The Bootstrap Myth

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/the-bootstrap-myth/

leigh204

@Iris:

People love to believe that all you have to do to climb to the top is work hard, but working hard is not always enough. My parents (also in a western country with very low economic and social mobility) have worked five jobs between them with no holidays for more than a decade. Where has that got them? Lower than they were before, slipping further and further into poverty. According to the bootstraps theory, they should have made it somewhere by now.

Exactly! There are people busting their chops to no end hoping to achieve success through hard work and determination. And yet, without support and resources, then what? My mom admits she was fortunate to have landed the job she did. Her Canadian company was recruiting overseas especially in the Philippines. And she had to possess certain skills as a sewing machine operator in order to pass a test. If she hadn’t passed this test, she would not have been able to immigrate to Canada and she wouldn’t have been able to financially help her brother and sisters.

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Iris

leigh204
Bootstrapping, my heinie. You think my uncle and aunts became nurses on their own? Hardly. The only reason why my uncle and aunts did well is because they had help.
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Exactly! There are people busting their chops to no end hoping to achieve success through hard work and determination. And yet, without support and resources, then what?

Exactly, your uncle and aunts did not become nurses simply through their own hard work and clean living. They also had the advantage of connections. Something my parents lack. Yes, they have family, but there is no obligation for them to help (especially if they are also struggling) and family can easily be selfish.

Take my uncle and aunt, for example. Instead of working hard, they chose to lie about being mentally disabled and they get more money in benefits than my parents do working five jobs, with no weekend for my dad. They sit around smoking and watching their flatscreen TV, while my parents work themselves to the bone and get repossession warnings every few months. My parents claimed for benefits several times, but less than $2 a week in the bank to spend on food makes them `too rich’ to get benefits. It’s lucky they get a little cash-in-hand, else they would starve, but they get further and further behind on rent because they have to eat.

A bootstraps theory supporter would probably say they should move, but the prices all around them in that city have risen so high they would be fools to move out of their home when it is currently a lot cheaper than every other place around. They would probably then say they should move to another city. With what money? Less than $2 a week? Find another job? What do they think my parents are doing with their tiny amount of spare time? No such luck there. Go bankrupt? Where they live, to go bankrupt costs money! About USD1,500. They are quite stuck and bootstrapping gets them nowhere.

Don’t you think it’s funny how a lot of bootstraps theory supporters have neverbeen born into poverty and worked their way up?

________________

Iris

@ leigh204

I think it is because when people are born with certain privileges, it is really difficult for them to face up to the fact that it wasn’t only their own hard work, intelligence, morals, etc. that got them where they are. It’s hard for them to acknowledge that they could be rewarded for simply being born the way they are, whereas others are punished for being born the way they are. This makes lots of people uncomfortable, so they do their best to deny everything.

There are probably other things that would influence this, but those are the basics of what I think about privileged people who refuse to `get’ topics to do with racism and other isms.

@ brothawolf

Glad to know I’m not the only one.

Thank you for the link, it was an interesting read and, naturally, I agree with a lot of it. Hard work by itself is not always enough. Working hard is the only variable a person can change, but there are many other variables they can’t do anything to change. e.g. If they work hard, but never get promoted, they cannot make their employer give them a promotion. If they worked hard in uni, but potential employers won’t give them a job due to lack of experience, they cannot force them to change their minds. If they worked hard all their lives and took a big fall because of the recession, they cannot erase the recession. They can only work hard and working hard doesn’t give one the power to change the world and mind control people.