on that some other time.) Thank you Taylor, this comment reminds me of an experience I had with a fortunate son who had bought into a worldview that did not serve working-class people, including his own mother. I’ll call him Jose. He was the grown son of a woman I’ll call Margarita, who was a union member at a laundry plant I was organizing. | >
> | This is true, although I would also say that fear is a big factor in addition to under-analyzed self-interest. (More on that some other time.) Thank you Taylor, this comment reminds me of an experience I had with a fortunate son who had bought into a worldview that did not serve working-class people, including his own mother. I’ll call him Jose. He was the grown son of a woman I’ll call Margarita, who was a union member at a laundry plant I was organizing. Jose was in his early 30s and owned a small construction business. | | | The day we reached a tentative agreement with the company, I invited all the members to come over to the motel where their shop stewards and the union officers were debating the TA. While we were in the lobby, Jose started talking about how his mom shouldn’t be “forced” to participate in the health plan the union had negotiated. We had got the employer up to paying for most of this plan, but the members still had to pay a $400 monthly premium. He said that Margarita would be better off getting her own health insurance “for $200 a month on the open market” and receiving the $400 as extra pay. (While some union contracts allow people who don’t take the health plan to get a credit back on their salary, that is a very hard goodie to bargain and this union did yet not have the leverage to get something that nice.) He made it clear he thought Margarita was being forced into a vaguely sovietized collective that deprived her of individual freedom. |
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