The Sell-Out Crowd
Ex-CP staffer's new book resets the middle class trap.
; "FLOAT ON: In his new book <i>The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner Take All America</i>, Daniel Brook argues that members of the middle class don't have to take jobs they don't want just to make ends meet.")
FLOAT ON: In his new book The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner Take All America, Daniel Brook argues that members of the middle class don't have to take jobs they don't want just to make ends meet. Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) |
A few years ago, former City Paper staffer Daniel Brook noticed that a startling number of his friends were unable to do the creative and public service work they wanted while maintaining the basic trappings of middle-class life. Many were "selling out" and taking jobs they didn't want just to stay above water. In The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner Take All America, Brook argues that it didn't used to be this way, and doesn't have to be now.
City Paper: This book is the story of my life.
Daniel Brook: It's the unauthorized biography of Doron Taussig, actually.
CP: What's interesting is that before you articulated this, I just thought this was my experience. When did the pieces come together for you, that this isn't just a few people you know?
DB: It did start out as few people. As I became curious, and explored whether this is a wider-spread phenomenon, I was able to prove that it was. Opinion polling shows it's not just my friends that are interested in public service. And I have some numbers about where a teacher-headed household can afford to buy a home. This was just put out by the National Association of Homebuilders. They're maps of different metro areas, and it shows by color-coding where a teacher can afford. A place like Philly, the map is more than half not viable. A metro area like Boston the whole map is the wrong color.
CP: During the book I thought back to something I once heard Sean Hannity say. Somebody called in and said, "Don't you realize that normal Americans can't live in Manhattan anymore?" And Hannity said, "Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to live in the city?" We're talking about people who aren't totally fucked. Why does it matter that they can't do exactly what they want to do?
DB: The Declaration of Independence says governments are instituted to secure your inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, which I would want to take seriously. Call me an American. But of course there are people much worse off than the people I write about. You know, when you talk about a Walmart worker with no health insurance versus a freelance photojournalist with no health insurance, you say the Walmart worker really is screwed, but the photojournalist made a choice. But why is America the only developed country where you have to choose between the job you want and the healthcare you need?
In terms of location, it's not just about the people, and the choices they have to make, but the repercussions of those choices. Take the guy who went to Harvard Law and can't buy a house in Washington. He could buy a house in Cleveland. But Cleveland is not Washington. Washington, D.C. is the capital of our country, and if it's not going to be a place where public service-oriented people can afford to live, we're going to turn it over to a bunch of slimy lobbyists.
CP: The book is set largely in NYC, D.C. and San Francisco. Where does Philly fit into this?
DB: Compared to a lot of other places, you can still do what you want and still have a sort of pseudo-middle class life. The two Philadelphians in the book are entrepreneurs, pioneering a new technology to clear land mines. It's the kind of nonprofit work that really could only be done in a place like Philly. But some things I write about are regional, some are national. Just because you live in Philly doesn't mean you're getting a bargain on sending your kids to college.
CP: When in life did people start realizing this was happening to them?
DB: Different people figure it out at different times. I quote [a] Fulbright scholar as saying "I'm not sure how I got into this position," and she's sort of speaking for this whole generation.
CP:You advise your readers neither to be a martyr, nor to sell out and "make the political the personal" and buy organic food. But I still found myself saying, well, what do I do?
DB: If we all become saints and don't have children because we can't afford to educate them — I feel like this is not constructive. To get us out of this bind we really have to make national political changes.
CP: But building a European-style social democracy in America—
DB: Maybe British.
CP: It seems so far away from the discussion right now.
DB: But why is it so far away from the discussion? Because nobody's saying shit like this! When William F. Buckley said he was going to overturn the New Deal in 1955, people thought he was nuts. Twenty-six years later, a guy won [the Presidency] doing that.
CP: But wait. Twenty-six years later — does that mean that I'm doomed regardless?
DB: I think health insurance is really in the crosshairs. But we do have to expand it. I feel like the first step is calling it the way you see it.
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