To celebrate is to “observe a day or event with ceremonies of respect, festivity, or rejoicing.” In America, people celebrate their ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, left-handedness, sports achievement, scholastic achievement, celebrities, etc. It’s a long list.

One group, however, is not celebrated with the same enthusiasm, and that’s the people who conceive, engineer, build, manufacture, install, maintain, and repair the staggeringly complex infrastructure underpinning the world in which those celebrations occur.

Those celebrating enjoy a material standard of living that, even in the prosperous 1st world, was beyond the grasp of all of humanity as little as 50 years ago. Nevertheless, those who make it possible receive little acclaim, acknowledgment, or appreciation until catastrophe strikes. Then, for a brief moment, and only for the most visible, there is applause, recognition, and gratitude.

Just look at the reception given to LA firefighters at the recent Grammys or the admiring tweets about utility repair men/women after a natural disaster. They are acclaimed as among the finest people on earth for as long as they are needed. Afterwards? Well, not so much.

Image by Pixlr AI.

So who are these unsung, mostly uncelebrated heroes, the ones who make it all work? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides some answers. The percentage of the adult American population (18 and up) is 77.9%. Of that number, 19.1% are involved in private-sector manufacturing and construction. Put a different way, roughly 14.92 million Americans, out of our total population of 330 million Americans, are employed in the private sector manufacturing industry.

The majority of Americans consume, benefit from, and enjoy our standard of living without contributing to it and without acknowledging those whose work makes it possible. In fact, because America’s workers often have traditional American values, they’ve been subject to ridicule, disparagement, and mockery.

Moreover, they are often the ones whose lifestyle, standard of living, and other amenities are most affected by the mass influx of illegal aliens. Without looking at the reasons businesses abandon American workers (demographics, regulatory and tax pressures, wage demands, etc.), Democrats assure us that the only way to get things done in America is to ignore our homegrown workers and allow millions of people with no ties to America to self-import.

At bottom, as we look at the vast bulk of Americans, along with the illegal aliens who feed off of America’s bounty, never have so many done so little to get so much. In the long course of human history, the material abundance they enjoy is an anomaly made possible by a small proportion of the population.

The big question, of course, is how long this system can last. Perhaps AI, automation, or robotics will save the day, and the majority’s self-serving celebrations will continue. As some sage once said, predictions are hard, especially about the future.