Interdependence.

We seem to have a huge problem in this country with the fact of interdependence. We dislike it so much, we feel compelled to take on herculean responsibilities because we have been trained to believe that no one successful ever got where they are with the help of others.

This is false, of course. Generally speaking you don't work 3 jobs, attend school full time, suffer from chronic illnesses, and take care of your two paralyzed parents all on your own and ever work your way out of poverty. In fact, statistically speaking, if you have even one full time job while you're in college, you will probably not finish. From the Daily Kos:

When students who have borrowed to finance their education face an average of $24,000 in debt after graduation and public college tuitions are skyrocketing, the problem of graduation rates requires us to think bigger. Yes, if students took less time to graduate, they would accumulate less debt. But they would take less time to graduate if they did not have to work so many hours; tinkering with scheduling is not going to suddenly make people able to afford high tuition, especially when people in their 20s face 14.1 percent unemployment and increasingly cannot afford to live outside their parents' homes.

The above is a response to the Time is the Enemy of College Completion report, a 246 page compendium of the problems plaguing the American college student today. Turns out, a lot of students are going to school part time because they have to work full time. Even with their full time jobs though, it's not enough to prevent them from racking up $20K+ in debt by the time they graduate, if they ever do.

I'm tickled by the 53% "movement," for its assumptions, its prevarications and its motivations. I am disappointed and saddened though, that there appear to be so many American citizens who believe that working without rest round the clock will have a pay off substantial enough to lift them out of debt and assure that they live comfortably for the remainder of their lives. Again, the chances of this happening are slight, especially now, given the flood of job applicants who have a Bachelor's and a job market that offers 1 job for every 4 people.

Nevertheless, the undeterred "53%" wear their fatigue as a badge of honor, claiming that no one owes them anything, all the while paying into a system with their blood, sweat, and tears with dismal returns. Why is it that in America, only the privileged deserve to live comfortably? Why are we so reluctant to grant everyone a living wage, access to affordable health care, a decent job, a good night's rest and food on the table?

Reading the 53% tumblr account is tragic. Most of the people telling their stories live or have lived in horrible circumstances and they believe, truly, that it is their own fault. What's more, they think the fault of unemployment rests with the individual, and claim that people are choosing to be unemployed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics begs to differ: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t11.htm. People aren't out of work because they chose to be. They're out of work because they're being laid off and there are few (if any) places to go. Some of them are starting all over again after having long careers and finding that the field that once held gainful employment for them suddenly doesn't, and they can't find anything else to do until they complete job training. (There are, of course other reasons, but as you can see from the statistics, people who left their employment constitute a very small percentage of total unemployment, while people who were laid off and people who are trying to reenter the workforce make up the majority.)

There are also older generations of college graduates participating in the 53% who argue that those of us who are unfortunate enough to have gone to school and graduated within the last five or six years are to blame for our student loan debt. They don't acknowledge the fact that with budget reductions, schools are less likely to award students with merit scholarships (I should know—I had 3.88 GPA the entire time I was in school and wasn't awarded a scholarship until my junior year. It was $1000 for the academic year, and after a round of budget cuts, it was reduced to $640 per year. At the same time, the cost of attendance rose to $18,000). They also don't acknowledge the soaring price of college as for-profits enter the market and use predatory tactics to increase admission, thus increasing the number of students with debt. Additionally, graduates of for-profit schools have far higher debt than students who graduate from non-profits, and they are also the most likely to default.

You have students who pay $40,000 for an education that gets them a $20,000 a year job if they're lucky. More than likely they won't be able to find full time employment, but will be underemployed for months at a time. In all likelihood, they will default on their student loans. Meanwhile, no loan servicing agencies are making Income Based Repayment options easily accessible to recent graduates whose grace period on their loans is almost up. Most schools aren't telling their students about this option either.

Given all of this, you'll have to forgive me if I don't want to blame young adults who hold bachelor's degrees responsible for their financial situation. They were led to believe that having an education was a step in the right direction, that they'd make more money and live comfortably. They were lied to. It certainly doesn't help that we have the 53% continuing to lie to them and to prospective students about the way that student loans work, or what the job market is actually like. Because there isn't a job out there for everyone, like they'd have you believe.

Suggesting that individuals are solely responsible for everything that happens to them, good or bad, is naïve at best and destructive at worst. Independence is a myth—No one independently earns all of the good things that happen to them, and no one independently gets all of the bad things that happen to them either. Interdependence is a fact of life, but we choose to ignore it. If we were to acknowledge it, I doubt we'd be able to continue living the way that we do in this country, with the situation as it stands. How could we countenance paying nurses so dismally and asking them to do so much for the sake of society while people like Ken Lay get paid a princely sum? How can we let the laborers who work in excess of 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week next to nothing when they produce, clean, process and/or package our food? How can we cut their pay and benefits and then get angry with them for demanding them back? If you think we don't depend on these people, please—go to Paulville, TX. Become a subsistence farmer. Then imagine that you aren't farming for you and your family anymore, but for millions of Americans and tell me that you deserve to be spit on when you ask for affordable health care.