Division of labor.

• Author: Lachelier, Paul
• Position: Letter to the editor

As a graduate student, I read Dean Bakopoulos's article with interest ("Requiem for the American Dream," July issue). I once worked as a security assistant in one of the University of Wisconsin-Madison libraries. I shared the library late shift with custodial workers who routinely passed by me picking up trash, sweeping, and vacuuming. It struck me at the time that while the custodial workers routinely come to the library to clean, students routinely come to the library to read, and leave their trash.

This mundane contrast points to the prevalent division of labor, a social force so powerful yet so ordinary that most people, even the most progressive, take it for granted. For many Americans, and most progressives including Bakopoulos, the problem is that we don't appreciate enough poor and working class people who make our cars or clean our libraries.

Accordingly, the popular progressive solution is to improve living conditions for manual laborers by granting them living wages, health insurance, etc.--all the good things that...