working class essay

What Does the Working Class Really Want?

Vying for its crucial support, neither Democrats nor Republicans are focusing on the essential question.

Listen to this article

Listen to more stories on curio

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here .

Political partisans are always dreaming of final victories. Each election raises the hope of realignment—a convergence of issues and demographics and personalities that will deliver a lock on power to one side or the other. In my lifetime, at least five “permanent” majorities have come and gone. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide triumph over Barry Goldwater in 1964 seemed to ratify the postwar liberal consensus and doom the Republican Party to irrelevance—until, four years later, Richard Nixon’s narrow win augured an “ emerging Republican majority ” (the title of a book by his adviser Kevin Phillips ) based in the white, suburban Sun Belt. In 1976, Jimmy Carter heralded a winning interracial politics called “ the Carter coalition ,” which proved even shorter-lived than his presidency. With Ronald Reagan, the conservative ascendancy really did seem perpetual . After the Republican victory in the 2002 midterm elections, George W. Bush’s operative Karl Rove floated the idea of a majority lasting a generation or two.

Explore the January/February 2024 Issue

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

But around the same time, the writers John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira published The Emerging Democratic Majority , which predicted a decades-long advantage for the party of educated professionals, single women, younger voters, and the coming minority majority. The embodiment of their thesis soon appeared in Barack Obama—only to be followed by Donald Trump and the revenge of the white working class , a large plurality that has refused to fade away.

Recent American history has been hard on would-be realigners. The two parties are playing one of the longest deuce games since the founding. Even with the structural distortion of the Senate and the Electoral College favoring Republicans , the American people remain closely divided. The Democratic presidential candidate has won seven of the last eight popular votes, while the national vote for the House of Representatives keeps swinging back and forth between the parties. Stymied by a sense of stalemate, both now indulge in a form of magical thinking.

Neither side believes in the legitimacy of the other; each assumes that the voters agree and will soon sweep it into power. So the result of every election comes as a shock to the loser, who settles on explanations that have nothing to do with the popular will: foreign interference, fraudulent ballots, viral disinformation, a widespread conspiracy to cheat. The Republican Party tries to hold on to power by antidemocratic means: the Electoral College, the filibuster, grotesquely gerrymandered legislatures, even violence . The Democratic Party pursues a majority by demography, targeting an array of identity groups and assuming that their positions on issues will be predictably monolithic. The latter is a mistake; the former is a threat to democracy. Both are ways to escape the long, hard grind of organized persuasion that is politics.

From the January/February 2022 issue: Barton Gellman on how Trump’s next coup has already begun

Two other jarring features define our age of deadlock. One is a radical shift in the two parties’ center of gravity. The signature of elections today is the class divide called education polarization: In 2020, Joe Biden won by claiming a majority of college-educated white voters, the backbone of the old Republican Party. Trump, with a lock on the white working class, lost despite making gains among nonwhite, non-college-educated voters, yesterday’s most reliable Democrats. Meanwhile, on the political stage, cultural and social issues have eclipsed economic issues—even as every facet of American life, whether income or mortality rates, grows less equal and more divided by class.

These two trends are obviously related, and they have a history. From the late 1970s until very recently, the brains and dollars behind both parties supported versions of neoliberal economics: one hard-edged and friendly to old-line corporate interests such as the oil industry, the other gentler and oriented toward the financial and technology sectors. This consensus left the battleground open to cultural warfare . The educated professionals who dominate the country’s progressive party have long cared less about unions, wages, and monopoly power than about race, gender, and the environment. In the summer of 2020, millions of young people did not come out of isolation to protest the plight of meatpackers laboring in COVID-ridden processing plants. They were outraged by a police killing, and they called for a “racial reckoning”—a revolution in consciousness that ended up having little effect on the lives of the poor and oppressed.

For their part, Republicans have spoken the traditionalist language of the working class ever since Nixon’s “silent majority”; Trump dropped the mantra of low taxes and deregulation that used to excite the party when it was more upscale, and directed his message to a base that votes on issues such as crime, immigration, and what it means to be an American. More recently, Republican candidates have turned to anti-“woke” rhetoric. In losing its voice as the champion of workers, the Democratic Party lost many of the workers themselves , and during the past half century, the two parties have nearly switched electorates.

This remapping helps explain the outpouring of new books that pay political attention to those overlooked Americans of all races who lack a college degree, many employed in jobs that pay by the hour—factory workers, home health aides, delivery drivers, preschool teachers, hairdressers, restaurant servers, farm laborers, cashiers. During the pandemic, they were called “ essential workers .” Now they’ve been discovered to hold the key to power, giving rise to yet another round of partisan dreaming of realignment, this time hinging on the working class. But these Americans won’t benefit from their new status as essential voters until the parties spend less effort coming up with what they think the working class wants to hear, and more effort actually delivering what it wants and needs.

The economic decline and political migration of the American working class receive the most compelling treatment in Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream , by the New York Times writer David Leonhardt. He describes the rise and fall, from the New Deal to the present, of what he calls “democratic capitalism”—not a neutral phrase, but a positive term for a mixed economy that benefits the many, not just the few. By now, the story of growing inequality and declining mobility is familiar from the work of Thomas Piketty, Gary Gerstle, Raj Chetty , and other scholars. Leonhardt has a gift for synthesizing complex trends and data in straightforward language and persuasive arguments whose rationality doesn’t fully mute an undertone of indignation. He appreciates the power of stories and weaves obscure but telling events and people into his larger narrative: a 1934 strike in the Minneapolis coal yards that showed the political potential of worker solidarity; the mid-century businessman Paul Hoffman, who argued to members of his own class that they would benefit from a prosperous working class; the pioneering computer programmer and Navy officer Grace Hopper, who saw the economic benefits of military spending on technological research.

An economy that gives most people the chance for a decent life doesn’t arise by accident or through impersonal forces. It has to be created, and Leonhardt identifies three agents: political action, such as union organizing, that gives power to the have-nots; a civic ethos that restrains the greed of the haves; and public spending on people, infrastructure, and ideas—“a form of short-term sacrifice, an optimistic bet on what the future can bring.”

