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Posted by Spuzzter on 01-19-2003 06:09 PM:

The Working Class

No matter what tax bracket you're in, you have a stake in the issues raised by recent welfare reform measures. Personally, I've been reading quite a bit of literature that have challenged my assumptions about the myths of American prosperity and the daily hardships of the working class. I've seen many threads dedicated to capitalism and macro-economics on JSL, and I thought that a thread like this wouldn't be terribly inappropriate.

In the wake of the aforementioned welfare reform measures, approximately four million working women are going to be cut off from general welfare benefits in favor the 'welfare to work' programs. In 1998, According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, it takes an hourly wage of $8.89 to afford a one-bedrom aparment, and the Preamble Center for Public Policy has estimated that the odds of someone fresh off of welfare landing a job at such a "living wage" were about 97 to 1.

I have a few questions to start things off, hopefully this thread won't die too quickly..
- Have you ever been homeless, unemployed, without health insurance, or held down two jobs? What is the lowest-paying job you ever held?
- Why do you think low-wage workers are reluctant to form labor organizations?
- Many campus and advocacy groups are currently involved in struggles for a "living wage." How do you think a living wage should be calculated?
- Much of the working class receive almost no benefits; no overtime pay, no retirement funds, and no health insurance. Is this fair, and what should be done about this?
- The aforementioned numerical data about wages and living costs was taken during a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Do you think such factors would differ in a recession such as the one we are currently experiencing?

*edit*
- As a bit of a personal question, how do you normally act towards people occupied in menial jobs such as waiters, cleaners, nursing home aids, etc.? Have you ever taken the time to think about what they have to go through to make ends meet?

If anyone wants to read a good book, read "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich

__________________
"Wave of mutilation."
-The Pixies

Posted by PsychoSnowman on 01-19-2003 08:47 PM:

Re: The Working Class

quote:
Originally posted by Spuzzter

- Have you ever been homeless, unemployed, without health insurance, or held down two jobs? What is the lowest-paying job you ever held?
- Why do you think low-wage workers are reluctant to form labor organizations?
- Many campus and advocacy groups are currently involved in struggles for a "living wage." How do you think a living wage should be calculated?
- Much of the working class receive almost no benefits; no overtime pay, no retirement funds, and no health insurance. Is this fair, and what should be done about this?
- The aforementioned numerical data about wages and living costs was taken during a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Do you think such factors would differ in a recession such as the one we are currently experiencing?

*edit*
- As a bit of a personal question, how do you normally act towards people occupied in menial jobs such as waiters, cleaners, nursing home aids, etc.? Have you ever taken the time to think about what they have to go through to make ends meet?


-no. Lowest paying job was $5.50

-i don't think i know enough about it to make a good response so i won't.

-would this living wage be the new minimum wage? If so i don't think that it would be able to be realistically implemented. If everyone has that much money who has a job, then the prices will go up simply becasue they can and then it wouldn't be a living wage anymore. We'd have to constantly change it, and that wouldn't work beneficially. A living wage would be a bad idea if used in that matter. It'd screw those that it tries to help in time, i'm not even sure if a living wage is even feasible...is it? We'd have to take money away from the rich and that can't really happen...we can't just assign a living wage and mete it out to people, cause there's a limited amount of money, and we can't just print more for obvious reasons. It'd have to come from somewhere,...where would it come from? increased taxes of the rich? But, if you mean just to calculate it, i don't want to propose a method for calculating how other people are going to live on it.

-It's fair in our economic system. Ethically fair? depends on what you believe, but for the most part it's probably not ethically that fair... But, it is fair. I don't see why it wouldn't be. We aren't taking advantage of them, we are serving the demand. People want work and they get it. The same reason why it isn't "forced labor" or anything in middle eastern countries when we give them jobs. We make it harder for them to have a living wage, but it's not by any means unfair.

-of course the wage would differ in different times of the economic cycle.

-How do i treat them? I'd say in a reciprocal if not better way than they treat me. And, with the looks i get and the service i'm a lot nicer than they generally tend to be i think.

And yes, i've thought about what they have to do to make ends meet.

__________________
Long messages do not equal aggravation of any sort,
rather they reflect nothing more than a response of insight
that should always be read in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Those womyn that seek equality with men, lack determination."

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be wrong."
-Cromwell

Posted by Spuzzter on 01-19-2003 10:28 PM:

Re: Re: The Working Class

quote:
Originally posted by PsychoSnowman



-It's fair in our economic system. Ethically fair? depends on what you believe, but for the most part it's probably not ethically that fair... But, it is fair. I don't see why it wouldn't be. We aren't taking advantage of them, we are serving the demand. People want work and they get it. The same reason why it isn't "forced labor" or anything in middle eastern countries when we give them jobs. We make it harder for them to have a living wage, but it's not by any means unfair.

And yes, i've thought about what they have to do to make ends meet.


