I want to call your attention to this wonderful commentary by Thomas Frank:

This program is ~86 minutes long; if you just watch the first 40 minutes, it will still be quite swell.

This specific version of his message is much the same message many of you have probably heard him deliver often in the last two years. I prefer this performance because it is more succinct, less jocular, and more angry than his other speeches. This program plays to my preference for a high level of dissatisfaction with the reagan Revolution/neoliberalism....I want people to be furious, as a matter of fact.

I have two major criticisms of Thomas Frank's argument. Both criticisms reflect lack of awareness that the victims of the republican Party, ronaldreagan and its reagan Revolution, and neoliberalism have been dissected into individualized socio-economic groups. Members of these groups (e.g., "industrial employees" or "service employees" or "office employees" or "academic employees") might not be aware of the commonality among them: All their employers are stealing their honest earnings, creating more difficult working conditions, and eliminating benefits. In other words, we have been divided and (so far) conquered.

My first criticism is his overlooking the tenuous connection between holding college degrees and being paid elite-level incomes. Many of us have PhDs yet gutter-level incomes; in fact, we are often cheated by the thieves administering the very same universities that granted our advanced degrees ! The simple reason for this is exactly the same simple reason that administrators of all organisations who cheat the employees do so: They steal the money for themselves. (Here is a nice group of angry academics that might amuse some of you, even if you are not in academia: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdjunctProfsUnited/?multi_permalinks=169...)

My second disagreement with Thomas Frank, as well as many other people whom I like, is their use of the term, "working class." I think that "employees" should be used when discussing the problems of people who do not own the businesses where they work. This wording matters because "working class" people are discussed as if they were all industrial employees. Plenty of employees generate plenty of income for their employers' organisations, yet the employees are simply robbed of their earnings so that the thieves can have very high incomes. Any employer who is not forced to pay employees their honest earnings might take advantage of the opportunities* to steal somebody else's money. Examples of guilty rackets (Smedley Butler's definition of "racket") include food services, Walmart, state universities, nursing homes, other health workers, etc. That accounts for some, or plenty of, the condition widely called, "income inequality."** Disaffection due to globalization and deindustrialization is true of industrial employees, but globalization is only a symptom of the problem. The real problem is simple theft of employees' earnings. Globalization merely allows employers to relocate to regions where greater proportions of the employees' earnings can be stolen.

As always, I have to stress that the whole raison d'etre of the republican Party, ronaldreagan and its reagan Revolution, and neoliberalism is to increase the amount of money and power held by the rich. The rich are usually businessmen, and the easiest ways for businessmen to grab more are to cheat the employees, cheat the consumers, rape the environment (regarding applicable businesses), and to not pay their taxes. Those are the policies of the republican Party, ronaldreagan and its reagan Revolution, and neoliberalism.*** I have to say also that many more ordinary businessmen are not guilty of these offences, but the most rich and powerful are.