Your logic is side-stepping the point. There was a period of time, at least in the USA, where the goal was economical and social stability (New Deal, GI Bill, unions). Over the course of my life, the goal has morphed into wealth transfer. You can track this with the Gini coefficient, right? Sharp upward climb during the Reagan years. A "losing faith" metric is also a bellwether. The promise of economic gains is the reason to show up. No gains, no show. There's only so much you can pump out of a system with churn before it collapses. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as "make your own path," and this is a direct contradiction to "what people want to pay for" -- definitionally a "pre-made path". We all make choices from the options that are available to us in a system where many of the variables and constants are completely out of our control (eg, what the market desires). In fact, I'd go so far as to say everything about capitalism trends towards pre-made paths.
I guess the “hard work = gains” sentiment is showing something, but since it’s literally a misnomer on its face, and people take it way too literally, I think it doesn't show what many think it does.
I think the problem is that work changed too fast. This shift is much harder to navigate. A lot of 20th century career conveyer belts have been disrupted in the last 30 years. A lot of schools are still setting traditional expectations that no longer match reality. This is why people think their work doesn’t lead to gains: job requirements have been swapped from under US workers, and everyone is struggling to keep up. That said, opportunities are larger than ever, but we have to become more "entrepreneurial" again, perhaps more akin to the way we were during Industrial Revolution. Take that English major and use it to become an excellent YouTuber rather than a writer, type shit.
> In fact, I'd go so far as to say everything about capitalism trends towards pre-made paths.
How do you explain every new innovation? Cars during the time of horses? Twitter during the time of Facebook and MySpace, family medicine during the time of hospitalists and experts (fairly new field), Amazon during the times of Sears, framework laptop during the times of Apple, etc, etc. People don’t always know what they want, and America is incredibly well catered towards starting businesses (at least until a certain guy in a certain white building does permanent damage). Saying that we’re all constrained to market is very reductive. We are more empowered to find new ways to be useful than ever before. Doing economically unviable things has never been ok.
I just want to make it clear that very specifically “hard work means economic gains” is ridiculous on its face, and a lot of people take it literally, without the caveat that you have to do something useful.
