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Let's say we have a society where everyone (as in 100% of the population) has a very strong work ethic and took advantage of all the educational opportunities offered to them. This may sound unrealistic but let's assume hard-work is hard-wired into the genes of everyone living there.
Let's also assume this society is also built on free-market capitalism. There's equally strong opposition for welfare for the poor as well as bailouts for the rich (who failed) and this is very strictly adhered by.
How would you see this society turning out, particularly the lower class (let's say the bottom 20%)?
I personally think the overall standard of living there will be much higher than what we currently have although income inequality will still be there, maybe even greater. However, the bottom 20% will probably enjoy a higher standard of living than our current 20%. There will always be people who are born with better opportunities or better genes and they'll get ahead - whether we like it or not, that's a fact of life
It would be great if everyone had a strong work ethic but I am not so sure about the educated and what that would do for us. I am not sure what you mean by "got educated". Are you talking about higher education? I don't see higher education as a answer to a problem of how any of us would fare as we already have more that have gotten educated than we can handle. We just need to have all able-bodied Americans off welfare and producing in any manner because we can't carry them anymore. We need to get people to realize those jobs for the educated in a particular field are gone and they will have to be more like the rest of us and just find a job. It is not a matter of having a strong work ethic or being educated but in everyone pulling their own weight. Perhaps, I don't understand the question?
I think you might be trying to tie the horse to the wrong hitchin' post. Education is not tied to class,. it is tied to wealth. I know more than a few who have money and education and no class. I know more than a few who have a lot of class and no money thru no fault of their own.
Now if you have a society where everyone is educated and hard working, a better question is who will work for minimum wages in fast food restaurants. Or will they disappear? There is no poor in this society so there is little need for dollar hamburgers unless of course the dollar is devalued to a point it is nearly worthless - in which case education is no longer tied to wealth.
It may be a question better suited to an economics class.
Unfortunately, the "lower class" is not made up merely of able-bodied, yet uneducated poor. This class also comprises up of varying degrees of disabled people (some not yet being treated or even diagnosed due to being too "lower class" for healthcare), immigrants that may not have yet completely assimilated to our culture but are here legally and would like to work, elderly, single parents not single by choice, people living in communities where any number of middle class "targets" are unavailable (like rural areas without any colleges or even more than one high school, little healthcare, no job opportunities).
Really, this question cannot be satisfactorily answered, even hypothetically. Social programs are necessary in a country the size of ours.
Most rural towns do not need more than one high school. Very often very small rural towns will form a school unit that only utilizes one high school to serve the residents.. Many rural areas have a small satellite college campus nearby. Many rural areas do have hospitals. libraries, doctors and lawyers. What you may find is the hospital is located iin the county seat but satellite clincs are in outlying county communities. Many rural areas are fueled by farms and ranches and unlike larger cities there are few jobs of any type that are available. And any recessions has to be factored in too due to attrition.
I think you might be trying to tie the horse to the wrong hitchin' post. Education is not tied to class,. it is tied to wealth. I know more than a few who have money and education and no class. I know more than a few who have a lot of class and no money thru no fault of their own.
Now if you have a society where everyone is educated and hard working, a better question is who will work for minimum wages in fast food restaurants. Or will they disappear? There is no poor in this society so there is little need for dollar hamburgers unless of course the dollar is devalued to a point it is nearly worthless - in which case education is no longer tied to wealth.
It may be a question better suited to an economics class.
Education need not come from a school. If a person has a good work ethic & gets a job they can educate themselves & move up, thats how the building trades work to a large degree, among other things. Part of our problem is people value a stupid piece of paper over knowledge & experience to the degree that a person gets paid good money just for having an education whether they can actually utilize it productively or not.
If people actually earned based on what they did & their practical experience this elite educated class would shrink.
At any rate I'm just a high school graduate that had good work ethic, got a job after high school, learned by doing & is now self employed doing fairly well all things considered.
I have the pleasure of working with "educated" but clueless people all the time, from architects that dont understand that just because you can draw something doesn't mean its possible, to project managers who cant grasp that sometimes things take longer than a book says they will. IMHO education is overblown in many cases & actually holds back many excellent intelligent people who just dont have the right piece of paper or werent fortunate enough to be born wealthy. Its sad really.
Inflation will happen and people who are now middleclass will be priced out of the middleclass into the lower class.
If everybody got a degree in engineering and computer sciences the value of those
degree's will decrease and the salaries of those workers will decrease because it will be a oversupply workers.
The reason why americans wages have stagnated over the years is because of hardworking
people in china and india competing with us and comptetition from robots, computers and software
driving down wages.
so if everybody was hardworking it would lead to a declining standard of living.
"The poor you have always with you" - this is true partly because there will always be people who, even with a "strong work ethic", will invest their time and money poorly, will make poor choices, will make poor life decisions, and fiscally cannot recover from them, or take years to do so. "Working hard" does not preclude or overcome poor choices or poor investments. Another reason for poverty is a prediliction for vices; which also comes under the "poor choices". Neither a formal education nor a strong work ethic would 'cure' these self-inflicted ills.... but a good primary education in how money works, with an emphasis on cost-effectiveness and basic economics, would. It is currently society's mindset to reward those who make poor choices with support - not support to get back on their feet, not support to learn cause and effect of poor choices, but just a generalized support system that encourages people to remain poor, just barely making it, with all of their basic needs supplied; i.e., why work when the belly is full? Break that cycle and educate them in the necessary tools with which they can build their own lives into something better and 'upwardly mobile' and you will have the fiscally progressive society that you propose. I leave out the disabled because they are the few who should have lifetime succor from somewhere; if it is from the job at which they became disabled, or from their parents and family (if we are speaking of a congenital disability) or, finally, from the government. If there were not so many people who are NOT disabled, who simply refuse to work or look for excuses not to work, who were already on assistance, there would be a lot more assitance available for those who truly need it, or for those who just need it briefly to get back on their feet after an injury, illness, or poor choice.
