The New Oxymoron: The Middle Class American Worker

For a brief historical moment, it seems, American workers could lead the proverbial "life of Riley."  Unlike his shirt and tie television series cohorts, Ralph worked at "the plant," but nevertheless managed to maintain a home in the suburbs and a decent life style.  The millions of unemployed and underemployed across America should by now be getting the message.  There used to be a certain amount of hair-splitting over what actually allowed one to be considered middle class.  Was Riley a member of the middle class or the working class?  Though once at least a bit blurred, what is now coming into painfully sharp focus is that anyone who actually works for a living, that is, gets a wage for anything other than white collar efforts can forget about joining the "bourgeoisie".  The great seer of the new world order is Tom Friedman who has found endless ways of expressing the same message in his books and in his New York Times column.  Whether, on his flat Earth, you are an impoverished woman living in a developing country or an American college graduate looking for work, you need to recreate yourself, make yourself useful, cast yourself in the role of entrepreneur, reach deep down into your creative juices and find some way to house, feed and clothe yourself without being in someone else's employ.  Since a world entirely inhabited by creative entrepreneurs would leave no one to do a lot of what society needs to get done unattended, Friedman has essentially made mere workers into an untouchable class, living beyond the castle moat, losers.  And don't even think about going to the union hall looking for assistance.  There is no union hall.  While the capital city of the UAW (United Auto Workers) declares bankruptcy, thousands of non-union auto workers at the plants in our majestic Southland are busily assembling Japanese and American cars.  Not so good wages, not so good health plans, no pensions, no grievance procedures, no unions, but, gee, at least they have jobs.   Organize?  Go on strike?  Just try it, sister, and your work station will be outsourced to Indonesia.  It's just a matter of time in any case.  We really don't need you anymore.  It would be better if you didn't exist at all.