Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 by Charles Murray. This is probably the most talked about book of this year - raving reviews and criticism has been pouring non-stop all over the blogosphere. Yes, no question Murray is right of center and also right of just world theory. I don't agree with everything inferred by Murray (he includes "religion" but leaves out thrift) but the book was more or less bipartisan and phenomenally brutal in exposing the cognitive dissonance of everyone of in this country. The sad reality is people who should be reading this book probably will never read it.
A book that is brutally honest sans any political correctness (sorta of.. may be that's why he picked just white American!!)...
All I can say is - thank goodness for Charles Murray !!
For Benjamin Franklin, "only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
A book that start's out with such a power packed words...
And so this book uses evidence based overwhelmingly on whites in the description of the new upper class in part 1 and based exclusively on whites in the description of the new lower class in part 2. My message: Don’t kid yourselves that we are looking at stresses that can be remedied by attacking the legacy of racism or by restricting immigration. The trends I describe exist independently of ethnic heritage. In the penultimate chapter, I broaden the picture to include everyone.
From 1960 through the early 1980s, changes in Fishtown male dropout from the labor force moved roughly in tandem with the national unemployment rate. But after the mid-1980s, the argument that “there weren’t any jobs” loses force. Unemployment went down, but dropout from the labor force among white males with a Fishtown education continued to increase. During the fourteen years from 1995 through 2008, no year had higher than 6.0 percent unemployment, and the median was 5.0 percent. For mature economies, these are exceptionally low unemployment rates. But those who remember these years don’t need the numbers. “Help wanted” signs were everywhere, including for low-skill jobs, and the massive illegal immigration that occurred during those years was underwritten by a reality that everyone recognized: America had jobs for everyone who wanted to work.
When Aguiar and Hurst decomposed the ways that men spent their time, the overall pattern for men with no more than a high school diploma is clear. The men of Fishtown spent more time goofing around. Furthermore, the worst results were found among men without jobs. In 2003–5, men who were not employed spent less time on job search, education, and training, and doing useful things around the house than they had in 1985.13 They spent less time on civic and religious activities. They didn’t even spend their leisure time on active pastimes such as exercise, sports, hobbies, or reading. All of thos figures were were lower in 2003–5 than they had been in 1985. How did they spend that extra leisure time? Sleeping and watching television. The increase in television viewing was especially large—from 27.7 hours per week in 1985 to 36.7 hours in 2003–5. Employed men with no more than high school diplomas also goofed off more in 2003–5 than in 1985, but less consistently and with smaller differentials.
To sum up: There is no evidence that men without jobs in the 2000s before the 2008 recession hit were trying hard to find work but failing. It was undoubtedly true of some, but not true of the average jobless man. The simpler explanation is that white males of the 2000s were less industrious than they had been twenty, thirty, or fifty years ago, and that the decay in industriousness occurred overwhelmingly in Fishtown.
A better way to think about the new lower class is in terms of your own extended family or in terms of the stories your friends have told you about their families. At least a few relatives in those circles will be people who have never quite gotten their acts together and are the despair of the parents and siblings, even though they seem perfectly pleasant when you meet them. That’s mostly what the new lower class involves. Individually, they’re not much of a problem. Collectively, they can destroy the kind of civil society that America requires.
When Aguiar and Hurst decomposed the ways that men spent their time, the overall pattern for men with no more than a high school diploma is clear. The men of Fishtown spent more time goofing around. Furthermore, the worst results were found among men without jobs. In 2003–5, men who were not employed spent less time on job search, education, and training, and doing useful things around the house than they had in 1985.13 They spent less time on civic and religious activities. They didn’t even spend their leisure time on active pastimes such as exercise, sports, hobbies, or reading. All of thos figures were were lower in 2003–5 than they had been in 1985. How did they spend that extra leisure time? Sleeping and watching television. The increase in television viewing was especially large—from 27.7 hours per week in 1985 to 36.7 hours in 2003–5. Employed men with no more than high school diplomas also goofed off more in 2003–5 than in 1985, but less consistently and with smaller differentials.
To sum up: There is no evidence that men without jobs in the 2000s before the 2008 recession hit were trying hard to find work but failing. It was undoubtedly true of some, but not true of the average jobless man. The simpler explanation is that white males of the 2000s were less industrious than they had been twenty, thirty, or fifty years ago, and that the decay in industriousness occurred overwhelmingly in Fishtown.
A better way to think about the new lower class is in terms of your own extended family or in terms of the stories your friends have told you about their families. At least a few relatives in those circles will be people who have never quite gotten their acts together and are the despair of the parents and siblings, even though they seem perfectly pleasant when you meet them. That’s mostly what the new lower class involves. Individually, they’re not much of a problem. Collectively, they can destroy the kind of civil society that America requires.
A book that also includes that nauseating unfairness...
Some examples? Unseemliness is television producer Aaron Spelling building a house of 56,500 square feet and 123 rooms. Unseemliness is Henry McKinnell, the CEO of Pfizer, getting a $99 million golden parachute and an $82 million pension after a tenure that saw Pfizer’s share price plunge.15 They did nothing illegal. Spelling had the money to build his dream house, just as millions of others would like to do, and got zoning approval for his plans. McKinnell’s separation package was paid according to the contract he had signed with Pfizer when he became CEO. But the outcomes were inappropriate for time or place, not suited to the circumstances. They were unbecoming and unfitting. They were unseemly.
All I can say is - thank goodness for Charles Murray !!
For Benjamin Franklin, "only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
On the other hand, virtue makes government easy to sustain: “The expense of our civil government we have always borne, and can easily bear, because it is small. A virtuous and laborious people may be cheaply governed.”
Few years after I moved to this country, I realized this country was going the Indian route of class disparity but little did I know that we had already arrived at that destination. My only wish and hope is that this country should never embark on the other disastrous route - read the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity (thanks Fareed) to get an idea of what I am talking about. That is one destination that any humans and animals should never arrive at.
Few years after I moved to this country, I realized this country was going the Indian route of class disparity but little did I know that we had already arrived at that destination. My only wish and hope is that this country should never embark on the other disastrous route - read the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity (thanks Fareed) to get an idea of what I am talking about. That is one destination that any humans and animals should never arrive at.
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