Working

I urge you all to have a look at a piece by John Derbyshire over at NRO, ‘The Jobs Americans Should Not Have to Do?’ subtitled, ‘One must wonder what kind of society we have become.’

The article starts with the news that the Obama administration has declared war on unpaid internships, goes on the reflect on the disappearance of the summer job and the dignity of labor.

Da Derb raises a number of points with his characteristic pessimistic wit.

“What seems to be going on here is a war against the notion that any American citizen should do any kind of non-academic work before the age of 25 — before, that is, a college degree and a couple of years of law school have been completed.”

Citing a number of People in High Places (Obama at the top) who want everyone to graduate from college, he writes:

“A person acquainted with the real world would recognize this for what it is: the romantic piffle of fools living in money-padded cocoons. There, however, you see the circularity of the issue. The overclass types who extrude this gibberish are not much acquainted with the real world; and one reason for this is, they have never done low-paid, low-skill work. They may have done higher-status internships for little or no pay, but it seems the administration now wants to shut youngsters off from even that much acquaintance with the world of work.”

And:

“I have noticed that if, among 30-something colleagues, I mention one of my own school or college summer jobs — factory or construction work, dishwashing, retail sales, bartending — my colleagues will look amused, and a bit baffled. How come a guy as well-educated as Derb was shoveling concrete? Boy, he’s a real eccentric! No, I’m not. Those experiences were perfectly normal for a person of my generation. They’re just not normal any more, not for children of the American middle and upper classes.”

And pointing out that conservative elites are no better:

“For a comparison with the “conservative” sensibility of our own time, recall Karl Rove’s remark: “I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes.” Good heavens, Karl, of course you don’t: The poor lad might break a fingernail.)”

I’ve never picked fruit, though I did buck hay summers for a friend with too few acres to interest the guys with the machines that do that kind of thing. I have however been a waiter, bar tender, garbageman (six years total,) sewage treatment plant operator/lab tech (another six years,) and a few temp odd and sundries.

And of course, I’m studying to be a truck driver now after realizing journalism wasn’t going anywhere quickly, and getting that PhD would require three years of grad assistant poverty pay plus years of serf labor as an adjunct to – maybe – reach a salary level a truck driver can reach with a year’s experience.

I’m gambling on the assumption that no matter how much they screw up the economy, people will still have to eat, wear clothes, etc – and those will be delivered in trucks.

Some observations and concerns:

One, I think a great deal of the economic idiocy in high places can be attributed to the fact that our current “overclass” has been raised unaware of the reality that wealth comes from growing stuff, making stuff, and moving stuff around.

There seems to be a curious misapprehension among elites that wealth comes from policy studies and lit crit.

And about garbagemen; I worked with guys with college degrees, semiliterates, and the occasional prison work-release. No one who’s done that could possibly buy into idiocies like the above-mentioned plan to put everybody through college.

One gets the impression from the quotes Derb provides that these people are unaware of he existence of the lower quartile IQ class.

And when I was a garbageman, we had yard service, i.e. we toted the trash on our backs (average 65 pounds) to the truck, except in alleys (much easier.) My experience includes doing this in the year of the great heat wave when temperatures regularly hit 114 degrees F and never went below 100, day or night, for a solid month.

Though our little town still has the older-style trucks you throw the trash in the back of, most communities of any size are going to the self-loading trucks which require only a single attendant to pull the container to the lifting arm.

So, how are men with little education, few skills, low IQs and the odd felony record to make a living? Garbageman paid enough to live pretty well actually (not to mention what you could junk out – you wouldn’t believe what Americans throw away.) And it was physical enough to absorb excess energies that might otherwise go into serious mischief.

What is my son going to do to make some money, learn the world does not owe him a living – everything must be paid for, and that to live and support a family a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do?