May 2, 2024

Violence against women: 'tradition' confronts Europe

The European Commission recently proposed that EU accession negotiations be opened with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/violence-against-women-tradition-confronts-europe


In August 2023, in Gradacac, a small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H), Nermin Sulejmanović brutally murdered his ex-wife, Nizama Hecimovic, during a live stream, with their child in the room. On the morning of August 11th, the bodybuilder started the live stream with the chilling words that viewers were about to witness a murder. Having killed his wife, Sulejmanović went on to kill two other people before committing suicide. Over 10,000 people watched the live stream, some even encouraging the violence. The victim had reported the perpetrator to the official institutions, which decided to ignore his previous violence. Indeed, in the live video Sulejmanović cited the fact that she had reported him as a reason for the killing.

In B-H, one in two women has experienced violence since turning 15. Violence against women, particularly in the home, remains a pervasive social issue. Despite the advocacy efforts of non-governmental organisations to enhance legal protection for women against violence in public and private domains, it continues to enjoy alarmingly wide social acceptance. Nor is this phenomenon confined to B-H. There are similar occurrences, of alarming frequency, in other western-Balkan countries: Croatia ranks as the third-highest country in the European Union for femicides. Simply being a woman in the western Balkans is perilous.

Suffering in silence

In B-H, any woman can become a victim of violence, but women from rural areas and with less education are most at risk. Many who are victims suffer in silence, lacking support from institutions and often from their families. It is common for a woman’s family to distance themselves after she gets married, when she becomes ‘someone else’s problem’. In some areas, selective abortion of female foetuses is quite common too. Intimate-partner violence is not just physical but emotional, financial and sexual. The story of violence against women in the region has a broader cultural and historical context. ‘Tradition’ in the western Balkans ‘dictates’ that a woman is subservient to her husband and financially dependent on him.

Meanwhile, the man, as head of the household, is expected to assert his dominance, even if that means resorting to violence against his wife and children. Recently, a video circulated online featuring the Bosnian Muslim scholar Elvedin Pezić offering advice on how to hit a woman (the face should not be the target and no bruise should be left). This derogatory view of women, as tied to the home and children, distances western-Balkan countries from European values. Their political and religious elites must be rendered aware that the ‘traditional’ values they advocate often do not align with the universal norms espoused by the European Union and the Council of Europe. Cultural and religious identity matters, but it cannot stand in the way of progress, human rights, equality and the rule of law.

Insufficient shelter....................

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May 2, 2024

Mayday, mayday: democracy in peril

This May Day, trade unions must be at the centre of defending and rebuilding democracy.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/mayday-mayday-democracy-in-peril



This year, some four billion individuals in more than 40 states will have the chance to participate in elections. It will a historic year for democracy, but if we look closely at the health of global democracy—especially democratic trade-union rights—it should be in intensive care. Trade unions are central to democracy: there cannot be one without the other. That is why the global trade-union movement, as the world’s largest social movement with a long history built on democratic values, needs to use its collective power to defend and rebuild democracy. This May Day we should reflect on the historical contributions of trade unions to democracy and mobilise to preserve and enhance democratic norms in the workplace, in society and at the global level—as set out in the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) ‘For Democracy’ campaign.

Global decline in democracy

Over many years, reports and surveys have highlighted a consistent erosion of democratic values worldwide. According to the 2023 Global State of Democracy report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm, more countries have regressed than progressed in democratic practices since 2018. The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index for 2023 gives global democratic health a score of 5.22—down from from 5.29 in 2022, influenced by conflicts and war. The report reveals that while 45.5 per cent of the world’s population inhabit some form of democracy, only a meagre 7.8 per cent live in ‘full democracies’ and 39.4 per cent are under authoritarian regimes. The ITUC’s 2023 Global Rights Index meanwhile shows alarming trends, with 87 per cent of countries infringing the right to strike and 79 per cent the right to collective bargaining. Such violations have risen consistently and chillingly over the ten years of the index and correlate with rising economic inequality and insecurity.

