Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Class Consciousness - What's Missing from the Times and WSJ

I don't know if anyone has read the magazine In These Times recently, but they have a very interesting set of articles on how the United States is devoid of class consciousness, to its own peril.

This astonishing syndrome of Singaporean-style Social Darwinism is at the heart of the philosophy of corporate America and is one of the many forces slowly whittling away at the promise of the American Dream.

Here is an excerpt:
The myth of the self-made man is American culture's own special heart of darkness, helping to explain both its infectious optimism and ruthless greed. The idea holds enough truth and seductiveness to make it easy to forget its delusional dangers.

To reprise Marx's famous formulation, individuals, like humankind, do make their own personal history, but not under conditions they choose. But in America, we choose to ignore the caveat about conditions at our peril.

The myth, or belief, that people are solely what they make of themselves is useful to keep in mind while reading two ongoing series: the New York Times' on class and the Wall Street Journal's on social mobility.

Both focus attention on a truth about American society that runs counter to most people's deep-seated beliefs: There is less social mobility in the United States now than in the '80s (and less then than in the '70s) and less mobility than in many other industrial countries, including Canada, Finland, Sweden and Germany.

Yet 40 percent of respondents to a Times poll said that there was a greater chance to move up from one class to another now than 30 years ago, and 46 percent said it was easier to do so in the United States than in Europe.
Please leave comments and let me know what you think of the article, which is linked here

In the meantime, read In These Times and keep yourself posted on current events over the summer. No se pongan perezosos...

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