All three—power, culture, and investment—combined in the postwar decades to transform the American working class into the largest and richest middle class in history. Black Americans, even while enduring official discrimination and racist violence, closed the gap in pay and life expectancy with white Americans—progress, Leonhardt writes, that “reflected class-based changes more than explicitly race-based changes.” In other words, the right of workers to form unions, an increased and expanded federal minimum wage, and a steeply progressive tax code that funded good schools all reduced racial inequality by reducing economic inequality. But after the 1960s, the economy’s growth slowed, and the balance of power among the classes grew lopsided. American life became stratified. Wealth flowed upward to the few, unions withered , and public goods such as schools starved. In their rush to cash in, elites knocked over taboos that had once restrained the worst extremes of greed. Metropoles prospered and industrial regions decayed. Despite the end of Jim Crow and the growth of a Black professional class, the gap between Black and white Americans began to widen again as the country’s top 10 percent pulled away from the rest.

This economic analysis comes with a political argument that will not be welcomed by many progressives. Leonhardt places blame for the decline of the American dream where it belongs: on free-market intellectuals, right-wing politicians, corporate money. But he also points to the shortsighted complacency of union leaders, and, even more, the changing values and interests of well-educated, comfortable Democrats. Beginning in the early ’70s, they dropped concern about bread-and-butter issues for more compelling causes: the environment, peace, consumer protection, abortion, identity-group rights. The labor movement lost interest in social justice, and progressive politicians lost interest in the working class. Neither George Meany nor George McGovern sang from the New Deal songbook. After the ’60s, “the country no longer had a mass movement centered on lifting most Americans’ living standards.”

Why did the white working class abandon the party that had been its champion? “In the standard progressive telling,” Leonhardt writes, “the explanation for this political shift is race.” Race had a lot to do with it, and Leonhardt affirms that Democrats’ embrace of the Black freedom movement in the ’60s, followed by white backlash (exploited by Republicans with their “southern strategy”) and persistent racism, is a major cause. But the progressive telling falls short on three counts. It’s morally self-flattering and self-exonerating; it’s politically self-defeating (accusing voters of racism, even if deserved, is not the way to convince them of anything); and it fails to explain too many recent political trends. For example, nearly all-white West Virginia remained mostly Democratic decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and only turned indelibly red in 2000. According to one estimate, almost a quarter of the working-class white voters who gave Trump the presidency in 2016 had voted for a Black president only a few years earlier. The stark polarization of the current college-educated and non-college-educated white electorate shows the key role of class. And what are we to make of an openly bigoted president running for a second term and increasing his share of the Black and Latino vote ?

Leonhardt’s subtler account is rooted in the working class’s growing cultural and economic alienation from a Democratic Party ever more dominated by elites and activists, and out of touch on the issues that hurt less affluent Americans most, especially crime, trade, and immigration. The financial crisis of 2008 was a pivotal event, leaving large numbers of Americans with the sense that the country’s upper classes were playing a dirty game at the expense of the rest.

That fall, I reported on the presidential campaign in a dying coal town in Appalachian Ohio. To my surprise, its white residents were giving Obama a close hearing, and he ended up doing better in the region than John Kerry had. But at a local party gathering, an older white man told me that neither party had done anything to reverse the decline of his town, and that he would no longer vote Democratic, for one reason: illegal immigration. I listened politely and discounted his grievance—I didn’t see any undocumented immigrants in Glouster, Ohio. Why did he care so much?

Leonhardt provides an answer. In a comprehensive analysis, he shows that the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which liberal politicians sold as nondiscriminatory but still restrictive, opened the gates to mass immigration . The result put downward pressure on wages at the lower end of the economy. Again, racial resentment partly explains hostility to large-scale immigration, but Leonhardt shows that rapid demographic change can erode the social bonds that make collective efforts for greater equality possible: “Low immigration numbers in the mid-1900s improved the lives of recent immigrants by fostering a stronger safety net for everybody.” As Democrats were reminded in 2022’s midterms, immigration is less popular among working-class Americans of all races than among college graduates. The mayor of my very progressive city, a son of the Black working class , recently sounded like that working-class white ex-Democrat in Ohio when he warned that the arrival of more than 100,000 migrants “will destroy New York.”

David Leonhardt: The hard truth about immigration

These positions reflect class differences in approaches to morality. Drawing on social-science research, Leonhardt distinguishes between “universal” values such as fairness and compassion, which matter more among educated professionals, and “communal” values such as order, tradition, and loyalty, which count more lower down the class ladder. It shouldn’t be surprising that working-class Americans of color sympathize with migrants but don’t necessarily want an open border, that they fear crime at least as much as police misconduct. But their views confound progressives, who see these issues through the almost metaphysical lens of group identity —the belief that we think inside lines of race, gender, and sexuality, that these accidental and immutable traits dictate our politics.

This worldview provided a sense of meaning to a generation that came of age after 2008, amid upheaval and disillusionment. Because the new progressivism flourished among younger, educated Americans who lived online, its cultural reach was disproportionate, making rapid inroads in universities, schools, media, the arts, philanthropy. But its believers badly overplayed their hand, giving Republicans easy wins and driving away ordinary Democrats. Americans remain a wildly diverse, individualistic, aspirational people, with rising rates of mixed marriage, residential integration, and immigration from all over the world. Any rigid politics of identity—whether the left’s obsession with “marginalized communities,” or its sinister opposite in the reactionary paranoia of “ white replacement theory ”—is bound to shatter against the realities of American life.

Identity politics has been a feverish interlude following the demise of the neoliberal consensus that prevailed from Reagan to Obama. What will take its place? Leonhardt hopes for a Democratic Party that learns how not to alienate the nearly two-thirds of Americans without a college degree. He believes that education can be a force for upward mobility, but that the current version of meritocracy—built-in advantage at the top, underfunding below—has created a highly educated aristocracy. He advises a renewed emphasis on economic populism, a hard line on equal rights for all but reasonable compromise on other controversial social issues, and a general attitude of respect. His hero is the martyred Robert F. Kennedy, whose 1968 presidential campaign was the last to unite working-class Americans of all colors.

