03-31-2017, 01:33 PM
(03-30-2017, 11:11 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The trend seems to be larger than could be explained by what's happening in a small part of the country like mountain Appalachia/South alone.
True. But it would seem heavily concentrated in areas in which manufacturing and resource-extraction have become less reliable places of employment.
Say what you want about the factory, but it was long the first step out of poverty. People needed little intellectual refinement to do the work -- just a healthy body and a good work ethic. With a strong union one could get good pay for machine-paced work.
As the manufacturing of material objects and the extraction of raw materials become less important in the economy, so does the intrinsic value of the work. There aren't as many jobs in those activities, so someone starting out in Kentucky or West Virginia is more likely to work in a store than a mine -- even if one has a healthy body and a strong work ethic.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.