In the interests of starting another argument, something I was thinking the other day (though not in quite such strong terms).
Why the fuck do we still have a working class? Most of us live in countries that by rights should contain the best educated citizens in the world, why do we still need to employ a huge proportion of people in jobs that don't require a highschool diploma? I'm not talking about skilled labour here, I'm talking about people who work in the same factory job their dad did for 20 years and then get surprised when their factory gets closed down because the government is tired of propping up a failing industry with bailouts and tariffs.
It worries me because developing countries that are already better at us in manufacturing and similar industries are only getting smarter, so if we don't focus on creating an educated workforce we're going to get left in their dust. And it offends me because a decent proportion of my income has and will go to ensuring free education for every citizen up to and including university level education (not to mention welfare for people undertaking studies and so on... including myself currently, but still) so when people blow off knowledge because they believe (and in fairness are indoctrinated to believe by those around them) that school is some bullshit and they'll be able to get a job a monkey could do with zero qualifications it shits me off. I hear a lot about my generation being entitled, but at least most of my friends go out and work for degrees and so on before they complain about not being able to get a job.
I suspect in reality the real answer is 'the *****s to replace them aren't cheap enough, yet' because hell knows there's no room for sentimentalism in industry. I know making your job too much a part of your identity is considered unhealthy but with all the resources at our disposal in a first world country isn't the fact that some people are still just shooting for 'paper cup machine QA' a bit bloody sad?
These have been the opinions of an upper-middle class white boy, we now return you to our regular programming.