Thursday, July 24, 2003
(9:32 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The definitive guide to what is wrong with American society
I've been very responsible lately, working every day, but today I just couldn't hold out any longer. I have the day off, bringing me down to about 30 hours for this week. Since I am single and don't live alone, I can easily afford to live on a 30-hour-a-week paycheck, especially in the inexpensive environs of Kankakee County. Partly, this is due to my having a head start on things -- no student loans, a fairly new truck given to me as a gift, all the basic furniture provided for me. Barring a catastrophe, I could continue at this pace indefinitely, leaving me plenty of time to read and write and do arithmetic.
Contrast this with the standard situation: someone just starting out in real life after leaving college is burdened by thousands of dollars in debt. I'm sure most people are able to pay them off eventually (I'm too lazy to search for statistics), but this is just one of the many clever mechanisms in our society that make everything about money. Since I know that I'm going to have to make decent money right out of college to pay off my debts, I had better pick a major that will prepare me for the "real world." Colleges largely cease being institutes of higher learning for most people and become glorified vocational schools; the major system ceases to be a way of pursuing specialized study in an area of interest and become the first step along "career paths" (witness the many "what can I do with a major in...." conversations).
This "practical" approach to education is a failure. Instead of being widely educated people who are able to succeed in a variety of jobs, college graduates largely become over-specialized people who will find themselves trapped in one particular field. If it turns out that they don't like the job once they get into it or that they can't succeed in the field, that's really too bad -- unless, of course, one wants to go back to school, incur even more debt, and raise the stakes even higher for the next step.
In point of fact, since many people have developed an over-reaching, debt-based lifestyle, the option of going back to school might not be open to them. Encumbered by their possessions, which they likely do not even enjoy so much as feel like they should have, they become trapped where they are. Except for a few fabulously wealthy people, everyone is always on the verge of bankrupcy and is thus terrified of unemployment. The solution: work more, work harder.
Whom does this situation benefit? Certainly not the vast majority of working-class people. Even the most well-off in that group find themselves in essentially the same situation, except with shinier toys. Certainly not the poor, who are poor largely through unfortunate coincidence: the majority that is working itself to death is likely to do nothing but resent those "fortunate" enough not to work. Since their overworked, stress-filled lifestyles render them uncreative, they are likely to believe that the only worthwhile life is the one they are living and to insist that the poor must work as much as possible (leading to the bizarre policies whereby the poor have to work a certain number of hours to "earn" their government aid).
The people who benefit are the extremely wealthy, who provide over-priced, cheaply made consumer goods that everyone can have, so as to conceal the qualitative difference between the truly wealthy and the middle class, and whose relentless drive for ever more profit leads them to "cut costs" by overworking their employees (among other things). The ruling class also benefits from having a docile, unimaginative public that is too busy and "stressed" to take any real interest in what government does.
The majority of people become convinced that the market is their only salvation, when it is really what is sucking them dry, and that government programs would only increase their taxes and thus force them to work more. In practice, however, we can see that in Canada and Europe, where broad social welfare programs such as universal health care and free university education have been in place for years, people work fewer hours, are better educated, and quite simply enjoy a higher quality of life than their American counterparts.
Whenever I bring this up, some conservative will usually point out that in America, even if we are not all equal, at least we have the possibility to succeed -- that is, I assume, the possibility of joining that small clique of truly wealthy, truly "independent" people. I think that is generally in line with the ideals of the American revolution, but it is an impoverished idea of freedom and opportunity. It is equivalent to saying that the poor should not complain because they have the opportunity to win the lottery. A truly free country will provide genuine freedom of mind and body to all its citizens, and by that standard, America is not a free country.
This concludes my definitive critique. I am off to buy a lottery ticket.
