One of our favorite national stories is that of the self-made man. This mythos infiltrates much of our culture, from the novels of Horatio Alger and our delight in the success of people like Andrew Carnegie to its less savory forms--our critique of the poor for their perceived failings, and the joy of a large swath of the population whenever a politician takes aim at "handouts" for those they judge to have simply made bad life choices.
This mythos declares that everyone's fortunes are the result solely of their own hard work and choices, regardless of circumstances. The rich deserve what they have earned, in this story, and the poor deserve what they have gotten. The narrative is a powerful one, and we view many of the issues facing our society through this lens. Why should we help the poor, some demand to know, when they need to just get a job, an education, work harder? Why should we allow a modest tax increase on the rich, others ask--why punish them for their hard work, their success?
The problem with this story is that it is precisely that--a narrative that we tell ourselves, one that justifies the social order and ignores the very real fact that much that is not within our control--birth, our culture, the economy at large--play just as powerful a role in our lives as our own work and choices do. The myth of the self-made individual is no more real than the myths of the Greeks and Romans. It is a story, however, that we attack at our peril. A few years ago, when both the President and Elizabeth Warren launched critiques of this up-by-the-bootstraps mythology, they were savaged by those who accused them of denying the power of individual choices. The criticisms were so vigorous that one might be forgiven for thinking that Obama and Warren had called for the destruction of the free market, rather than merely pointing out the variety of other factors beyond hard work and individual choices that affect who is successful and who is not.
The ferocity of the attacks on these relatively mild criticisms is understandable when the power of the myth itself is considered. It's relatively comforting for those of us who have been successful to imagine that this success was due solely to our own work and intelligence. And it's far easier to blame laziness for the condition of the poor than it is to look for the real, more complex causes of poverty. Those who might be inclined to thank themselves alone for their luck in life may perhaps be forgiven for myopically seeing only their own choices when looking back at their past. It's easy to do, and I myself am sometimes tempted to fall into this way of thinking.
Growing up, my father was a coal miner, and my mother a stay-at-home housewife. It was a working-class household, both my parents descended from generations of working-class families. In my immediate family, I was the first one to go to college, and six years of higher education and two degrees later, my chosen profession is a white collar one. I worked in retail while I went to school and got good grades while doing so. I took on very little student debt, and paid what debt I had off within a year and a half of graduation. Some might look at this and say that I am a self-made man. But that description doesn't tell the whole story.
I worked hard, but I didn't make it on my own. I had the good fortune to live near one of the state universities, allowing me to commute to save money on room and board while taking advantage of the less-expensive education the state system of higher education offered, subsidized by the taxpayers of my state. My education was even further subsidized by federal grants received in the first few years, allowing me to pay my tuition with what I earned at my job rather than through loans. While I tried to work hard to ensure I kept my job during school, it was sheer dumb luck that got me hired in the first place. In a town with very few jobs, I was fortunate enough to not only get a job that helped me pay my way, but one with bosses who were willing to be flexible with a college class schedule. The fact that the store was unionized offered me protections and benefits that few other retail workers can claim. The federal minimum wage increase in 2007 further helped me pay for college. When I had finally exhausted my savings, my father helped pay for my final undergraduate semester's tuition, and the rent for my first semester of graduate school. He had been able to do so not only because of his own hard work, but thanks to the fact that his unionized job, not just as a miner but later as a janitor, meant higher pay and more benefits than non-unionized work would have brought. Subsidized federal loans allowed me to continue and complete my graduate work. While I can be justifiably proud of what I've accomplished, I would be deluded if I imagined that it was solely through my own abilities. I had a lot of help in the process, and I've also been incredibly lucky too.
The myth of the self-made individual is as dangerous as it is pervasive. In the name of austerity, funding that makes education possible for millions are cut; the subsidies for grants and support for higher education that helped me make it through are increasingly lacking or diminished for people entering college, requiring them to take on ever more burdensome mountains of student loan debt. When this is brought up, conservatives will often express the view that the "lazy" or "entitled" students should just get a job and work harder, ignoring the fact that jobs are few and tuition far higher in most institutions than what a retail job can cover. They often disregard the help that they themselves received, whether it was higher subsidies for public education when they went to college or Social Security benefits, and they would gladly deny the help they received to others. After all, they imagine, if they made it on their own, why can't others?
