Summary: Sleeping Giant

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These book summaries are designed as captures for what I’ve read, and aren’t necessarily great standalone resources for those who have not read the book. Their purpose is to ensure that I capture what I learn from any given text, so as to avoid realizing years later that I have no idea what it was about or how I benefited from it.

Lessons

  • There really isn’t much of a middle class anymore; it’s mostly a fantasy

  • The vast majority of jobs are working class (can’t remember her numbers, but something like 2/3 or 3/4)

  • Working class can mean many things, including extremely low pay, but it largely means having zero control in your job. No ability to work different hours, no ability to change how you work, etc.

  • Much of the working class is black and brown

  • Corporations actively try to keep the working class from getting full-time hours so they don’t have to pay benefits

  • A massive percentage of fast food workers (and other work that used to be done by teenagers) is now done by older people who can’t do anything else

  • She says that the fight for $15 dollars is going to change things. I think she’s missing that it’s just going to force companies to develop AI and fire everyone

  • What the book taught me was how many people are really getting paid basically nothing, how poorly these people are treated in their jobs, how little they realize their own vulnerability, how unprepared the country is for having all these jobs removed by AI, etc.

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