"soy capitán"!*: Americans and the Working-Stiff Concept of Labor

Well, Wisconsinites have reaffirmed their initial unfortunate choice of governors, and rather handily. Can't say I'm surprised, though I hadn't been following the recall election too closely. Walker got millions in outside billionaire money, I've heard, and outspent his not overwhelmingly impressive opponent by about 8 to 1, so whatever amount of good money does a person in an election, it certainly did for Governor Walker.

I'm not convinced that money can buy an election since sometimes very wealthy candidates lose by wide margins – you still have to sell the product well, so to speak, and voters don't automatically come around just because your vanity campaign sticks your mugly ug on every billboard in the state. But Walker is already an incumbent, so it probably helped him a great deal.

Perhaps, too, another factor is a certain squeamishness over kicking a man out of his job only a short time after you've hired him – Walker wasn't being challenged over Watergate-like offenses (though I believe there have been some investigations), he was challenged over his extremely anti-labor stances and actions. A fair number of voters who say they're Obama supporters obviously voted for Walker, and I doubt that they're really in favor of the governor's extreme anti-labor views. They probably just didn't feel right giving him the boot over policy and might vote for an opponent next time around. In other words, it may well be that some people simply don't like the idea of recall elections, even ones they're voting in. Sure, Californians kicked out Gray Davis years ago, but that only succeeded because Republicans whipped up fervor over Davis' not-so-great handling of a power-grid crisis – the people felt that they were getting ripped off and that he hadn't done anything about it. The GOP also fielded a celebrity candidate, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turned out to be a pretty good campaigner. Had Republicans picked some middling pol, I don't think they would have had such an easy time of it.

But the mentions of labor above bring me to my main simple-dino observation: I suspect that underlying Walker's reaffirmation Tuesday is a need on the part of ordinary people to distance themselves from the very concept of labor. Why? Because that concept is associated with being a working-class stiff. And if there's one thing we know for certain about Americans, it's that we are ALL card-carrying members of the "middle class." People who are patently working-class will tell you they belong to the great middle class. Here's a hint: if you work from paycheck to paycheck or nearly so, you're working-class; if you're fairly comfortable, own some property and have economic options to fall back on in case of hard times, you're middle-class; if you could retire right now without feeling pinched, you're rich; if you're currently scheming to corner the silver market, looking into a second yacht, buying a suit that costs more than most people's college education, or donating ten million dollars at a pop to your favorite politician, you're REALLY rich.

I don't believe the phenomenon I'm describing is due to highfalutin' cultural aspirations since a great number of self-describing middle-class Americans will snicker on cue at the merest whiff of Euro-baiting – you know, jokes about the French and all that. (Freedom fries all round, with extra ketchup, please. Take that, you over-edjikated socialist sissies!) Their contempt for or uneasiness with labor unions can't be derived from any expectation that they're all too busy listening to nuanced Haydn cello concerti or enjoying opera. No, most likely the uneasy feeling stems not from cultural or literary aspirations but rather from strictly economic ones: fear of being condemned to what Mr. Carlyle called the bourgeois "hell of not making money." Almost everyone here buys into the Horatio Alger up-from-nowhere, rags to riches dream, even if they've been stuck waiting tables for the last fifteen years and haven't a viable notion in their heads how they might ever do otherwise. There's something admirable about such optimism, but at the same time, I think, it gives a devastating blow to any hopes this country might harbor for social justice and genuine opportunity. Isn't the rise and fall of labor closely correlated with the rise and fall of the so-called middle class? I mean with the prospects of working people to move a bit beyond the very category so many of them deny belonging to and take up a position somewhat more secure and comfortable, more option-laden than working from one paycheck to the next?

No? Well, okay, then, America, let's all just keep thinking we're middle-class -- that ensures most of us never really will be, let alone Thurston Howell-rich. I say, Lovey, oh Lovey, where did I leave that third martini? Gilligan my boy, be a good lad and fetch me another, won't you?

*"Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán" (I'm not a sailor, I'm a captain) is a refrain from Ritchie Valens' hit song, "La Bamba" (Los Lobos, 1960), itself an adaptation, I’m told by the experts at Wikipedia, from a Mexican folk song sometimes performed at weddings in Veracruz.