Elites suddenly realize they need blue-collar workers they derided

Elites suddenly realize they need blue-collar workers they derided

Play all audios:

Loading...

OpinionElites suddenly realize they need blue-collar workers they deridedBy Glenn H. ReynoldsPublishedOct. 13, 2022UpdatedOct. 14, 2022, 9:40 a.m. ETBlue-collar workers remain essential in a


functioning modern economy.Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg via Getty Images


“The problem with living under postmodernism,” Dean Hunter Baker commented, “is that everyone is constantly tending the narrative instead of doing something useful.”


It does seem that way, especially if you run in my circles.


But of course, plenty of people are doing something useful. The world is full of those whose diligent and largely unsung work makes the lights stay on, the grocery shelves fill with food,


the toilets flush and even the internet run. They have been ignored, denigrated and even subjected to a species of economic warfare for the last several decades, but suddenly people are


starting to notice that they matter.


It’s what Joel Kotkin calls “the revenge of the material economy.”


The material economy stopped being cool sometime in the 1990s. Blue-collar workers were being laid off, but economic pundits like Clinton Commerce Secretary (now Berkeley professor) Robert


Reich were describing them as obsolete. Instead, the future was going to belong to “knowledge workers” — Reich called them “symbolic analysts” — who dealt in abstract concepts, not in


concrete doings.


This idea seemed very satisfying to people who sat in front of computers for a living, manipulating symbols, like most journalists, academics and bureaucrats. It wasn’t so great for other


people.

Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich testifies before the Joint Economic Committee January 16, 2014. Win McNamee/Getty Images


As manufacturing shifted offshore or to automation, the breezy advice given to the displaced blue-collar workers was “Learn to code.” That is, forget about the grubby real-world stuff you do


for a living, and be more like us, the winners!


And for a while, that advice seemed to make sense. As the tech bubbles inflated, people who produced nothing tangible made massive fortunes. The 19th-century robber barons gave us railroads,


steel mills and ocean liners. The 21st-century equivalents gave us Facebook and Netflix. Blue-collar workers, farmers and small-business owners — people who operate in the material world —


didn’t prosper nearly so much, if they prospered at all.


This peaked during the COVID lockdowns, when the laptop classes worked comfortably from home while small businesses shut down under government mandates.


Now the shoe is on the other foot. Ironically, the likes of Reich were able to take the material economy for granted because it was so productive. When energy, goods and food are cheap and


plentiful, they seem like part of the background, barely worthy of note.


But that’s changing. Thanks in large part to lousy policies that symbolic analysts produced, the material economy can’t be taken for granted anymore.


“The conflict between the material economy and the economy based in ephemera — such as the creative industries, tech and financial services — is likely to define the coming political


conflicts both within countries and between them,” as Kotkin writes. “The laptop elites, led by Silicon Valley, the City of London and Wall Street, generally favor constraining producers of


fuel, food and manufactured goods. In contrast, the masses, who produce and transport those goods, are now starting to realize that they still have the power to demand better futures for


themselves and their families. Like railway workers, they can threaten to shut things down and win much higher pay.”

Blue-collar workers have been pushed to the side as the workers behind


computers have been glorified. Getty Images


Yes. Just as the internet’s communications layer sits on top of a physical layer of wires, routers and servers, so society’s laptop layer sits on top of a physical layer of material goods


and the people who transport and maintain them. No electricity, no internet. No drivers, no DoorDash. All that stuff people were taking for granted turns out to be essential.


The political classes are still mostly in denial. In fact, there’s a strong flavor of “Scarcity is good” coming from elite quarters. The United Nations’ Chronicle website published — and


later deleted — an article saying, “Hungry people are the most productive people.”


This week, UN meteorological agency chief Petteri Taalas opined that the war in Ukraine may be a “blessing” for climate-change efforts — because the resulting shortages are blacking out much


of Europe.


But most people don’t want to be poor, hungry and sitting in the dark, even if the leadership feels otherwise. (The old joke: “What did socialists use before candles? Electricity!”) And, of


course, we all know that the leadership won’t be missing any meals or living by candlelight. Just as the elites cheerfully evaded COVID rules when it suited them, they’ll continue to live


large while the little people are asked to sacrifice.


The question is: What if the little people refuse to go along?


Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.


Filed undereconomyglobal economy10/13/22Read NextIn migrant crisis, Queen Kathy Hochul tells Mayor Eric Ada...ColumnistsCharles GasparinoTrump, take the win! The court gave you a way to stop


terrible tariffsMiranda DevineThe left's assassination fixation only further normalizes political violenceCindy AdamsNothing can stop 'Oh, Mary!' and Cole Escola at the Tony AwardsSee All


ColumnistsCoversToday's CoverFront CoverBack CoverFlip for back coverBrowse CoversTrending Nowon NYPost.comThis story has been shared 64,740 times.64,740Tragic NYC newborn's family says they


know how she died, puppy was 'put down' — after ME confirms pit bull didn't kill herThis story has been shared 52,538 times.52,538Mom who sold daughter, 6, so her eyes and skin could be cut


out and used for 'medicine' gets life in prisonThis story has been shared 48,824 times.48,8243 city-killing asteroids could strike Earth within weeks — generating a million times more


energy than Hiroshima atomic bomb