Where the presence of trade unions is strong, wealth and power distribution are more equitable and trust in democratic processes is higher. Norway, where trade-union density is 49 per cent and coverage by collective agreements 72.5 per cent, is recognised for its deliberative and egalitarian democratic structure. Globally, however, union density is on the decline, harming democratic workplace rights and the union wage premium. The resurgence in the political mainstream of extreme ideologies such as fascism, nationalism and xenophobia is increasingly bolstered by austerity measures implemented by capitalist economies. A 2022 study, ‘The political costs of austerity’, analysed 200 elections across Europe and linked austerity policies to a rise in extremist parties, reduced voter turnout and greater political fragmentation. These economic policies often see the privatisation of profits accompanied by the socialisation of losses and erode trust within the electorate.

Vital trade-union role

Trade unions play a pivotal role in combating these challenges. They are not only defenders of workers’ rights but also bastions of democracy, ensuring voices from the grassroots are heard, and heeded, in policy-making. The strength of trade unions lies in their ability to organise and mobilise workers across industries, making them a formidable force against anti-democratic trends. As economic disparities widen and political freedoms are threatened, the proactive stance of trade unions in advocating for social justice, equitable economic distribution and political transparency becomes even more vital. Trade unions foster a culture of participation and negotiation, essential for a healthy democratic society. Their efforts in educating workers about their rights and the importance of civic engagement contribute significantly to democratic resilience. It was in response to these challenges that the ITUC launched the For Democracy campaign. This underscores the indispensable role of trade unions in upholding democratic values, such as freedom of association and the right to strike, and advocating for equitable societies. The ITUC is pressing for reinforcement of the foundations of democracy in three critical domains: the workplace, society and the global arena.

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May 2, 2024

The Many Faces of Campus Activism

https://prospect.org/education/2024-05-02-many-faces-of-campus-activism/


I’m numbed by the police state response to campus protests to end institutional support for the killing in Gaza. College administrators have a model, wielded at places like Brown University, where a set of demands are met with meaningful dialogue, leading to a rapid de-escalation. Elsewhere, there’s been pointless brutality and chaos. A few miles from my house, pro-Israel protesters attacked an encampment at UCLA while police watched. Professors have been detained and beaten, as have members of the press. High-grade military equipment has been put to use as part of suppression tactics. And the hysterical commentary around the spectacles has been completely divorced from the purpose of the protests, to end a war and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe perpetrated against Palestinian civilians.

Every generation winds up learning for themselves that official tolerance for dissent, however celebrated by elites in their gauzy treatment of the past, is always contingent on whether it interferes with those elites’ particular agendas. It’s a painful lesson, though it should not be viewed entirely with despair. History offers countless examples of protesters bruised, manhandled, arrested, ejected, and removed, and later on winning some or all of their goals. Movements crash on the shore like waves, and each gets a bit closer to the peak of the tide. What’s happening now on campus isn’t a triumph of state power; rather, it reveals the hollowness of it. And it will not lead to where administrators who give the go sign to cops with nightsticks think it will.

And there’s a good example of student persistence toward seeking basic rights—in this case for themselves—leading to results, against impossible odds. It doesn’t have anything to do with Gaza. These students didn’t go to an elite university, and they look more like America in terms of demographics and education levels. They enrolled in school seeking a better career path for themselves and were swindled—not by discovering limits on their free speech but literally swindled, stolen from, defrauded, left without a future by a system that had no use for them. It took a decade to reverse the last and most wrenching aspect of that action.

On Wednesday, 317,000 students who between 2004 and 2017 attended the Art Institutes, a for-profit conglomerate of several dozen art schools around the country, finally had their loans automatically canceled, in recognition of the “substantial misrepresentations” that characterized their educational career. The Art Institutes, formerly controlled by a now-defunct parent company called Education Management Corporation (EDMC), lied to students about the value of their degrees. The company told them how many students who matriculate would be placed for jobs in their chosen field, what salaries they could expect, and what career services the institution would provide. None of this proved to be the case.

