To start the subject of the post, here is a cartoon from The Week:

Referencing a recent post, the cowboy culture, one of independent success and individual respect, in their battle against benign neglect by the college-elite, has provoked an attack against freedom (and the necessity) of education.

It is a tragedy because education, knowledge, familiar awareness, social judgment, and all the other nuances of education and freedom of information are not relevant to the central issue. The central issue is mistreatment of the labor classes by government and a society that has grown sophisticated and complex. Today’s college-elite don’t ride a single horse; they ride a wave of investment and the wind of the Internet.

Mariner recently had his garage roof replaced. It was finished in one very hot day by five laborers. Their persistence and craftsmanship were remarkable. Sweating and tired, they had accomplished something a significant percentage of college-elites could not possibly have accomplished. Yet, their profession is discounted and society does not grant them social achievement or notable financial benefits. They are treated as a pseudo servant class similar to the workers on Downton Abbey.

There are remedies. But a lot is in the hands of all three branches of federal and state government.

A relatively easy repair would be to reinstate the legislation that required corporations to guarantee full retirement – a deliberate target of Reaganites in the last century. Also in the last century, right to work laws were imposed deliberately to abolish unions.

Fortunately, educators are making a move toward labor-style education beyond high school – not through conscientiousness, mind you, economics is forcing the change.

A bit more sophisticated is to reintroduce labor to community boards and agencies so that labor has a voice at the street level. This was a function of labor unions back in the day.

The last repair is visibly represented in another The Week cartoon:

The seemingly irrational objection by MAGA labor to discretionary spending, which helps the unwealthy, is that the government is not providing a viable economic structure – the rich continue to grow richer and the poor continue to grow poorer.

One simple example is the resistance government has to raising the minimum wage (childcare and many other family economic issues would disappear).

Mariner feels this may be the most difficult obstruction to repair. Philosophically, the United States does not have unlimited access to resources; capitalism works best when everyone can have a share of benefits. Given the disruption of global warming, an emerging redefinition of what a nation is, the excessive over-population of the planet, international corporate control of supply chains, etc., capitalism must make room for socialism – a most difficult task for a nation created as a capitalist dreamland.

Ancient Mariner