Yascha Mounk: Where the new identity politics went wrong

A version of the same argument, with less historical depth and feeling but more charts and polemics, can be found in John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes . Judis and Teixeira have been explaining their earlier book’s thesis for two decades even as the majority of its title kept failing to emerge. Now they diagnose their error: “What began happening in the last decade is a defection, pure and simple, of working-class voters. That’s something that we really didn’t anticipate.” Like Leonhardt, they call on Democrats to embrace New Deal–style “economic liberalism” (but not Green New Deal–style socialism) and to reject “today’s post-sixties version of social liberalism, which is tantamount to cultural radicalism.” In a series of scathing chapters, Judis and Teixeira show how far left the Democrats’ “shadow party” of activists, donors, and journalists has moved in the past 20 years on immigration, race, gender, and climate.

The authors want a return to the party’s cultural centrism of the ’90s. Instead of decriminalizing the border, which most 2020 Democratic presidential candidates advocated, they call for tighter border security, enforcement of laws that prohibit hiring undocumented immigrants, and a way for those already here to become citizens. They show that middle-ground policies like these and others—the pursuit of racial equality that focuses on expanding opportunity for individuals, not equity of group outcomes; support for equal rights for trans Americans without insisting on a gender ideology that denies biological sex—remain majority views, including among nonwhite Americans. Judis and Teixeira are less persuasive on climate change: Although their gradualism might be politically helpful to Democrats, the country and the planet will be at the mercy of extreme weather that’s indifferent to such messaging.

Joshua Green’s fast-paced, sober, yet hopeful The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics argues that a Democratic renewal is already under way. Like Leonhardt, Judis, and Teixeira, Green traces the Democrats’ estrangement from working Americans back to the ’70s; he begins his story with a moment in 1978, when Jimmy Carter abandoned unions for Wall Street. The narrative reaches a climax in 2008, when the financial crisis destroyed home values and retirement savings while taxpayer dollars rescued the banks that had triggered it, convincing large numbers of Americans that the system was rigged by financiers and politicians. Because of policy choices by the Obama administration—Democrats’ last spasm of neoliberalism—much of the blame fell on the former party of the common people.

Yet out of the wreckage rose a new group of Democratic stars who sounded like their New Deal predecessors, many of whom were every bit as radical. Taking aim at corporate elites, Green’s protagonists want to increase economic equality through worker power and state intervention. Though Sanders and Warren failed as presidential candidates, Green argues that their populism transformed the party, including the formerly moderate Joe Biden , who has pushed a remarkably ambitious legislative agenda with working-class interests at its center.

Green is a first-rate journalist, but his book suffers from a blind spot: It ignores the role of culture in the party’s struggles with the working class. His analysis omits half the story until the 2016 election, when, he acknowledges, Trump “reshuffled Democratic priorities. As he moved cultural issues to the center of national political conflict, race, gender, and immigration eclipsed populist economics as the focus of the liberal insurgency.” In the face of Trump’s bigotry, Democrats felt compelled to adopt the “maximalist” positions of activists, assuming that these would align the party with “the groups on the receiving end of Trump’s ugliest barbs,” such as Latino immigrants . Instead, the party’s working-class losses began to extend beyond white voters. Green’s answer is to double down on economic populism: “Rather than fear the Republicans’ culture wars—or respond to them by racializing policies that benefit everyone—Democrats should take the opportunity to reestablish the party as serving the interests of working people of every race and ethnicity.”

None of these books offers a shortcut to a new Democratic majority. The erosion of working-class support is too old and too severe to be easily reversed. In fact, it’s the Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, in Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP , who imagines a coming realignment—for Republicans. Ruffini can’t resist making the case that, in addition to transforming the party, this coalition could become the next permanent majority. To do so, he breezes through some of the same history, and reaches a similar conclusion: Democrats have fallen into a “cosmopolitan trap,” losing their hold on a key constituency in the process.

Ruffini’s most original contribution is to apply close statistical analysis to the past few election cycles as he builds his case for a Republican multiracial coalition . He supplies strong evidence of the moderate social views of most Black, Latino, and Asian American voters. On that basis, Ruffini doesn’t think Democrats can win back their lost supporters just by changing the subject to class. “Democrats may calculate that, simply by focusing on economic issues, they can keep cultural issues from eating into their base,” but they’re wrong, he writes. “When voters’ economic views and social views are in conflict, one’s social stances more often drive voting behavior … Cultural divides are what voters vote on even if politicians don’t talk about them.” Ruffini offers no data to support this conclusion, but it underpins his counsel for a politician like Biden. Never mind his legislative accomplishments that benefit the working class; what he really needs, Ruffini advises in political-operative mode, is a “hard pivot against the cultural left”—he seems to have in mind a Sister Souljah moment—to neutralize Republican attacks.

Though Ruffini doesn’t spend much time on economic policy, it’s worth noting that a few high-profile Republicans have recently discovered that monopolistic corporations can be oppressors, that capitalism tears communities apart. Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as other politicians, limit this insight to their partisan enemies in Silicon Valley, but a few conservative writers, such as Sohrab Ahmari, the author of Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—And What to Do About It , are open to ideas of social democracy. This internal party battle between the old libertarians and the new egalitarians doesn’t seem to interest Ruffini; oddly, given his populist ambitions, he remains unmoved by the anti-corporate critique. Nor does he have much to say about the Republican Party’s descent with Trump into authoritarian nihilism .

Ruffini’s formative years as a professional Republican came during the George W. Bush presidency, and his thinking hasn’t kept up with the America of fentanyl and Matt Gaetz. The populist future of Ruffini’s desires is a wholesome mixture of culturally conservative, “pro-capitalist” families and low taxes. His “commonsense majority” would combine white people who didn’t graduate from college and nonwhite people of all classes, because “the education divide makes a much bigger difference in the attitudes of whites than it does among nonwhites.” It sounds like a twist on the Judis-Teixeira emerging majority of two decades ago. Demography as destiny seduces realigners on both sides.

