What the fuck do you know about my life experience and where I grew up? I’d tell you about all the McJobs I’ve worked at up and down the Midwest, but this isn’t a competition. Even if I worked those kinds of jobs, and all my peers did, and we thought it was just something you do, we’re not telling our kids to do that today. This is a very different world than it was in the 1990s. People don’t work for $6.50 an hour at a place where they can buy lunch for $4, they’re working for $7.25 an hour at a place where they can buy lunch for at least $10. There’s also significantly less upward mobility than there used to be, with more and more people figuring out that these jobs are to be avoided, so the only people taking them are those who are desperate, which in turn means that the system can exploit them more. I wouldn’t tell my kids “son, this builds character” like it’s the 1960s or some shit, I’d tell them to stay the fuck away from those jobs, because times have changed since my day, and at least I recognize that.
We had to rent out our tiny bungalow in Joshua Tree, the folks that rented it asked me 3 times if the price per month was correct, and I think they thought it might be a scam. I just want good people to rent it and love it like we do, so I don’t need to screw people over on the rent. Bottom line is everyone is happy, in that situation anyway…
Wishing the same misery on others is far from being enlightened, and actually might be a sign that you might want do a hard look at that kind of thinking. If you want, no biggie if you don’t…
Bezos donated his own 10 Billion Dollars to himself to start a charity. What’s wrong with this? A lot is wrong with a one human with that much cash and he can’t see that he is the problem, it ain’t us [99%] just squeaking by pay check to pay check.
Franklin Roosevelt’s Statement
on the National Industrial Recovery Act
In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Wow. I don’t know what part of my response set you off, but I think it is pretty clear I wasn’t trying to assume anything about you. I said “My life experience was different” and “maybe things were different where you grew up.” Those aren’t accusations or condemnations or … anything really. My whole response was my point of view based on my experience and didn’t comment on your life.
I still maintain that for many people these aren’t jobs to be avoided - they are jobs to use to learn and grow. They are stepping stones for upward mobility.
I’m not going to tell my son “this crappy job builds character.” But I WILL tell him “You are 16 and just had a baby and you need a job, even if it only brings in $7.25 an hour. Be the best employee they have. Show up on time. Bust your butt. Get promoted. But don’t expect a handout.” He can live with me (as he currently does) until he makes more money.
If I agreed that these jobs were “misery,” then I’d agree with your larger point. But I loved those years of work and I was fine with my paychecks. I have never thought I was ripped off or mistreated at those jobs. I agreed to work for the hourly pay they offered. Making sandwiches for $5.50 an hour (with a free sandwich each shift) meant I had money to spend in my free time in college to go on dates, go to movies, go on road trips, etc. It was empowering, which is closer to the opposite of misery.
The hollowing out of the middle class is going to mean plenty of low wage jobs and a small number of high paid jobs and relatively little in the middle. This was from the Grauniad today:
You want us to believe you enjoyed being paid a wage that was not only unfair, but put the vast majority of your fellow Americans in a cycle of indebtedness that most never ever brake away from.
Max Weber’s concept of the iron cage is even more relevant today than when he first wrote about it in 1905.
Simply put, Weber suggests that the technological and economic relationships that organized and grew out of capitalist production became themselves fundamental forces in society. Thus, if you are born into a society organized this way, with the division of labor and hierarchical social structure that comes with it, you can’t help but live within this system. As such, one’s life and worldview are shaped by it to such an extent that one probably can’t even imagine what an alternative way of life would look like. So, those born into the cage live out its dictates, and in doing so, reproduce the cage in perpetuity. For this reason, Weber considered the iron cage a massive hindrance to freedom.
So you’re saying we shouldn’t give young people the ability to achieve the American dream? Only the middle aged should be paid well enough to do things like start a family, own a house or invest in their own business?
I think I may see the problem. You are remembering working minimum for beer money, not rent and food and utilities and childcare and and and. Most minimum wage workers these days tend toward single moms, not high school kids. It’s a different world. And you need 3 or 4 of those jobs to make ends meet. And that is 120-160 hours/week. 168 hours in a week. That sucks.
Yes, let’s have rugged savage capitalism for everyone, especially the 1% & politicians, let’s see how fast things change the second they have to survive on min. wage.
