PhD candidate in sociology, University of Texas-Austin

Capitalism

Job Market Astrology

When they were kicked to the curb, jobless workers mostly blamed themselves: Enter career coaches

May 21, 2020 • by Patrick Sheehan

Roberta is not a Tarot card reader. She is a professional “career coach” who specializes in guiding the white-collar unemployed through hard times. Roberta is manning a vendor booth at the 2019 National Career Development Association (NCDA) and she is taking me through the first step she takes with clients ...

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The Unemployment Rate Is Not a Fact

Our country’s most trusted economic metric is only a political artifact.

July 5, 2019 • by Patrick Sheehan

The year was 1875 and Carrol Wright was upset. The mustached state senator from Massachusetts thought that American workers had a problem. Just not the problem that the workers thought they had. Following the financial Panic of 1873 and nosediving wages, Americans were launching wildcat strikes, torching railroad stations, and fighting ...

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Networking and Human Nature

A Lesson in Socializing Under the Rules of 21st Century Capitalism

June 22, 2019 • by Patrick Sheehan

A Lesson in Socializing Under the Rules of 21st Century Capitalism...

Feature

In Defense of Do What You Love

Rejoining alienated critiques of capitalism

April 11, 2019 • by Patrick Sheehan

But where did this “most elegant anti-worker ideology,” as Tokumitsu calls it, come from? Tokumitsu suggests that it is a bourgeois culture foisted upon the working masses by the ruling class. One New York Times opinion piece credits “neoliberal masterminds,” while another points the finger at WeWork. What these critics agree on is that the ...