Ruffini recognizes that Republicans are a long way from attracting enough nonwhite voters to achieve his majority. But, he argues, if the party battles job discrimination based on a college degree, makes voting Republican socially acceptable among Black Americans, and apologizes for the southern strategy , his goal could be realized by 2036. By then, the Democratic Party would presumably be a pious rump of overeducated white people demanding open borders and anti-racist math.

These writers are all trying to solve a puzzle: One party supports unions, the child tax credit, and some form of universal health care, while the other party does everything in its power to defeat them. One president passed major legislation to renew manufacturing and rebuild infrastructure, while his predecessor cut taxes on the rich and corporations. Yet polls since 2016 have shown Republicans closing the gap with Democrats on which party is perceived to care more about poor Americans, middle-class Americans, and “people like me.” During these years, the energy on the left has been fueled by an identity politics that resisted Trump and became the orthodoxy of educated progressives, with its own daunting lexicon. Many Democrats fell silent, out of fear or shame or confusion.

Now, encouraged perhaps by the excesses and failures of a professional-class social-justice movement, and by the relative success of Biden’s pro-worker agenda, they seem to be finding their voice. Judis and Teixeira cite polling data from Wisconsin and Massachusetts as evidence that Americans are less divided on cultural issues than activists on both sides, who benefit by stoking division, would like: “If you look at the country’s voters, and put aside the culture wars, what you find are genuine differences between the parties’ voters over economic issues.” The real disagreements have to do with taxation, regulation, health care, and the larger problem of inequality. Democrats’ way forward seems obvious: emphasize differences on economics by turning left; mute differences on culture by tacking to the middle. If the party can free itself from the moneyed interests of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and the cultural radicalism of campus and social media, it might start to win in red states.

I want Leonhardt, Judis, Teixeira, and Green to be right. Having long held the same views, I’m an ideal audience for these books and other new ones making related arguments, such as Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time , Susan Neiman’s Left Is Not Woke , and Fredrik deBoer’s How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement . Yet the solutions that some of them propose for the Democrats’ working-class problem leave me with a worrying skepticism. In an age of shredded social bonds and deep distrust of institutions, especially the federal government, we can’t go back to New Deal economics. If Ruffini is right, the culture wars aren’t easily put aside. “Guns and religion,” in Obama’s unfortunate phrase, are genuinely held values, not just proxies for economic grievance; conservative politicians manipulate them, but they aren’t inauthentic. Race and gender are more important categories than class for millions of Americans, especially younger ones . Illegal immigration legitimately vexes citizens living precarious lives. Social issues aren’t manufactured by power-hungry politicians to divide the masses. They matter—that’s why they’re so polarizing.

The working class is immense, varied, and not all that amenable to being led. It’s more atomized, more independent-minded, more conspiracy-minded and cynical than it was a couple of generations ago. Although unions are gaining popularity and energy , only a tenth of workers belong to one. Abandoned to an unfair economy while the rich freely break the rules, bombarded with images of fame and wealth, awash in drugs, working-class Americans are less likely to identify with underdogs like Rocky and Norma Rae or the defeated heroes of Springsteen songs than to admire celebrities who pursue power for its own sake—none more so than Trump.

The argument over which matters more, economics or culture, may obsess the political class, but Americans living paycheck to paycheck, ill-served by decades of financial neglect and polarizing culture wars, can’t easily separate the two. All of it—wages, migrants, police, guns, classrooms, trade, the price of gas, the meaning of the flag—can be a source of chaos or of dignity. The real question is this: Can our politics, in its current state, deliver hard-pressed Americans greater stability and independence, or will it only inflict more disruption and pain? The working class isn’t a puzzle whose solution comes with a prize—it isn’t a means to the end of realignment and long-term power. It is a constituency comprising half the country, whose thriving is necessary for the good of the whole.

This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “What Does the Working Class Really Want?”

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Book Report — Blue-Collar Brilliance’ Summary: a Tribute to the Working Class

Blue-collar Brilliance' Summary: a Tribute to The Working Class

• Categories: Book Report Character Plot

About this sample

Words: 1000 |

Published: Jul 3, 2023

Words: 1000 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Unveiling the Most Common Misconception in 'Blue-Collar Brilliance'

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 895 words

4 pages / 1899 words

2.5 pages / 1232 words

7.5 pages / 3353 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Book Report

Tuesdays with Morrie is book which was composed by one of the subject’s most loved student, Mitch Albom. Mitch is an American writer, columnist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and TV telecaster, and performer. It was committed [...]

Fairy tales have been a part of human culture for centuries, passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition and written literature. These stories often feature magical elements, fantastical creatures, and moral [...]

In conclusion, "Deaf Like Me" is a testament to the power of communication, understanding, and empathy. Through their personal journey, the Spradleys invite us to reflect on the challenges faced by the Deaf community and [...]

Many modern playwrights seek to connect contemporary issues with ancient themes by updating the stories of mythic stories into a completely modern milieu. With Blood Wedding, Federico Garcia Lorca seeks to explore this idea [...]

Character Development: Explore how the characters in "The Book Thief" are shaped and transformed by the power of words, including Liesel, Hans, and Max. Literary Devices: Analyze the literary devices [...]

Mental illness does not discriminate. Despite Nathanial Ayers’ talent as a musician, artist, and generally good upbringing, schizophrenia still found a way to enter into his life. Through meeting compassionate journalist Steve [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Previous Issue
• Previous Article
• Next Article
• Sketching the Baseline
• Easing of Anticommunism and Reemergence of the Left
• Racial Politics
• The Beleaguered Working Class and Its Oppressors
• The Mainstreaming of Working Class

The Strange Career of “the Working Class” in US Political Culture Since the 1950s

ROBYN MUNCY is professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Among her publications are Relentless Reformer: Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America (2015) and Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 (1991).

