NYTimes | Here is the basic argument of mainstream
political opinion, especially among Democrats, that dominated in the
decades leading up to Mr. Trump and the populist revolt he came to
represent: A global economy that outsources jobs to low-wage countries
has somehow come upon us and is here to stay. The central political
question is not to how to change it but how to adapt to it, to alleviate
its devastating effect on the wages and job prospects of workers
outside the charmed circle of elite professionals.
The
answer: Improve the educational credentials of workers so that they,
too, can “compete and win in the global economy.” Thus, the way to
contend with inequality is to encourage upward mobility through higher
education.
The rhetoric of rising through educational achievement has echoed across
the political spectrum — from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack
Obama to Hillary Clinton. But the politicians espousing it have missed
the insult implicit in the meritocratic society they are offering: If
you did not go to college, and if you are not flourishing in the new
economy, your failure must be your own fault.
It is important
to remember that most Americans — nearly two-thirds — do not have a
four-year college degree. By telling workers that their inadequate
education is the reason for their troubles, meritocrats moralize success
and failure and unwittingly promote credentialism — an insidious
prejudice against those who do not have college degrees.
The
credentialist prejudice is a symptom of meritocratic hubris. By 2016,
many working people chafed at the sense that well-schooled elites looked
down on them with condescension. This complaint was not without
warrant. Survey research bears out what many working-class voters
intuit: At a time when racism and sexism are out of favor (discredited
though not eliminated), credentialism is the last acceptable prejudice.
In
the United States and Europe, disdain for the less educated is more
pronounced, or at least more readily acknowledged, than prejudice
against other disfavored groups. In a series of surveys conducted in the
United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium, a team of social
psychologists led by Toon Kuppens found that college-educated
respondents had more bias against less-educated people than they did
against other disfavored groups. The researchers surveyed attitudes
toward a range of people who are typically victims of discrimination. In
Europe, this list included Muslims and people who are poor, obese,
blind and less educated; in the United States, the list also included
African-Americans and the working class. Of all these groups, the poorly
educated were disliked most of all.
Beyond
revealing the disparaging views that college-educated elites have of
less-educated people, the study also found that elites are unembarrassed
by this prejudice. They may denounce racism and sexism, but they are
unapologetic about their negative attitudes toward the less educated.
By
the 2000s, citizens without a college degree were not only looked down
upon; in the United States and Western Europe, they were also virtually
absent from elective office. In the U.S. Congress, 95 percent of House
members and 100 percent of senators are college graduates. The
credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many.
It
has not always been this way. Although the well-educated have always
been disproportionately represented in Congress, as recently as the
early 1960s, about one-fourth of our elected representatives lacked a
college degree. Over the past half-decade, Congress has become more
diverse with regard to race, ethnicity and gender, but less diverse with
regard to educational credentials and class.
One
consequence of the diploma divide is that very few members of the
working class ever make it to elective office. In the United States,
about half of the labor force is employed in working-class jobs, defined
as manual labor, service industry and clerical jobs. But fewer than 2
percent of members of Congress worked in such jobs before their
election.
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