Robert Schrank is a Project Specialist at the Ford Foundation, and he holds a master's and doctorate in the sociology of work. He serves as consultant to the New York City Mayor's Productivity Council, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Labor, other governmental bodies, and universities. So another academic specialist has written another book about the values and goals -- or the lack of them, or their decline, or whatever -- of working stiffs, about which he knows from nothing, right?

Wrong. This particular "academic specialist" didn't get to college until he...