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data
• Peer Review
• Open the PDF for in another window
• Permissions
• Cite Icon Cite
• Search Site

Robyn Muncy; The Strange Career of “the Working Class” in US Political Culture Since the 1950s. Labor 1 December 2018; 15 (4): 37–58. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-7127250

Download citation file:

• Reference Manager

This article explores the use of the term working class in US political culture since the 1950s. Studying the trajectory of the phrase in the New York Times , the essay finds that the term fell from grace in the 1950s and early 1960s but reemerged thereafter and that the reasons for the increasing prevalence of the term in the 1970s and 1980s explain its ubiquity in the 2016 presidential election season.

Advertisement

Citing articles via

Email alerts, affiliations.

• About Labor: Studies in Working-Class History
• Editorial Board
• For Authors
• Rights and Permissions Inquiry
• Online ISSN 1558-1454
• Print ISSN 1547-6715
• Copyright © 2024
• Duke University Press
• 905 W. Main St. Ste. 18-B
• Durham, NC 27701
• (888) 651-0122
• International
• +1 (919) 688-5134
• Information For
• Advertisers
• Book Authors
• Booksellers/Media
• Journal Authors/Editors
• Journal Subscribers
• Prospective Journals
• Licensing and Subsidiary Rights
• View Open Positions
• email Join our Mailing List
• catalog Current Catalog
• Accessibility
• Get Adobe Reader

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Working Class Essay Examples

Many students are faced with the problem of finding ideas for writing their essays. This website contains a database with more than 50 000 essay examples, using which you can easily find inspiration for creating your own essay on Working Class.

Here you will find many different essay topics on Working Class. You will be able to confidently write your own paper on the influence of Working Class on various aspects of life, reflect on the importance of Working Class, and much more. Keep on reading!

The story’s setting of a historical Philippine period portrays strong Marxist undertones that display the social class system and the different types of oppression that was evident during the Commonwealth era such a physical oppression, emotional oppression, intellectual oppression and indirect oppression. Over the years, people all over the world have been oppressed and have […]

The statement in Western Heritage that “A vast social gap separated poor working-class women from their middle-class counterparts,” is an overgeneralization of the truth. In the late 19th and early 20th century, single women of the lower middle class often had a similar lifestyle to those in the working class. It was only after marriage […]

I will be talking about the different impacts of seven social inequalities which exist in society today. I will be talking about the ways In which individuals in society are different by our: ; Ethnicity Gender Culture Social Class Age Sexuality Disability Sexuality – Sexuality is defined as a person’s sexual orientation or preference. It […]

The conservatives came into power in 1895 and stayed in power for ten years, these were known as the “Ten Glorious Years. ” Lord Salisbury was the Prime Minister; he was a member of the aristocracy and the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury was an upstanding traditionalist and believed in keeping the status quo intact, […]

The message of the cartoon is that the workers in Russia support the whole country – and without them, Russia would collapse. It also shows that the rest of the Russians are having an easy and comfortable life at the worker’s expense and that this is very unfair. The cartoonist gets this message across by […]

Although tariff reform was a major contributing factor to the defeat of the conservatives it was by no means the most important. In my opinion, the factor that most widely contributed to the fall of the Tories was the bad leadership and poor social judgment of Prime Minister Arthur J. Balfour. The nephew of Lord […]

In Ladri di Biciclette (1948), director Vittorio De Sica portrays an Italy full of unemployment – where people turn to superstition when confronted by uncertainty, where authorities are virtually invisible, where helplessness and despair overshadow the peace of the post-war period. One of the earlier influential titles in the neo-realism category, Ladri di Biciclette employs […]

stley inAn Inspector Calls. How do they respond to the inspectors questioning and what effect does this have on the audience? An Inspector Calls is a play set in Edwardian England in the Spring of 1912. It is just before World War 2 and the author J.B. Priestley tries to write to inform and change […]

Is conservatism merely a ruling class ideology? A ruling class ideology as defined by Karl Marx is “the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production… the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to […]

Culture deprivation is when people of different classes have differences in their norms, values, attitudes of education and their speech patterns. Working class parents have a lack of interest on their child’s education which leads the child to be at a disadvantage as the other middle class children will have parents who are very interested […]

In Stayin’ Alive, Jefferson Cowie examines how political and cultural influences affected the economic independence of white workers and the decline of an inclusive view on social class (Stayin Alive, Cowie. 72). One part of the book explores the emergence of the New Right movement, while another addresses the breakdown of cultural symbols within the […]

This paper attempts to answer the questions based on the reading of The Dispossessed by William Deresiewicz. He wrote about the inconspicuous disappearance of the American working class from the mainstream and the reasons behind it. The all popular middle class has been justly criticized for their self conceit and attempts to portray itself as […]

We have all been there a teenager looking to for our first job. We have hit the point were the money that our parents are giving us is not enough anymore and we need a larger amount of money. The only reason we want the money is to have money for the movies or to […]

Contemporary class differences should not longer cause problems in social life. As differences between high class and low class members are growing, difficulties in communication expand at the same measure. The US sitcom “2 Broke Girls”, produced by Michael Patrick King in 2011, tackles these issues and creates a TV series, which is not as […]

In these most recent economic times, it is clear to see that the rift between the extremely rich and the extremely poor is expanding, with those in the middle being stretched to one extreme or the other. There seems to be no reconciliations for this ever-growing disparity, as the corporations that used to comprise solely […]

The first few pages of “Miss Julie” reveals a few aspects of the characters of Jean and Miss Julie, it foreshadows the events that may happen later on in the play and it reveals the gender and class discrimination. The theme of class discrimination and rigidity is shown in the play. The setting of the […]

Chartism was a campaign in support of a people’s charter it came about in 1838. Its main demand was a vote for all men and was launched by a radical group known as London Working Men’s Association (LWMA) and some radical MPs. It was supported by working classes and some middle classes. The Chartism movement […]

It’s Not Homelessness Rather It Is Houselessness The working class people look at homeless people as a mass, a pack of individuals that the working class people label such a pack as the homeless, the same as characterizing who they are, nevertheless the working class people disregard the direction of silent remark to realize that […]

All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) is a fighting trade union centre of the Indian working class. Its founding conference was held in Chennai in May 1989. The second and third all-India conferences were held respectively in Calcutta (May 1992) and Patna (September 1995). Now the Fourth All India Conference was held in […]

Introduction ASDA is a widely known retail merchant and the 2nd largest company in the UK retail industry. Till now ASDA has established more than 360 supermarkets, pes shops and life shops ( non-food shops ) covering most countries of England and Wales, and it is using the concern more sharply in Scotland and Northern […]

After tea and water, it is the third most popular drink all around the world. Brewing industry is huge and global business includes many dominant multinational companies and various thousands of small manufacturers ranging from regional breweries to brewpubs. Today the world is highly competitive, in which companies must maintain continuous improvement, followed by product […]

Popular Questions About Working Class

Haven't found what you were looking for, search for samples, answers to your questions and flashcards.