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May 2, 2024

Nuclear Blackmail: How Trump and Putin are Conspiring to Hold the World Hostage

https://washingtonspectator.org/wide-angle-nuclear-blackmail/



A little-remembered magazine interview from 1987 may hold clues about what Trump and Putin are ultimately up to. What was on Trump’s mind back then — besides dispensing unsolicited foreign policy advice in full page newspaper ads? Nothing less than making a deal with the Soviets to jointly seize the world’s nuclear weapons and thus bring about world peace. He told writer Ron Rosenbaum in an interview for the magazine Manhattan, inc., “We approach [the USSR] on this basis: We both recognize the nonproliferation treaty’s not working, that half a dozen countries are on the brink of getting a bomb. Which can only cause trouble for the two of us. The deterrence of mutual assured destruction that prevents the United States and the USSR from nuking each other won’t work on the level of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange. Or a madman dictator with a briefcase-bomb team. The only answer is for the Big Two to make a deal now to step in and prevent the next generation of nations about to go nuclear from doing so. By whatever means necessary.” I’ve come to believe this interview, largely forgotten (save for being republished with a new foreword by Slate in 2016) is a missing fossil in the record that explains much of what we are observing today. Let me elaborate further.

Nuclear Scientists and the USSR

After the first nuclear weapons were deployed in Japan in 1945, many of the scientists who helped develop them were shocked and felt deep moral outrage that the United States had killed civilians. In particular, and primarily so that Hitler would not get there first, the Jewish scientists Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein had proposed the bomb project to President Roosevelt. They formed the kernel of a network of like minded scientists who came together under the umbrella of the Federation of American Scientists. In 1946, they published an influential tract titled “One World or None,” which argued that nuclear weapons must be brought under the control of a global authority; otherwise they felt that proliferation would become inevitable, and as proliferation continued, a fatal deployment or escalation would become inevitable. They argued that the planet must come together as “one,” or we would risk losing it (“none.”) Bernard Baruch, a Manhattan financier, drafted a proposal (known as the Baruch Plan) that would have the United States decommission all of its nuclear weapons on the condition that other countries would do the same.


The Soviets, fearing it would excessively curtail their sovereignty, strongly opposed Baruch’s plan. Instead, the Soviets aligned themselves with a wide array of groups that attracted prominent American scientists like Harlow Shapley from the Harvard Observatory, and organizations like the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. These groups reflected alignment with the KGB and the Communist Party USA in that they sought to undermine American nuclear capacity while also arguing for technology transfer to the Soviets in a bid, they maintained, to level the playing field and minimize risk of conflict. Their efforts led to the nomination of Henry Agard Wallace (Franklin Roosevelt’s agriculture secretary) to run for president in 1948 under the banner of the Progressive Party. Wallace’s platform? Putting an end to what he argued was rampant American expansionism, and promoting rapprochement with Russia — both in the name of global peace.

The Influence of Uncle John


In the Rosenbaum interview, Trump emphasizes that it was through his many discussions about “nuclear” with his uncle, MIT scientist John G. Trump, that he formed his opinions about global nuclear disarmament. Quoting the interview: “[Uncle John] told me something a few years ago. He told me, ‘You don’t realize how simple nuclear technology is becoming.’ That’s scary. He said it used to be that only a few brains in the world understood it and now you have a situation where thousands and thousands of brains can easily understand it, and it’s becoming easier, and someday it’ll be like making a bomb in the basement of your house. And that’s a very frightening statement coming from a man who’s totally versed in it.”” Such a claim, which is not unreasonable, would have fit right into One World or None. John Trump also had direct ties to Soviet activities in America. Nikola Tesla, the famed electrical engineer who died broke in the New Yorker Hotel in 1943, had allegedly developed an electrical “death ray” super-weapon. The Soviets were keenly interested in this rumored technology, and arranged to purchase Tesla’s personal papers through an organization called AMTORG, a KGB front operating in New York originally formed by Russian-American industrialist Armand Hammer.

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May 2, 2024

Habitat brings back archive "classics" for 60th anniversary collection

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/04/29/habitat-60-years-of-design-anniversary-collection/









British furniture retailer Habitat has revealed its 60th-anniversary collection, which features collaborations with emerging designers alongside revived archive pieces like the chicken brick. Furniture and homeware by established designers including Sebastian Conran, Margo Selby and Tord Boontje populate Habitat's colourful 60 Years of Design collection, as well as work by newer talent such as furnituremaker Planq, ceramicist Silvia Kamodyová and artist Simone Brewster. Novel designs rub shoulders with re-released classics in the collection from Habitat, which is an icon of British affordable design but has had a tumultuous recent history of buy-outs and store closures.









