Tuesday
(0)The troublesome [American] underclass is not huge, but its influence is much greater than its numbers. It is a visible problem if one goes to the wrong part of any city. It is much more in people's minds than it is present in their lives. Indeed, it may be the lack of everyday acquaintance with the underclass that makes it all the more threatening.
It's a little like terrorism. The British have lived with it for thirty years. It hasn't touched many of us very directly, but we have always known that it might, and have always seen evidence of it out of the corner of our eye, as it were. We are, to that extent, ready for it when it comes much closer.
- Richard D. North, Rich is Beautiful
I deal daily with the American underclass in a small southern city, and this is nonsense. Our layabout class is large in number, 15% or so of our population live off taxes.
It has a tremendous real effect- its members commit almost all crime and are at fault in about a quarter of the car accidents. Underclass deadbeats absorb a tremendous amount of money and effort. They make the schools useless as schools, places of temporary detention instead.
Finallly dealing with those who produce only demands sucks tremendous talent and effort out of our culture. This opportunity cost is probably worse than the direct cost in corpses, cash. and ignorance.
Posted by staghounds at July 12, 2005 03:31 PM
I really do have the hots for the vigour with which so many decent Americans, rather than indulge in sentimental guilt-fests about 'deprivation' (which I once saw in a Cairo slum, but which I have never seen in the UK), come right out and label the awfulness of the underclass for what it is (see the first post on this page)
On Channel Four last Sunday night we had a journalist complaining about how what he referred to as the 'British working class' was currently scorned and detested. But he didn't deal with the central flaw in his thesis: that most of the people he was describing simply don't work.
Part of me, I confess, feels sorry for them. The rest of us are either complicit or active in the erection of the welfarism that drip feeds the underclass into mulish, layabout obesity. But not that big a part of me. It is long past time, in my humble view, that Atlas got with the plan and shrugged.
But my own use of language reminds me why, in Britain at least, that will not happen. In a Washington D.C. book shop I recently saw two schoolgirls hunting down a copy of Ayn Rand's masterpiece. Yet hardly anyone over here knows who she is and the culture is utterly hostile to her importation.
God, this is depressing.
Posted by Edward Lud at July 12, 2005 04:32 PM
Isn't it odd how the affluent London leftwhinge is the only element in the United Kingdom that talks about "working class"? I presume that the Hampstead glitterati still live in the joyous notion that parts of the UK are still the land of DH Lawrence - all outside toilets, washing hanging in the streets and miners wending their way home after a hard day on the picket line ...
Posted by Julian Taylor at July 12, 2005 05:17 PM
The book looks good.
The American underclass absolutely has disproportionate influence based on the cottage-industry of serving them as constituents.
Their negative effect on urban economies must be considered as well -- that “lack of everyday acquaintance” is frequently purposeful.
Posted by jk at July 12, 2005 06:42 PM
Would that "small southern city" be in one of those Red states that takes in far more Federal dollars than it pays in income tax?
Because I gotta tell you, that description of your "underclass" sounds pretty much like the whole South in general.
ALABAMA - Too Stupid To Build Cars
Posted by h.Bosch at July 12, 2005 06:49 PM
I deal daily with the American underclass in a small southern city...
Fine, but most of America does not. The underclass is something we see on TV rather than at the Mall.
Posted by asus phreak at July 12, 2005 07:50 PM
Of course given that least educated people in the US tend to vote Democratic, I would suggest that the problem is with Blue state type people living in Red states.
Posted by ATM at July 12, 2005 09:34 PM
Fine, but most of America does not. The underclass is something we see on TV rather than at the Mall.
Really? Where do you live?
Posted by Tim Haas at July 13, 2005 03:20 AM
Menlo Park, NJ.
Average-household-income-$65,189 Menlo Park, New Jersey? Ah.
Posted by Tim Haas at July 13, 2005 03:45 PM
I sure wish I made $65,189 per year. But Menlo Park isn't Beverly Hills, hell, it isn't even Red Bank. But fact is most people live just fine. Just wander over to Menlo Mall and that is the real face of boring middle class America.
Posted by asus phreak at July 13, 2005 04:13 PM
Intersting that other posters bring up something I originally had in my comment but edited out as too obvious. Our underclass of criminal leeches have made whole areas "no-go zones" for those who can manage to avoid them.
Mr. Phreak doesn't see them at the mall, but I'll wager he knows where he'd better not park his car over night.
Posted by staghounds at July 13, 2005 04:56 PM
The rest of us are either complicit or active in the erection of the welfarism that drip feeds the underclass into mulish, layabout obesity. But not that big a part of me. It is long past time, in my humble view, that Atlas got with the plan and shrugged.
Posted by Flag at July 14, 2005 02:58 AM