• Enter your topic/question
• Receive an explanation
• Ask one question at a time
• Enter a specific assignment topic
• Aim at least 500 characters
• a topic sentence that states the main or controlling idea
• supporting sentences to explain and develop the point you’re making
• evidence from your reading or an example from the subject area that supports your point
• analysis of the implication/significance/impact of the evidence finished off with a critical conclusion you have drawn from the evidence.

The Conditions of the Working Class in England Expository Essay

How the industrial revolution affected the conditions of the working class in england.

The 19 th century can be characterized by the shift from accentuating the role of the humans in manufacturing and in the economic process to emphasizing the possibilities of machines for the industries’ development.

In his book The Conditions of the Working Class in England , Friedrich Engels discusses the effects of the Industrial Revolution as the main event of the 19 th century for the workers in England, paying attention to the situation in Manchester and Liverpool.

Engels as one of the most influential social scientists and political theorists of the 19 th century provides the complete discussion of the challenges which the working class in England experienced under the impact of the Industrial Revolution in 1844, and the significance of the work is in the fact Engels’s work is based on his own observations of the situation in England.

According to Engels, in spite of developing technologies with inventing the steam engine and jenny and contributing to the economic growth with increasing the gains, the Industrial Revolution influenced the society negatively, making workers the “slaves” in the industrial world where human forces were changed with machines. Thus, the inventions led to the “radical change in the state of English workers” (Engels 52).

First of all, to characterize the period of the Industrial Revolution from the point of its impact on the social and economic development, it is necessary to pay attention to the inventions which made the revolution possible. The changes in the technological process of many industries were based on the invention of the steam engine and jenny.

Thus, “the history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the steam-engine and of machinery for working cotton” (Engels 50).

It was the start of the Industrial Revolution which further changed the basic principles of the English economic and social systems. The approach to manufacturing was changed significantly, and the industries’ productivity could move to the higher level.

As a result, the changes and improvements in the technological process led to the changes in the economic rates of the country. The new technologies contributed to making the process of producing goods faster and more effective. Thus, the public demands increase and the costs and prices decrease.

The industries’ productivity changed with using machines results in making the goods more available for the population. This situation becomes extremely influential for the economic progress of the country in which the main accents are made on commerce. It is important to note that the accentuation of the national wealth in the context of the successful free trade between countries can be discussed from several perspectives.

Although the economic growth dependent on the active usage of the new technologies as a result of the Industrial Revolution can be observed in Great Britain during the second half of the 19 th century, Engels states that the positive effects of the revolution for the economy cannot be compared with the negative consequences of the process for the workers (Engels 64).

It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that in spite of all the positive effects of the Industrial Revolution for the country’s economy, the changes in the industry process led to the decline of the English society. The intensive development of industries resulted in people’s migrating to cities in search of work, but the hand-work were no longer required much because of using machines instead of people.

The working class was demoralized by the need to work almost for free under the pressure of employers (Engels 147). Engels pays attention to the fact that the workers became the slaves of the property owners under the impact of the economic competition developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution (Engels 114).

It was impossible to speak about the security for the workforce, and the workers suffered from different kinds of pressure which resulted in their mortality from disease the level of which was higher in cities than in the rural territories.

To look at the issue from the larger perspective and analyze the isolation of the workers from each other and any facilities, it is possible to refer to Engels’s words, “the dissolution of mankind into monads, of each which one has a separate principle and a separate purpose, the world of atoms, is here carried out to its utmost extreme” (Engels 69).

The Industrial Revolution is the most influential event of the 19 th century which contributed to changing the principles according to which industries and economies developed and affected the conditions of the working class significantly, depriving them from jobs and any social guarantees.

It is important to pay attention to the Engels’s approach to discussing the problem because the theorist presents the evidences of the real social situation in England caused by the Industrial Revolution in 1844. Engels’s arguments are necessary to be referred to while discussing the positive and negative effects of the Industrial Revolution for the Western Civilization.

Works Cited

Engels, Friedrich. The Conditions of the Working Class in England. London: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 23). The Conditions of the Working Class in England. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-conditions-of-the-working-class-in-england/

"The Conditions of the Working Class in England." IvyPanda , 23 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/the-conditions-of-the-working-class-in-england/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'The Conditions of the Working Class in England'. 23 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "The Conditions of the Working Class in England." March 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-conditions-of-the-working-class-in-england/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Conditions of the Working Class in England." March 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-conditions-of-the-working-class-in-england/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Conditions of the Working Class in England." March 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-conditions-of-the-working-class-in-england/.