Among the revived archive products is the chicken brick from 1964 – a ceramic oven dish for steam cooking and a classic from Habitat's first year in business – updated with a matte black glaze. Also back on the roster are the modernist-inspired 1970s Scoop chair and 2004's Ribbon light – a table lamp made of folded and powder-coated sheet steel, which according to Habitat has become a collectible.







Some of the new designs also nod to Habitat's past. Kamodyová referenced the 1980s Graffiti sofa in the colourful markings of her ceramics while the Lattice wire chair by Habitat designer Will Hudson is based on the wicker cone chairs of the 1970s and his bright red Akari four-poster bed was inspired by early Habitat catalogues. Other highlights include the metal Lucinda garden furniture, which has precise cut-outs intended to cast captivating shadows, and Planq's XY60 coffee and side tables with surfaces made from recycled denim waste and legs in bright pops of blue or yellow.









Habitat designer D'arby Mawson's Cayan salt and pepper grinders look like a sculptural version of a wooden stacking game, while Brewster's bold-hued rugs are based on her own hand-paintings of the female form. Sebastian Conran's contribution is a series of four lighting designs – including one inspired by the bulbous shapes of the Michelin Man – while Felix Conran designed mirrors with the gently contoured lines of river stones and Selby applied her graphic pattern designs to a range of textiles and bedding.

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May 1, 2024

How Project 2025 will Destroy Public Education and Multi-Racial Democracy

The Heritage Foundation’s Racist Origins and What That History Tells Us

https://washingtonspectator.org/heritage-foundations-racist-history/



CRENSHAW: These wars on curricula are not new, of course; they go far back in our history. What folks might not know is that the Heritage Foundation, the main convenor of Project 2025, cut its teeth on curricular wars in the 1970s. Can you tell us about this formative history and what it reveals about the sort of organization Heritage and its 2025 partners are?

MacLEAN: The Heritage Foundation today is the 800-pound gorilla on the radical right. With an annual budget of over $100 million, and a huge, multistory office complex in Washington, D.C., it is one of the top agenda-setting organizations on the right, if not the dominant one, so it’s not surprising that it took the lead in creating Project 2025. What people need to know is that—unlike some other groups on the right—from its outset the Heritage Foundation blended the toxic cocktail that today’s right is gulping in large doses to achieve its goals: libertarian economics; Christian nationalism; and the weaponization of racism, gender anxiety, and parental fears about sex. Back in 1974, a year after its founding, Heritage had a staff of five people in a rented office above a garage. That’s when its co-founder, Paul Weyrich, sniffed a big opportunity in West Virginia—in a textbook fight brewing in Kanawha County, home of the state capitol in Charleston. As Weyrich said later: “The alliance between religion and politics didn’t just happen.”

Heritage worked hard to make it happen. Heritage’s then-tiny team inserted itself in a fight opened by Alice Moore, a school board member, and the wife of a fundamentalist minister. She didn’t like the new multicultural language arts textbooks the district was adopting that including some 300 titles she had not read but objected to. First, she complained about literature that had any dialogue, whether Appalachian or “ghetto,” that was not “correct” English. Then it was that the books were “filthy, disgusting trash”— also “unduly favoring blacks.” Then it was that The Autobiography of Malcolm X, an option for high school seniors, disrespected Christianity. As with today’s culture wars, this one had interested backers from the beginning. Moore was already in the orbit of the John Birch Society and received counsel from Mel and Norma Gabler, the Texas-based couple who were transforming textbook adoption in states like their own by claiming bias over what they viewed as offensive content, such as evolution rather than creationism. Moore soon traveled to address the Christian Crusade of Tulsa on the theme “Public Schools Undermine God’s Law.”

All the while, the fledgling Heritage Foundation provided training, publicity, and links to potential allies. The result? The most violent textbook battle in U.S. history to date. Over the ensuing months, parents of one-fourth of the students in the county had kept them home to boycott the schools, some set up private “Christian schools,” gunshots were fired, Moore’s allies physically attacked supporters of the new curriculum at a school board meeting, and arson and bombings caused several schools to close. Some local protesters cut right to the chase and denounced the new recommendations as “n—–r books.” (From the start, the NAACP saw the all-white campaign against the new books as racist). As Maya Angelou once wrote: When people show you who they are, believe them—the first time. Because what Heritage showed then is that it would bring gasoline to any fight that would help to build a bench of reactionary religious voters—a strategy which was still in its earliest stages of development. And they would not blink at violence if it seemed to help their cause. Heritage provided legal counsel to a Christian minister, Marvin Horan, who was charged with plotting school bombings. Moran was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. (The Ku Klux Klan rallied support for Horan too, though at demonstrations, not in court).

