commodities... sufficiently simulating the context in which rewards are pursued by the sort of employment that is strangely absent in the current male labor force

What? What does it mean for commodities to stimulate a context?

This is not theoretical, I've seen it, I believe it. It is typical for the middle classes, especially the younger ones and what I can only really call kept women to look down on working class men as being one step removed from the prison population. Possibly feral. Never enlightened.

I think the primary cause is an education system that strongly gave the impression to young people that it was 'Yale or Jail'.

Basically the universities have created a class system by creating a new social class. Unemployment is less egregious than picking up a hammer or spade.

Otherwise you might be one of those ditchdiggers, you know, in "the world needs ditchdiggers too" quote.