• Friederich Engels: Industrial Manchester, 1844
• Civilization from “The Condition of the Working Class in England”
• Jenny in the Gamers Subculture
• Fredrick Engels: Economics
• "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
• Gender Studies: Engels, Marx and Gilman' Views Comparison
• Marx’s, Engels’, Weber’s Ideas on World Development
• Industrialization According to Marx and Engels
• James K. Polk: One of the Strongest of All Presidents
• Henry Clay: A Man of Compromise
• The Particular Features of the Costume of the Upper Class in France of the 17th Century
• ‘The Crawlers’ by Thompson and Smith
• Wars of Religion and Consolidation in France
• The Age of Exploration
• The Atlantic Slave Trade

• Search Menu
• Author Guidelines
• Open Access Options
• Why Publish with JAH?
• About Journal of American History
• About the Organization of American Historians
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

• < Previous

Rethinking U.S. Labor History: Essays on the Working-Class Experience

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Lawrence Richards, Rethinking U.S. Labor History: Essays on the Working-Class Experience, Journal of American History , Volume 99, Issue 3, December 2012, Pages 881–882, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jas375

• Permissions Icon Permissions

In the opening paragraph of their introduction to this collection of essays, the editors note that it has been twenty-five years since the publication of the “path-breaking” Working-Class America: Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society (coedited by Michael B. Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz, 1983), which announced the arrival of the new labor history (p. 1). While the editors hope that this current volume will also serve “as a marker of an important transitional moment in labor history,” it is not clear that the essays included here show as much of a paradigm shift as that earlier work ( ibid .). Where the new labor history changed the focus from working-class institutions (that is, unions) to workers, this collection continues that tradition of writing history from the bottom up. Indeed, the last three essays, included in a section labeled “New Directions in U.S. Labor History,” are specifically meant to suggest new theoretical approaches that historians of labor and the working class should adopt. The first eight essays, in contrast, are meant to showcase new, original research by leading scholars in the field.

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Process - a blog for american history
• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1945-2314
• Print ISSN 0021-8723
• Copyright © 2024 Organization of American Historians
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

The Making of the English Working Class

58 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 4

Part 1, Chapter 5

Part 2, Chapters 6-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 3, Chapters 13-14

Part 3, Chapter 15

Part 3, Chapter 16

Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

How does Thompson define “class”? How does this definition influence his approach to researching and writing The Making of the English Working Class ?

How did the English government’s prolonged counter-revolution (1795-1820) contribute to the formation of a working-class consciousness?

To what extent did the Industrial Revolution help make the English working class?

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Featured Collections

British Literature

View Collection

Business & Economics

Challenging Authority

European History

Political Science Texts

Politics & Government

SuperSummary Staff Picks

The Best of "Best Book" Lists

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essay Examples >
• Essays Topics >
• Essay on Literature

Working Class Heroes Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Literature , Class , Sociology , Batman , Working , Man , People , Working Class

Words: 1500

Published: 03/08/2023

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

First of all, I would like to focus on the story “The Man with the Twisted Lip” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story is about Mr. Neville St. Clair, who has recently moved to the area. He rented a luxurious villa. Mr. St. Clair is happily married and had two children. His neighbors consider him to be a wonderful family man, and an excellent person. The character is engaged in commerce and seems to experience no financial difficulties. However, one day Mr. Neville St. Clair disappears. His wife asks Sherlock Holmes to find him. She tells Mr. Holmes that on the day, when her husband disappeared, she had to pass by the port, where the poor usually gathered. One of the homeless, a lame cripple named Hugh Boone, gained special popularity. His had a repulsive appearance and was scarred. The man was selling wax matches and attracted buyers with his witty sense of humor. Eventually, Sherlock Homes managed to find out that the homeless cripple was actually the missing Neville St. Clair. Therefore, a question arises: what made a respectful man pretend that he was homeless? Neville St. Clair received an excellent education. During his young years, he took up many professions. He was an actor and a reporter. One day he was assigned to write a newspaper article about the poor. In order to receive the necessary material, Neville made-up and sat down in a busy place to beg. By evening, he was surprised to find that he had earned a decent amount of money. However, Neville forgot about this case, until he did not have to pay the debt. With the aim of getting the required amount, he took a leave from his work and went begging. When Neville St. Clair realized that begging would bring him more money, he quit his job. This secret was known only to the owner of a brothel and Neville generously paid him. All in all, Neville swears a solemn oath to give up this occupation. Sherlock Holmes summarizes: “But it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all” (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 244). It can be said that in this story Sir Author Conan Doyle eliminates the gap between the rich and the poor. The author highlights interdependence between the two different social worlds. The main thesis is that the status and respect do not always bring the desired wealth. One more example from the class readings, which I would like to analyze in this essay, is the story “The South of the Slot” by Jack London. The story tells us about Freddie Drummond, who is a professor of sociology in the University of California. Mr. Drummond conducts his field researches by pretending to be a man from the labor ghetto. He wrote several notorious books on the subject, including "The Unskilled Laborer", "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" and "Message to Garcia". His work “The Unskilled Laborer” is considered to be a valuable contribution into the progressive literature. It should be noted that the professor, being deeply devoted to his studies, is entirely convinced that a good book requires living with the so-called “working class heroes”: “He endeavored really to know the working people, and the only possible way to achieve this was to work beside them, eat their food, sleep in their beds, be amused with their amusements, think their thoughts, and feel their feelings” (Selected Short Stories, 818). However, in order to complete this task, the professor penetrates into the labor environment and conducts the so-called "participant observation". For that purpose, a new worker Bill Tots is invented. Initially, Mr. Drummond simply played his part as a good actor, but over the time, Bill Tots becomes his second personality. Gradually, after certain adaptation, Mr. Drummond not only experiences the existing problems, but also becomes the leader of the labor movement. Nevertheless, this happens only when he pretended to be Bill. When Freddie returns to the classic atmosphere of the University, he regains the ability to calmly and impartially summarize the adventures, which occurred to him at the “bottom”. The professor is ready to write everything down on paper. He acts as a social scientist, by sincerely distancing himself from the problems of the labor class. Suffering from the internal split, the professor decides to stay in the world of permanently secured and prosperous people. The moment of culmination comes, when the professor and his fiancée are visiting a new youth club in the labor district. The fiancée was involved in the construction of the club. On their way, they see the labor strikers, who are fighting with the police. Suddenly, a sense of solidarity awakes in the soul of Freddie Drummond; he enters the fight on the side of the workers. Eventually, he goes to live together with the workers. Thus, he makes a decision to return to the stormy life of the working class forever. Overall, it may be said that the story underlines the importance of humanism in our life. Jack London encourages us to participate in every aspect of the human existence, without limiting ourselves. The author condemns sticking to certain models of social behavior and motivates us to broad our horizons by providing assistance to those, who need it. Moreover, the idea of migration to the lower social class is often depicted in the popular culture. Judging from my experience, I should say that the example of Batman is the most suitable illustration of the process in question. In the original version of his biography, Batman is the secret alter ego of a billionaire Bruce Wayne, who is also a successful industrialist and philanthropist. Bruce is extremely popular among young women. However, as a child, he witnessed the murder of both his parents. Bruce vowed to devote his life to the eradication of crime and the fight for justice. Having prepare himself both physically and mentally, he puts on a bat-styled suit and goes to the streets to confront the violence. The stories about Batman take place in a fictional American city of Gotham. With the assistance of several supporting characters, Batman fight against the criminal community, corrupted politicians and authorities of Gotham, as well as against a group of villains, including The Joker, Poison Ivy and Penguin. Unlike most superheroes, Batman does not possess any superpower. He uses his intellect, martial arts skills as well as knowledge of science and technology. Batman has the indomitable will. He is able to instill fear and to intimidate his enemies. In my opinion, Batman demonstrates us how important are our choices. His example deeply inspires me, by providing clear evidence that money cannot shape our values and personality. The last piece of culture to mention in this essay is the song “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon. The singer leads us to understanding that nowadays all the people are chasing money and ignore the idea of true happiness. He highlights that everyone is happy with being just an element of the system in the modern consumer society:

