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Many grand claims are made about the strength of the US economy in justifying neo-liberal socio-economic reforms in Europe and elsewhere. When subjected to closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that several of the most important claims either do not hold or rest much more precariously than the promotional rhetoric would allow. Material conditions are especially rough for workers without professional or managerial standing, and a crucial, but largely unnoticed reason for this is the terrible fact that much of the contemporary neo-liberal framework has been built upon a brutal regime of anti-unionism. Alongside the systematic dissolution of worker rights has been an elevation of the rights of the consumer, whose symbolic construction has facilitated the disappearance of the worker in symbolic terms. All forms of material deprivation are more easily accomplished when the worker has been made to «disappear» symbolically.