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May 1, 2024

The 'sculptural experience' of designer Ashley Law's uniquely tactile cottage in Whitechapel

https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/open-house-ashley-law-whitechapel-cottag/







“I believe in elevating everyday objects,” says designer, Ashley Law, gesturing to a light switch within her beautiful terraced cottage in Whitechapel. “It’s the small moments that make you happy.” Over the course of the renovation, which began in 2022, the house became a laboratory for aesthetic experimentation. “I like using materials in different ways, making them look different to what you’d expect.”







Indeed, when it comes to the details, all is not what it seems. From a distance, the flowing shower curtain looks as though it could be made from silk, but on closer inspection is in fact steel chainmail designed originally as a Japanese rain catcher. Like pebbles or thick globs of toothpaste, the door handles have been designed by James Shaw, an artist who uses recycled plastic to dramatic effect. The interior is peppered with joy in a way that’s personal but still feels distinctly liveable. “I’m like a Swiss army knife,” says Ashley. “When I’m designing a house, I have to do everything from accounting to project management, so being able to design objects feels like play to me.”







An overwhelming sense of tactility forms the crux of the design, which sees a brave combination of teak, steel and robust concrete. The latter comes in two forms: smooth and curved, or chunky and roughcast. Reflective finishes sit alongside matt surfaces; luscious, colourful marble contrasts brilliantly against chalky Tadelakt; an exposed brick wall upstairs has an almost pinkish hue. Ashley – who is the founder of the creative development practice, Flawk – describes each project as having “its own personality” and having a duty as a designer to highlight it.







Ashley came across the house that was to become her home while taking a walk through the neighbourhood. Newbold Cottages sits just around the corner from Sidney Square, on the border of Whitechapel’s conservation area, tucked away from the bustle of the high street with its long-established food and goods market. Sitting in the middle of the terrace was the house in question, partly obscured by a large for sale sign. “I only saw it from the outside but immediately fell in love with the location,” Ashley recalls. “There’s such a sense of community here.”

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April 30, 2024

KWK Promes transforms Czech slaughterhouse into art gallery with rotating walls

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/04/28/plato-contemporary-art-gallery-kwk-promes/













Architecture studio KWK Promes has converted a slaughterhouse in the Czech Republic into Plato Contemporary Art Gallery, with exhibition spaces lined with rotating concrete walls. Located in Ostrava, the original heritage-protected slaughterhouse building dates back to the 19th century, but after decades of disuse, it had become dilapidated and partially collapsed.















Tasked with adapting the structure into an art gallery, KWK Promes added an extension and concrete infills that contrast the existing sooty brickwork but mimic its ornamentation. These additions include six large rotating walls, three of which provide entry to Plato Contemporary Art Gallery and three that allow its exhibition spaces to be opened to the surroundings.













"We introduced a solution that makes art more democratic," explained the studio. "The main idea of the project is based on preserving the functionality of the openings as shortcuts connecting the building to the city," it added. "This has provided artists and curators with entirely new exhibition possibilities and allows art to literally 'go out' into the space around the building."













Plato Contemporary Art Gallery's rotating walls create two entrances on either side of the building, leading into a central reception, ticket office and cafe area. The four exhibition halls each sit on the ground floor around the edges of the building, allowing them to benefit from natural light and a connection to the surrounding park.

