I keep forgetting to link to my column when it comes out. I pledge to forget less frequently.

The typical story that the left tells about the relative decline of the American working class is that it was the outcome of inevitable technological and historical processes. You can see many of the shells of old factories all around the “rust belt” yourself. Formerly great industrial cities like Detroit have become ruins with governance more typical of war-torn African countries than those you would expect in the West in the matter of few short decades.

The claims about the ‘obsolescence’ of industrial work are entirely false. There’s still an enormous amount of mass industrial labor going on. It just happens in Asia, with Asians doing the work for the pay that is appropriate for their jobs. This has happened repeatedly, especially since the 1970s, as the United States has made it harsher and harsher for businesses that have anything to do with the physical world to create businesses here that employ people.

Head on over to read the whole thing.

This reading turned out well.

It’s taken from this post from late January.

If you enjoyed the video, you can donate to his Patreon or to some other alternatives, including Bitcoin. If you’re tight on cash, just go ahead and subscribe to his channel.

Going forward, if anyone wants to do readings of my material, I would be happy to furnish an edited version that makes sense without hyperlinks.

This piece about political hatred and injustice came out well.

Cultivating political hatred requires a concerted, calculated effort, expended over an extended period of time. When executed properly, the target of the hate campaign comes to be held up as the perpetrator of all the great crimes of history, all the recent crimes which have happened nearby, all of the recent political reversals of the state, and even the petty personal hurts felt by the ordinary people.

When the state is weak, and the people come to suffer injustice, it’s natural for hatreds to develop among the people. When the laws are muddled, inconsistent, and unjust, injustice goes unpunished, unanswered, and unacknowledged. The people who believe themselves to be wronged then begin to seek justice for themselves, and to persuade other people to accept their competing ideal of justice, because the state is no longer capable of maintaining a set of laws which all the citizens are willing to obey.

Head on over to read the whole thing.

Social Matter usually publishes Monday through Friday. It’s also started producing a new podcast called Ascending the Tower that you can use to replace NPR during at least some of your commutes.