Not that it's just black and brown faces at the bottom of the ladder. In a new book on the globalized economy, Der Spiegel journalist Gabor Steingart considers the rise of the Euro-underclass:
The main thing that sets the modern poor apart from the industrial age pauper is a sheer lack of interest in education. Today's proletariat has little education and no interest in obtaining more. Back in the early days of industrialization, the poor joined worker associations that often doubled as educational associations. The modern member of the underclass, by contrast, has completely shunned personal betterment.
[Via A&LD]
PS: "White trash" is the term used elsewhere in the piece. Isn't it about time we phased it out, or is it still OK to be gratutiously offensive towards the wrong sort of citizen?