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To: cripplecreek

Indeed. It is in part a misunderstanding of the underlying class issue. In the old days, when there was a tiny upper class and a relatively small middle class (what we'd now call upper middle class), the middle class aspired to respectability and feared anything that would make them declasse and part of the working class: hence an aversion to any sort of 'working with one's hands'. It was a carry-over from Europe, distorted: in Europe -less in England than on the continent- aristocrats ran a serious risk of a loss of position if they did anything that smacked of 'engaging in trade'. The upper class lived primarily from the fruits of capital rather than individual work. Those who aspire to an aristocratic lifestyle -- think especially the professionals and politicos -- ape what they think is that style without understanding that while real aristocrats had many servants, they very often did not disdain physical work, at least such as they chose on their own estates. Curious how in this country it's been transformed in the current middle class from a reluctance to make one's livelihood from manual or 'blue collar' work to a horror of any physical work at all!


7 posted on 05/16/2005 7:45:45 AM PDT by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Arabiam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: CatoRenasci

Or maybe people are just working too many hours and don't want to spend the rest of the time scrubbing the toilet. Maybe they instinctively understand that by the concept of comparative advantage they are better off working an extra hour and then hiring somebody to work two or three hours to clean the house.


29 posted on 05/16/2005 9:11:19 AM PDT by johnb838 (Technology will never change human nature.)
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