Well I have a number of choice responses for your entire reply, but just taking the piece above: if it isn't ethically fair, then how can it really be called fair at all? For me, the idea that while people of my class with too much money and too much time on their hands have the luxury and the option to entertain themselves night after night, while some poor sap is going to a second full-time job to support a needing family. Call me old-fashioned, but if something offends me as a humane person, I cannot put on a poker-face and declare it 'fair' and 'just' according to our economic system. Economic systems can, have been, and will be changed. It is only because of those same saps that have too much money and too much time on their hands that others have to break their backs in order to wipe our shit off of toilet seats and cast the nails that go into our coffins. America is not good, America is not acceptable; i refuse to believe that the status quo is agreeable just because it is the status quo.

And yes, I know that I have benefited, but call it an inkling of a conscience or a sliver of humanity that makes me want to better the lives and situations of my fellow man who must spend their entire lives to provide the fat of the land that I feed on.

David, you yourself quote Tolstoy in your subprofile:

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back."

-Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Ever think about it?

__________________
"Wave of mutilation."
-The Pixies

Posted by PsychoSnowman on 01-20-2003 05:33 AM:

Re: Re: Re: The Working Class

quote:
Originally posted by Spuzzter
Well I have a number of choice responses for your entire reply, but just taking the piece above: if it isn't ethically fair, then how can it really be called fair at all?


well, it'd be fair in other areas. Of course. That's how it's fair. When i said it wasn't ethically fair, i was exempting that when i said it was fair. In all other areas it's fair.

quote:

For me, the idea that while people of my class with too much money and too much time on their hands have the luxury and the option to entertain themselves night after night, while some poor sap is going to a second full-time job to support a needing family. Call me old-fashioned, but if something offends me as a humane person, I cannot put on a poker-face and declare it 'fair' and 'just' according to our economic system.


sorry, this is all ethics. Economically fair is isolatory from ethical standards. You are subsuming ethics into economics. It IS just and fair according to our economical system, how can you deny that? Oh, maybe if you combine ethics into this then you cna say it's not, yeah that's what you are doing. it is economically fair, but not ethically economically fair.

quote:

Economic systems can, have been, and will be changed. It is only because of those same saps that have too much money and too much time on their hands that others have to break their backs in order to wipe our shit off of toilet seats and cast the nails that go into our coffins.


ok. Power to the anti-foucauldians i guess.

quote:

America is not good, America is not acceptable; i refuse to believe that the status quo is agreeable just because it is the status quo.


america is not all good, american is not totally acceptable. Nothing is. I'd much rather be an undisciplined member of the animal kingdom, than live in the artificiality that is created through some uber-civilization that make drones of their people in order to be utilitarian...all for the sake of ethics.

quote:

And yes, I know that I have benefited, but call it an inkling of a conscience or a sliver of humanity that makes me want to better the lives and situations of my fellow man who must spend their entire lives to provide the fat of the land that I feed on.


a sliver of humanity? please. In the ways you think my anti-ethical views are evil, socialist disciplining is as or more evil in my opinion. There are different forms of evil, and i take brainwashing to be a greater evil than everyone to be fair and feignly happy in drone-life. When people are in fact inherently not equal. Yes, that's a capitalist mindset, but you yourself agreed to it as well. Yes, i must not have this sliver of humanity for me having other values i put ahead of yours... . I think it's even more inhumane of you to want to be so mentally imperialist. Sure, you could say the same thing about me, but the imperialism i advocate allows for options of different kinds, not just one form of discipline. This "sliver of humanity" you use to justify yourself seems to be contradictory in my eyes. You are taking away humanity by mechanizing them...not humane at all.

quote:

David, you yourself quote Tolstoy in your subprofile:

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back."

-Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Ever think about it?


of course i've thought about it, it's because i thought about it that i put the quote in my profile.

This is the difference, i'm not that man. I am not sorry for the people i'm choking, and i don't want to ease his lot becuase i realize the evils of the methodology i'd have to do it in (disciplining). I may be on his back, but i don't really want to get off for the sake of utilitarianism. I'd rather stay on and prevent a greater evil from happening than to risk it all for "ethical" means.

I really don't see how that quotation applies to me.

-edit- i just noticed that you quoted the line about me having thought about it...why? Do you think i somehow have not? You've reiterated several times the hardships of the working class several times and even before then i had thought about it...do you really think i haven't? It seems like you are trying to make an argument here or something cause i can't figure out a reason why you quoted it. Is it that i "haven't realized the severity yet?" cause well, i don't think by citing observations that i'm going to agree on some sort of pandemically lower ethical common ground, cause there is none.

__________________
Long messages do not equal aggravation of any sort,
rather they reflect nothing more than a response of insight
that should always be read in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Those womyn that seek equality with men, lack determination."

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be wrong."
-Cromwell

Posted by Spuzzter on 01-20-2003 05:52 PM:

As soon as I'm done with this book, I'll give it to you, along with the Deus Ex CD. HOHO

__________________
"Wave of mutilation."
-The Pixies

Posted by PsychoSnowman on 01-20-2003 07:52 PM:

all right, you can borrow a copy of "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" by Foucault when you are done with that.

__________________
Long messages do not equal aggravation of any sort,
rather they reflect nothing more than a response of insight
that should always be read in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Those womyn that seek equality with men, lack determination."

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be wrong."
-Cromwell
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