“A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still f**king peasants as far as I can see (John Lennon, Working Class Hero). All things considered, I am entirely convinced that money and social class are the roots of the evil as long as people take them for granted without trying to change anything. However, when one gets involved into helping the others, he begins to see that all the people are equal and same in their essence. Therefore, the realization of this equality is the main part of the process of critical thinking development. The next stage is tolerance towards the others and the ability “to think out of the box”. To certain extent, when you understand that your social status does not determine your personality, the political system can no longer brainwash you. Overall, in this essay I have analyzed two classical stories (namely, “The Man with the Twised Lip” and “The South of the Slot”), a fictional superhero and a song from popular culture. This analysis helped me to prove that the social inequality does not make people differ from each other. Eventually, we are all the same in our essence.

Works Cited

Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith Publisher, 1965. Print. Lennon, John. Working Class Hero. Web. 25 Mar. 2016. <http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/workingclasshero.html> London, Jack. Selected Short Stories. Airmont: Airmont Publishing Co., Inc., 1969. Print.

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Finished papers: 1736

This paper is created by writer with

ID 272304038

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Artists biographies, acceptance biographies, oxygen literature reviews, tobacco literature reviews, civil war literature reviews, united kingdom literature reviews, change management literature reviews, illness literature reviews, underground literature reviews, tragedy literature reviews, gender roles literature reviews, microbiology literature reviews, qlt1 quantitative literacy report, case study on risk management policy, writer inserts title of essay research paper, essay on social stratification and gender, venturi and brown interview report, franklin d roosevelt pearl harbour address to the nation essay, essay on royalties, query optimization in databases term paper 2, critical thinking on db4 marketing, concept analysis nursing ethics essay, the importance of working capital management essay, essay on civil liberties and individual rights, review of final subject grade personal statement, example of international agencies and policies report, technology essay examples 3, example of leadership ethics and transformational leadership course work, the concept and practice of e learning term paper, disorders essay example, free essay on gender differences, cage essays, cousin essays, chamber essays, anatomy essays, cohort essays, alarm essays, airspace essays, album essays, billboard essays, decade essays, discussant essays.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Essay on Hard Work

500 words essay on  hard work.

Hard work is an essential thing we all need in life. It is impossible to achieve greatness without working hard. In other words, an idle person cannot gain anything if they wish to sit and wait for something else. On the other hand, one who keeps working hard constantly will definitely gain success in life and this is exactly what essay on hard work will elaborate upon.

Importance of Hard Work

Hard work is important and history has proved it time and again. The great Edison used to work for many hours a day and he dozed off on his laboratory table only with his books as his pillow.

Similarly, the prime minister of India, late Pt. Nehru used to work for 17 hours a day and seven days a week. He did not enjoy any holidays. Our great leader, Mahatma Gandhi worked round the clock to win freedom for our country.

Thus, we see that hard work paid off for all these people. One must be constantly vigil to work hard as it can help you achieve your dreams. As we say, man is born to work. Just like steel, he shines in use and rusts in rest.

When we work hard in life, we can achieve anything and overcome any obstacle. Moreover, we can also lead a better life knowing that we have put in our all and given our best to whatever work we are doing.

Key to Success

Hard work is definitely the key to success. What we earn by sweating our brow gives us greater happiness than something we get by a stroke of luck. As humans, we wish to achieve many things in life.

These things need hard work to be able to come true. Poverty is not the curse but idealness is. When we waste our time, time will also waste us. Hard work can help anyone achieve success. Great people were born in cottages but died in palaces.

Thus, it shows how through great work one can get the key to success. When you start working hard, you will notice changes in your life. You will become more disciplined and focused on your work.

Moreover, you will start seeing results within a short time. It is nothing but proof that when you work hard, things like determination, focus, concentration, come automatically to you. As a result, nothing will stop you from achieving success .

Success is not just someone being famous and rich in life. When you work hard and lead a comfortable life filled with love that is also a success. Hard work must not limit to work but also your personal life. When you put in hard work in work and relationships, life will prosper.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Hard Work

If we get the determination and focus, we can all work hard for a better future. It is important to concentrate as it ensures our work is finishing on time and in a better manner. Therefore, by working hard, we can increase our concentration power and open doors to new opportunities.

FAQ of Essay on Hard Work

Question 1: What is the importance of hard work?

Answer 1: Hard work teaches us discipline , dedication and determination. It is certainly important because it is only through hard work that we can achieve the goals of our life. Thus, we all must work hard.

Question 2: Does hard work lead to success?

Answer 2: Yes, hard work, together with the time will definitely lead to success. It is what can help you achieve a better life. Moreover, the harder you work, the more confident you will become in life.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

Partner Center