Fascinating. Lecture by Elizabeth Warren.
If you don’t fancy a vid: Harvard Magazine covers some of the ground, but no pics.
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class
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11 responses to “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class”
Couldn’t follow the vid but read the article. Nub of the argument seems to be that the rise in house prices has negated any benefits of the 2nd income? Which came first though – I was thinking the property rises led to the need for a 2nd income, not the other way round. But maybe it was different in the States. Have ordered her book anyhow.
A side effect of women’s liberation? Maybe the whole liberation of women was just one of those conspiracies, designed to increase the size of the workforce, depressing wages and forcing children into State organised childcare for the purposes of indoctrination?
Actually, I think there have been a whole range of different social, economic and political changes which have all contributed. As to where it started, chickens? eggs?Am not 100% sure but yes, have always been inclined to think of women’s lib as being a pretty big con.
My (all-girls’) school in the 80s more or less banned domestic science in favour of maths and physics. Wanting to have a family and children was seen as letting the side down.You see, I think that for an awful lot of children there is more chance of them learning the maths they need by doing things like domestic science, or woodwork than in formal maths lessons. I like maths and think it is fascinating, but most people don’t share my enthusiasm.
As to women’s lib, it does seem to me that the wrong battle was fought. We should have mobilised for fair treatment for everyone, rather than battling for the relative advantage of one group. This will only ever result in someone else being left behind. Maybe if we had sought universal fairness, we might have avoided the mess outlined by Elizabeth Warren.I like maths too, and physics, but I also needed to learn about health, hygiene and home economics (literally!) Even mathematicians and physicians need to live, don’t they? 😉 And some actually might want to reproduce.
I think I agree with you about fighting the wrong battle. But I wonder if you have to be seen to be fighting on behalf of a disadvantaged group in order to galvanise the need for change? You can’t really say to a reaonsably comfortable group of people: “Let’s work together to sort out the unfairness in society..”
That then begs the question whether most men were reasonably comfortable prior to women’s lib, and I suspect they weren’t either, even though the familiar rhetoric tells us they were. Were people gullible, or right to accept that view? If they hadn’t, the changes they allowed to take place might have ended up being of more benefit to them. (?)I think you are (sadly) probably right, you can’t get people motivated by abstracts, look at all the fuss their is in the media over one identified starving/sick/maimed African child and compare that with the relative indifference over millions.
I think that the goal should be that everyone is fairly treated, that everyone is legally equal. That must be implemented in practice, so that, for example, Tony Blair gets to pay for train tickets, just like everyone else. I have been a Republican for as long as I can remember, because I don’t believe that you can have a just and fair society while even one person is exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else. If the queen is entitled to decide whether or not she pays tax, then I demand that right too!
I think that, on balance, things are probably better for everyone now than they were thirty or forty years ago. However, I don’t think that people are happier or more fulfilled. I think we have taken a wrong turn.
“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness”Yes I quite agree (and LOL about the queen. Do we get the Chinook option too?)
So if we have taken a wrong turn, which I also think we have, what’s the best way back to the right road, do you think? (All map reading jokes aside 😉 )I think we have reached a point now where we cannot go back.
The last century or so our society, politics and economy have been geared up to constant expansion. More and more people, using ever more resources. We have reached the point where that has to stop. That means making some pretty fundamental changes to how we think and what we do. We produce only 60% of our own food, Japan only 40%. Strategically, this is not a good idea. We need to confront issues like managing our population, food production, energy consumption, way of life and work and come up with a set of answers to how we deal with the short and mid term issues and then plan ahead and I think we need to have a 200 year plan. That is the only way to manage the key problem, sustainability.Tom and I were discussing this yesterday. You think people could agree the same plan without tweaking it for 200 years? Nah…. 😉
I agree with you about sustainability and self-sufficiency though. I think the solution might lie in these current and coming problems we’re facing, don’t you? As individuals feel less supported by global and state solutions, they’ll increasingly look to providing their own. Allotments, back garden patches, keeping chickens… it’s happening already, isn’t it?
And I keep hearing that new buzz phrase: 3G. Goes nicely with off-grid, don’t you think?Oh you would need to tweak the plan, but you should have it anyway.
I think we are at a turning point, we must make the decision about population some time or it will be made for us. A stable population living sustainably is something which will take more than a generation to achieve.
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