“Slavery created conditions in the South not unlike those for the Irish in Ireland. A crucial fact for both groups is that labor did not produce value for the worker, and so hard work was not initially a cultural value for either group. The work of the slave resulted in gain only for the slave owner…”

“The minimum wage in 2009 is only 73% of what it was in 1968 in real dollars.”

from Intelligence and How to Get It, Richard E. Nisbett

Hmmmm

Might this explain the modern college graduate, disillusioned by their parents’ generation’s “hard work” not paying off for the family?

And employers wonder why things other than pay are important to this generation (time freedom, for example). We want to work smarter, not harder. We’ve been shown that our hard work generates income for employers, not for us.

Not unlike the work of slaves…