White Working Class, With a New Foreword by Mark Cuban and a New Preface by the Author: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

Parti d'un article écrit le jour de l'élection de Donald Trump, cet ouvrage est une étude de l’intérieur de la « classe laborieuse blanche » (White Working Class). Son message tient en une phrase : « Si vous vous souciez de changement climatique, de droits à l'avortement, d'immigration ou d'incarcération de masse, vous feriez bien de vous soucier, aussi, de bons emplois et de dignité sociale pour les Américains de toutes races, qui n'ont pas fait d'études supérieures » (Préface). L’élection de Donald Trump a une cause systémique. « L’élite » qui dirige le pays est une élite intellectuelle. Elle veut faire la nation à son image. D’une part elle veut imposer ses valeurs culturelles, qui ne sont pas partagées. D’autre part, et c’est le point essentiel, elle veut construire l’économie sur le primat du diplôme. La classe laborieuse blanche et les emplois qui la font vivre n’y auront donc pas leur place. Déjà ses conditions de vie se sont tellement dégradées qu'elle n'en peut plus. Elle n'aspire qu'à la vengeance. Or, la vision de l’élite est fausse. Le progrès ne va pas remplacer l'homme, mais augmenter ses capacités. Il peut apporter de « bons emplois » à l’ensemble de la population, sans qu’elle ait besoin de faire des études supérieures. Ce qui serait la solution à ses maux. Le livre reprend, point à point, les critiques de l'élite vis-à-vis de la classe laborieuse. Il montre que tout ce qui paraît « mal » n’est que la manifestation de la culture d’un groupe humain, tout à fait respectable.

While always considering myself part of the working class, this book helped me see that as a professional, I was culturally in a different population cohort with different goals and different ideas than the majority of the working class. For example, whereas I thought it natural to move for a better job, this book explained that the concept of moving for a job opportunity is characteristic of the professional/management elite and actively disdained by the true working class, who more value living close to family and friends and putting proximity to them ahead of career moves. This was all new and helped me understand friends and, especially, family members who share those values, rather than mine. There were many other similar revelations that values I thought to be universal in the US were indeed unique to my cohort.So, for professionals and managers, I highly recommend this book. It's short, an easy read, and full of insights that will make the US sociological and political aspects much clearer.

If you are working class you should know two things at the start: 1. This is an anti-populist, anti-Trump book and 2. the author is among the elite of the elite. Her connection to working class life is merely that she married a fellow from a blue-collar background. They both went to Harvard Law. Like many Progressive elites, she may be "for" the working class but she isn't "of" it. But at least she makes her political biases transparent.

In the chapter on college, the author fails to even mention the state university systems in the US. These school systems is large, provides a wide range of options, are good quality, accessible, local. They are set up to address the exact issues of class mobility this book talks about. To not mention state universities is glaring and deliberate. It is something a "shyster" lawyer would to do win an argument at the expense of the truth. I had to stop reading at this point since I could not trust the author.

I liked this book. It reads like a dramatic “awakening to reality” to the coastal elites that dominate mass media and politics. As someone who grew up in the middle class Midwest, there were more “no duh” notions, than not, however.I am just amazed at how oblivious the 50% of our population is to the other 50%. They seem more comforted by just calling everyone that is not like them an ignorant racist. Sigh. This is not a new phenomenon.Prior generations were called the forgotten man or the silent majority. Good discourse here overall.