Ehrenreich lastly states, “guilt doesn’t go anywhere far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame- shame at our dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others” (221). She brings in an appeal to emotions of guilt and shame in her readers. She wants her readers to feel ashamed for treating the working class without respect. No one in society understands that the low-wagers job is what keeps America alive, if it wasn’t for the low wage class, there wouldn’t be restaurants servers, home care services, cashiers, etc. Society takes advantage of the little things life offers and Ehrenreich wants her audience to feel empathy towards their actions and to realize the low-wage workers are not society’s outcasts.
The ‘American Dream’ maintains that if you work hard enough, you will be successful. He characterizes Jurgis, Ona, Elzbieta, and Marija, and Dede Antanas as honest, determined, and hardworking. However, they are destroyed by the corruption of the system. Sinclair uses their stories to expose the downfalls of capitalism: the increasingly growing division between classes as well as working conditions for the poor. In the meantime, he describes the issues with gender as well as poverty.
In an article called “In Praise of Cheap Labor,” Paul Krugman, a professor in economics at MIT, gives praise to globalization. In regards to the ill treatment and terrible work condition of Third World workers, he remains apathetic and offers the excuse that “bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all.” Before I go into further detail about Krugman’s case about sweatshop exploitation, I want to take a moment to explain what a “sweatshop” really is as this presentation will support my counterargument against Krugman and the economists. A sweatshop refers to factories often (but not always) located in developing countries in which these operations depends on the exploitation and abuse of workers to gain profit. Among the many forms of injustice that takes place in these factories include: child labor, worker imprisonment, exposure to poisonous fumes, physical abuse, sexual harassment, rape, mutilation, death, illnesses resulting from harmful work environment and lack of safety procedures. Female workers are forced to take birth control pills and abortion.
Barbara Ehrenreich's intent in the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America exhibited how minimum wage isn't enough for Americans to get by on and that there's no hope for the lower class. Her main objective was achieved by living out the life of the "working poor". During the three cases studies she worked many jobs that are worked by many that are simply striving to live day to day. The jobs she had didn't generate sufficient income to avoid or help her rise out of poverty, in fact the six to seven dollar jobs made survival considerably difficult. Enitially, she believe the jobs didn't require any skill but while on her journey she started to realize they were stressful and drained a lot of energy.
A Marxist would see this picture as an example of the inequality and random distribution of wealth: an unfair chance of luck, which makes one person better than another. The women are enjoying the carefre... ... middle of paper ... ...capitalist economy thrive. Therefore the Social Darwinist would see the people in Image B as deserving of their lives of poverty. The suffering of the working class is a result of their own laziness and they are the only ones who can help themselves. If those living a life of poverty suffered and worked a little harder, perhaps they might experience a life of wealth too.
They owned the factories and controlled their lives thinking of the money, Priestley disliked the middle class as they were self centred; only taking care of themselves. At the bottom end of the social structure, were the working class, Who got paid wages from the factories that were owned by the middle class “individuals.” The working class did not get the “respect” which the upper class received. J.B Priestley was a socialist and believed that everyone should look after each other and be a community. Priestley’s aim is to show the audience how being self centred and arrogant leads to trouble and that there is a better way of improving the life of others. Many of the audience will be middle class people.
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame. Ehrenreich decided to do this experiment because
The invisible workforce consists of the low-wage workers that face harsh working conditions, a few or no benefits, and long hours of labor that exceed the regular business week. Barbara Ehrenreich, narrates her experience of entering the service workforce, in the book Nickel and Dimed. She proves that getting by in America working a minimum wage job is impossible. Although, the book was written in the 1990’s, the conditions in which minimum wage workers lived still prevail today. Minimum wage no longer serves its original purpose of providing a living wage for the invisible workforce.
The Marxist theory recognizes that due to the bourgeoisie’s hold over the superstructure, it has the ability to “entrap the proletariat into holding the sense of identity and worth” that the powerful class wants them to have (Dobie 93). In the poem the person responsible for addressing the maltreatment of the working class is the narrator. In the third stanza it is the narrator who ask, "is there no power to rescue her rescue her, protect, defend her" when Trade is strangling Art. Moreover it is the narrator who causes the audience to feel sympathy for the working class people by describing the abuse that they face. The narrator realizes the lack of power that the working class has and is the only one within the text to ask for a change to be
“Companies should pay a just wage and treat people like human beings,” said Sofia Sazo, a longtime garment worker from Guatemala who quit her job to become a labor organizer. Due to the intense competition yield from glo... ... middle of paper ... ...rises in China. In those enterprises, people are just a tool to achieve the purpose of production. The challenges and problems concerning worker rights cloud the economy developments with a murky atmosphere caused by a kind of industrialized apathy, a sick that filled with frustration and exhaustion but not achievement and respect. Behind efficiency, there is a huge question mark: what is a person and what is working ever means?