Should We Have Sympathy for Struggling Americans?

by philg

Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 06:45 AM EDT

On average, Americans who work in the private sector are struggling financially. Millions are unemployed and the rest may be looking at an additional decade of toil before they can retire (since their houses and 401ks are worth so much less). Should we feel sorry for these folks in the same way that we might feel sympathy for Zimbabweans or other victims of an incompetent government?

Arguing in favor of sympathy is the basic fact that these folks are suffering, albeit not as badly as a lot of Africans.

Arguing against sympathy is that we Americans voted for politicians who promised to (1) continue fighting two very expensive wars, (2) ladle out fantastic raises and pensions to public employees, and (3) spend most of society's wealth on the world's most expensive health care system. The politicians delivered exactly what they promised. If the economy isn't growing and public employees must be continually enriched, that necessarily means that folks in the private sector must be gradually impoverished. We got what we voted for, so how can any of us aged 30 or older be deserving of sympathy? [younger folks didn't have a chance to vote for the current batch of politicians so they arguably deserve sympathy for having to share a country with so many shortsighted old folks]

This article originally appeared on Philip Greenspun's Weblog.