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Edward Mcclelland Roll The Middle Class Analysis

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“RIP, The Middle Class: 1946-2013” by Edward McClelland is a heated piece on America’s past and current events happening regarding the middle class on how it has influenced our country as it sits today. There are many fallacies detected intended to affect people and what they do, but the question stands is if they accomplished this? The writer of this piece is trying to get across the value of the middle class and how it is not okay for “them to be one of the losers” (McClelland, 989). From the 1940’s to the 1970’s life was easier regarding school and jobs as states McCelland, “I grew up in an automaking town in the 1970’s, when it was still possible for a high school graduate-or even a high school dropout- to get a job on an assembly line and earn more money than a high school teacher”(979). He has experienced this life first hand which would lead him to have a biased opinion on the …show more content…

The writer begins to prove this point when he says, “ The shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of government”(983). The only thing that he gets done by saying this is weakening the point because of the genetic fallacy brought about because of it. He seems to relate the point back to the government describing how it is all their fault. The government is what made the fall of the middle class along with the recession, not capitalism.
Later in the years the writer says, “Bill Clinton continued down the same deregulatory path, signing the North American Free Trade Agreement and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited commercial banks from owning investment firms” again bringing a fallacy (986). By saying this, he is using ad hominem attacking Bill Clinton’s character and blaming him for the further damage on our country. It is not okay to bash his character like this and expect your argument to be affective and strong. Quite honestly, it makes me take him so much less

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