We built a society that rewards attention more than competence, and we wonder why the attention hounds are running everything.
You know who gets the job done?
Boring people. People who don’t need to post online 50 times a day. People who have unremarkable appearances. People who don’t mind spending a whole day looking at spreadsheets and budgets.
People who don’t have a following.
People who are not building a personal brand. Ask them what their brand is and they say, “What?”
We ignore the people who are motivated by the work itself in favor of people who just want to be seen doing the work.
We’ve always had charismatic politicians and incompetent bureaucrats. But there used to be a lot more room for boring, competent people in government and in business.
It’s always been the case that people with a little charisma, men who were tall, women who were pretty and anybody with some kind of special sauce could get ahead. Social media poured gasoline on that.
Too many people run for office less because they want to govern than because it’s a platform for building fame and fortune.
The pay isn’t the point. Many of them would do the job for free because the exposure is pure gold.
When you’re chasing attention, notoriety pays off. All publicity is good publicity, right? The sorts of behaviors that would cause a politician to slink away in shame a generation ago are now just an opportunity to hit the top of the news cycle.
This is the progression:
In the 1960s, everyone turned a blind eye to President John F. Kennedy’s many affairs. The press knew, but stayed quiet. It was a private matter.
In 1988, the revelation that married presidential front-runner Gary Hart was having an affair was career-ending.
Now? An alleged affair with a porn star and a civil court finding that he committed defamation and sexual abuse against a journalist barely registers. I don’t even have to say his name.
What’s worse is that many truly competent people no longer want to run things. They don’t need the circus, thanks. We’ve selected for the people who reach for their phones before their feet hit the floor.
Let’s bring back boring people with long histories of doing boring work well instead of performing it.
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Jacob Schroeder, The Root of All
As this Scientific American article notes, studies show that “inequality—the gap between a society’s richest and poorest—predicts murder rates better than any other variable.” It is more strongly linked to murder than other societal problems, like poverty and substance abuse.
Allison Tait, Inheriting Inequality
For families without much money to spend on vacation, family properties also determine location. In this case, however, vacation is all about the relative’s couch, the free lodging, the drive to see grandparents and stay with them. This kind of vacation is also free and easy.
Jeremy Ney, American Inequality
When a rising tide lifts all boats, Americans everywhere benefit. But unfortunately we are living in a time when only a few are seeing their wealth rise dramatically and the masses are falling behind. This does not have to be a zero sum game, and America is a nation where we have proven time and again that we can find prosperity for all.
Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality and More 3.0
Decentralized Western capitalists have been able to squeeze domestic labor for forty years and run outsized profits. But now they are faced by a centralized capitalist (which is in effect the Chinese state) who is even more efficient in squeezing wages and increasing productivity. That centralized capitalist is now driving out of business Western decentralized capitalists. This is why the latter have to move the heaven and the earth in order to stop the centralized capitalist from winning. But they have to do all of that while never mentioning the role their own profits play in it.
Jessica, Grounded
Just because nobody is coming to save you, that doesn’t mean you can’t try to help someone else. That’s the hardest lesson of all, to realize that nobody is coming to save you, but to keep that from turning you cynical.
I’m Michelle Teheux, and I write about money, economic inequality and the systems that shape ordinary people’s lives.
If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules.
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All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park
For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.
Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.
When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.
Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.
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