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April 30, 2024

Miss Monique @ Bali, Indonesia 2024 [Melodic Techno/ Progressive House DJ Mix]

Tracklist

[00:00] Zerb & Sofiya Nzau - Mwaki (Franky Wah Remix) [TH3RD BRAIN]
[04:15] Cristoph - Lost Witness [SUARA]
[08:15] Artaria & Saint Code - People Say So [SIONA]
[14:40] Alan Wools - Echoes Of The Night [SIONA]
[19:00] Super Flu & Dancing On Lego - Dear Friend [MONABERRY]
[24:00] Adriatique & Undercatt - Horizon [X RECORDINGS]
[28:30] Hidden Empire - Morjim At Night [SIONA]
[33:10] CamelPhat & Rhodes - Home (Vintage Culture Remix) [WHEN STARS ALIGN]
[37:00] Massano - Nodosuba [SIMULATE]
[41:40] Victor Garde & Döts - It's Killing Me [SIONA]
[46:35] Miss Monique - Bloom At Night [TOMORROWLAND MUSIC]
[51:50] Cherry - Mosaic [SIONA]
[56:15] Miss Monique - Look At You [INTERSTELLAR]
[1:00:00] Innellea - Under Earth [UNRELEASED]
[1:06:00] The Advocate - Losing Control [SIONA]
[1:11:30] EarthLife - Trasporto [SPECTRUM MUSIC]
[1:15:55] Dominik Gehringer - Strange World [PURIFIED]
[1:21:25] Disclosure ft. Eliza Doolittle - You & Me (Rivo Remix) [PMR]

April 30, 2024

AI is coming for the professional class. Expect outrage -- and fear.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/29/ai-professional-class-low-skill-jobs/

https://archive.ph/4DULg



I was born in 1973, just as the American economy was going to hell — though I cannot accept all the blame. It was the twilight of the 20th-century manufacturing boom that had almost managed to compress the whole country into one vast middle class and, for reasons beyond my control, that boom was unraveling. Inflation was headed into double digits as labor productivity began to decline, economic growth swooned, unemployment rose and manufacturing employment tipped into the final descent toward its current sub-10 percent share. This turnaround devastated workers and communities, and even college-bound kids like me absorbed the sadness — through songs such as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and Billy Joel’s “Allentown,” through shows such as “Roseanne.” As we entered the electorate, it became a major force in our politics, as the Clintons tried to steer the economy toward a global, postindustrial future.

Voting for Bill Clinton, I believed his answers were correct. Trade and automation made Americans better off overall, even as they displaced some manufacturing workers. What we needed to do was finesse the adjustment, primarily by sending more kids to college to capitalize on the growing wage premium — 40 percent when I was born, 60 percent when I graduated college, and closer to 80 percent today. Older workers who weren’t ready to become college freshman could be retrained for booming service sector jobs. I still think our prescriptions were broadly correct. But as artificial intelligence starts coming for our jobs, I wonder how well the professional class will take its own medicine. Will we gracefully transition to lower-skilled service work, as we urged manufacturing workers to do? Or will we fight like hell to retain what we have, for our children as well as ourselves?

For I suspect AI is coming for a lot of professional class jobs, despite how many people I hear say a machine can never do what they do. We’re accustomed to think of automation as primarily displacing the working class, but as economist Daron Acemoglu wrote in 2002, “the idea that technological advances favor more skilled workers is a 20th-century phenomenon”; in the 19th century, steam-driven machines replaced a lot of skilled artisans, and AI currently looks to be pointed in a similar direction. If you work with words and symbols, AI can already do a surprising amount of what you can do — and it is improving with terrifying speed. As a Bloomberg News headline put it in February, “AI Is Driving More Layoffs Than Companies Want to Admit.” And though the numbers aren’t enormous — Bloomberg cites one source that found 4,600 AI-related layoffs during the previous nine months — that’s a pretty big number considering that ChatGPT was released to the public only in November 2022. It’s going to get bigger still.

As with previous rounds of automation, good jobs will be created as well as destroyed, and even those who don’t get them will enjoy broadly rising prosperity. But that was also true for manufacturing workers displaced by the China shock — as people like me kept telling them. A report last year from the Congressional Budget Office notes that though incomes “increased most among households in the highest quintile” between 1979 and 2020, average incomes increased in all quintiles. Yet as they kept telling us, people don’t care only about their role as consumers; they care about their role as producers and, more broadly, about their relative place in society. For the working class, that place has been eroding, in relative terms, for decades. The kinds of jobs many of them now occupy — in retail, say, or on the lower rungs of the health-care system — have less social status than the old manufacturing jobs even when they pay as well. And they often require a combination of servility and soft skills that wasn't demanded on an assembly line.

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