Christopher Caldwell writing in the New York Times Magazine:
Why do presidential candidates touting their
concern for the economy pose with factory workers rather than with
ballet troupes? After all, the U.S. now has more choreographers
(16,340) than metal-casters (14,880), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
More people make their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos
(82,960) than running lathes (65,840), and there are almost three times
as many security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690). Whereas 30
percent of Americans worked in manufacturing in 1950, fewer than 15
percent do now. The economy as politicians present it is a folkloric
thing …It is that the transition is over. The new economy we have been
promised is in place. …The “jobs of the future” that were promised 20
years ago are here. Choreographers, blackjack dealers and security
guards have replaced factory workers as the economy’s backbone, if not
yet its symbol. New economies have always required a kind of initiation fee of those who would participate fully in them.
January 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Why is this surprising? It’s not as if politicians have stopped posing with farmers, after all.
How long did it take them to *start* posing with factory workers?
January 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Funny… this was my exact argument today with a local pollster here in Portland today.