From: The Opinionator
Another dubious first for America: We now
employ as many private security guards as high school teachers — over
one million of them, or nearly double their number in 1980.
And that’s just a small fraction of what we
call “guard labor.” In addition to private security guards, that means
police officers, members of the armed forces, prison and court
officials, civilian employees of the military, and those producing
weapons: a total of 5.2 million workers in 2011. That is a far larger
number than we have of teachers at all levels.
What is happening in America today is both
unprecedented in our history, and virtually unique among Western
democratic nations. The share of our labor force devoted to guard labor
has risen fivefold since 1890 — a year when, in case you were wondering,
the homicide rate was much higher than today.
Is this the curse of affluence? Or of ethnic
diversity? We don’t think so. The guard-labor share of employment in the
United States is four times what it is in Sweden, where living
standards rival America’s. And Britain, with its diverse population,
uses substantially less guard labor than the United States.
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