I too have a problem with the 'get educated' - I think I would prefer the premise to be 'learn a viable skill'. The work environment changes constantly, and people must forever be considering those changes, educating themselves in different ways, and adapting their work ethic to those changes. A buggy maker and a blacksmith were once popular and well-paying choices for careers; changes in the workplace put them into low-paying niche markets instead, or out of work altogether. And so it goes with many choices in the various fields; the people who learned everything from the Basic to Machine languages to work with the first computers are now hopelessly behind the times in computer programming. Betting one's entire life on a static career choice is a sure way to lose and slip into a lower class unless one continues to educate oneself, either in that initially chosen progressive field -or another.
As for who would work at the minimum wage jobs, those jobs used to be termed "entry level jobs". A store clerk can rise to store manager or even into marketing or purchasing - as long as they continue to learn about the products and the basic economics that drive their store; a store clerk who remains a store clerk cannot be said to have any ambition or work ethic. A store clerk who, however, is putting themselves through nursing school will, with a strong work ethic, eventually leave that minimum wage job for their chosen career - leaving their job open for another trainee store clerk. That is how minimum wage/starter jobs are supposed to work; and with a positive work ethic, and upwardly mobile education and opportunities, that is exactly how they will work. Teenagers manning McDonalds and Pizza Hut should either be able to work their way into managerial positions or higher - or use the money to purchase, not new cars or Air Jordans or smokin' rims, but an education in a higher, more progressive, and more desireable (to them) field in which to advance.
Society changes to meet the needs and desires of people. Who ever adapts to these changes, whether rich or poor, fare the best.
Some poor people are in that situation because of their social culture. They take too long to learn from their mistakes. Some learn poor social skills which are very difficult to replace when you don't have modeling. This is probably where most of their problems occur.
They are also in that situation because of the quality of work or services they can provide, even with a solid education. There will always be people who are better or smarter. However, poor people can still contribute to society and live fulfilling lives with the right social culture.
"The poor you have always with you" - this is true partly because there will always be people who, even with a "strong work ethic", will invest their time and money poorly, will make poor choices, will make poor life decisions, and fiscally cannot recover from them, or take years to do so. "Working hard" does not preclude or overcome poor choices or poor investments. Another reason for poverty is a prediliction for vices; which also comes under the "poor choices". Neither a formal education nor a strong work ethic would 'cure' these self-inflicted ills.... but a good primary education in how money works, with an emphasis on cost-effectiveness and basic economics, would. It is currently society's mindset to reward those who make poor choices with support - not support to get back on their feet, not support to learn cause and effect of poor choices, but just a generalized support system that encourages people to remain poor, just barely making it, with all of their basic needs supplied; i.e., why work when the belly is full? Break that cycle and educate them in the necessary tools with which they can build their own lives into something better and 'upwardly mobile' and you will have the fiscally progressive society that you propose. I leave out the disabled because they are the few who should have lifetime succor from somewhere; if it is from the job at which they became disabled, or from their parents and family (if we are speaking of a congenital disability) or, finally, from the government. If there were not so many people who are NOT disabled, who simply refuse to work or look for excuses not to work, who were already on assistance, there would be a lot more assitance available for those who truly need it, or for those who just need it briefly to get back on their feet after an injury, illness, or poor choice.
I too have a problem with the 'get educated' - I think I would prefer the premise to be 'learn a viable skill'. The work environment changes constantly, and people must forever be considering those changes, educating themselves in different ways, and adapting their work ethic to those changes. A buggy maker and a blacksmith were once popular and well-paying choices for careers; changes in the workplace put them into low-paying niche markets instead, or out of work altogether. And so it goes with many choices in the various fields; the people who learned everything from the Basic to Machine languages to work with the first computers are now hopelessly behind the times in computer programming. Betting one's entire life on a static career choice is a sure way to lose and slip into a lower class unless one continues to educate oneself, either in that initially chosen progressive field -or another.
As for who would work at the minimum wage jobs, those jobs used to be termed "entry level jobs". A store clerk can rise to store manager or even into marketing or purchasing - as long as they continue to learn about the products and the basic economics that drive their store; a store clerk who remains a store clerk cannot be said to have any ambition or work ethic. A store clerk who, however, is putting themselves through nursing school will, with a strong work ethic, eventually leave that minimum wage job for their chosen career - leaving their job open for another trainee store clerk. That is how minimum wage/starter jobs are supposed to work; and with a positive work ethic, and upwardly mobile education and opportunities, that is exactly how they will work. Teenagers manning McDonalds and Pizza Hut should either be able to work their way into managerial positions or higher - or use the money to purchase, not new cars or Air Jordans or smokin' rims, but an education in a higher, more progressive, and more desireable (to them) field in which to advance.
Those are also poor people who are poor not because they made a bad decision but for whatever reason they can not move up. If everyone goes to school gets more skills the companies who employ entry level positions will go out of business. Not everyone who works at McDonalds or Pizza Hut can make a manager position or higher there are only x amount of those positions going back to my point that companies need people working entry level jobs. Where does it say min wage jobs are supposed to be a starting point to a higher job? That;s just your opinion.
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