Hard work is important, and individual choices matter. Without these even the most generous help is unlikely to succeed. But to pretend that these alone matter is to deny the reality of the world that we live in. No one makes it on their own.
The problem with this story is that it is precisely that--a narrative that we tell ourselves, one that justifies the social order and ignores the very real fact that much that is not within our control--birth, our culture, the economy at large--play just as powerful a role in our lives as our own work and choices do. The myth of the self-made individual is no more real than the myths of the Greeks and Romans. It is a story, however, that we attack at our peril. A few years ago, when both the President and Elizabeth Warren launched critiques of this up-by-the-bootstraps mythology, they were savaged by those who accused them of denying the power of individual choices. The criticisms were so vigorous that one might be forgiven for thinking that Obama and Warren had called for the destruction of the free market, rather than merely pointing out the variety of other factors beyond hard work and individual choices that affect who is successful and who is not.
The ferocity of the attacks on these relatively mild criticisms is understandable when the power of the myth itself is considered. It's relatively comforting for those of us who have been successful to imagine that this success was due solely to our own work and intelligence. And it's far easier to blame laziness for the condition of the poor than it is to look for the real, more complex causes of poverty. Those who might be inclined to thank themselves alone for their luck in life may perhaps be forgiven for myopically seeing only their own choices when looking back at their past. It's easy to do, and I myself am sometimes tempted to fall into this way of thinking.
Growing up, my father was a coal miner, and my mother a stay-at-home housewife. It was a working-class household, both my parents descended from generations of working-class families. In my immediate family, I was the first one to go to college, and six years of higher education and two degrees later, my chosen profession is a white collar one. I worked in retail while I went to school and got good grades while doing so. I took on very little student debt, and paid what debt I had off within a year and a half of graduation. Some might look at this and say that I am a self-made man. But that description doesn't tell the whole story.
I worked hard, but I didn't make it on my own. I had the good fortune to live near one of the state universities, allowing me to commute to save money on room and board while taking advantage of the less-expensive education the state system of higher education offered, subsidized by the taxpayers of my state. My education was even further subsidized by federal grants received in the first few years, allowing me to pay my tuition with what I earned at my job rather than through loans. While I tried to work hard to ensure I kept my job during school, it was sheer dumb luck that got me hired in the first place. In a town with very few jobs, I was fortunate enough to not only get a job that helped me pay my way, but one with bosses who were willing to be flexible with a college class schedule. The fact that the store was unionized offered me protections and benefits that few other retail workers can claim. The federal minimum wage increase in 2007 further helped me pay for college. When I had finally exhausted my savings, my father helped pay for my final undergraduate semester's tuition, and the rent for my first semester of graduate school. He had been able to do so not only because of his own hard work, but thanks to the fact that his unionized job, not just as a miner but later as a janitor, meant higher pay and more benefits than non-unionized work would have brought. Subsidized federal loans allowed me to continue and complete my graduate work. While I can be justifiably proud of what I've accomplished, I would be deluded if I imagined that it was solely through my own abilities. I had a lot of help in the process, and I've also been incredibly lucky too.
The myth of the self-made individual is as dangerous as it is pervasive. In the name of austerity, funding that makes education possible for millions are cut; the subsidies for grants and support for higher education that helped me make it through are increasingly lacking or diminished for people entering college, requiring them to take on ever more burdensome mountains of student loan debt. When this is brought up, conservatives will often express the view that the "lazy" or "entitled" students should just get a job and work harder, ignoring the fact that jobs are few and tuition far higher in most institutions than what a retail job can cover. They often disregard the help that they themselves received, whether it was higher subsidies for public education when they went to college or Social Security benefits, and they would gladly deny the help they received to others. After all, they imagine, if they made it on their own, why can't others?
Hard work is important, and individual choices matter. Without these even the most generous help is unlikely to succeed. But to pretend that these alone matter is to deny the reality of the world that we live in. No one makes it on their own.
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