(I’m
posting this as a blog because I don’t think it would be a very good comment)
Ha.
In the
story “RIP, The Middle Class: 1946-2013” written by McClelland, the author is
basically stating that the middle class is slowly but surly diminishing and
that before we know it there will only be a rich and a poor social class, no
in-between. He claims that during that time, it was just so much easier to make
money. You could be a high school drop-out and still be able to take care of
yourself stably, buy what ever you felt you needed and/or wanted with really no
problems at all, you just needed a job, and they were incredibly easy to find
back then. McClelland get to his point “The shrinking of the middle class is not
a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of Government.” Nowadays, if an American
wants to have the ability to purchase what ever the please when ever they want
it, then you’re required to go to college for at LEAST 4 years and even with
that, you’re still not guarantied it (Job, house, money, etc.).
Do you believe that if
people work hard enough, they will achieve success? Oh yes. I’ve seen it happen
multiple times right before my eyes, but that’s besides the point. I say this
because while reading “Nickel, and Dimed” by Barbara Echrenreich character:
Tammy (as said in the passage), was once a maid herself, and now she’s the
manager of her company! Now I’m not saying that because Tammy did it, you can
do it. No. I’m saying that it’s obviously a ability that a LOT of people have.
Anyways, I feel that the main point of the story was that you can find
happiness in a place that creates no happiness, and also that positivity throughout
your day (or week in this case), can be overall, rewarding. Kind of like a “I
glad I did it” type of way. All in all poverty doesn’t generate sadness, its
what you make it, and if you can make it good then things will be just fine.
In the article, “From Nickel and Dimed”, by Barbara Ehrenreich. She tells a story of a maid that just came to America. The maid was recently a cleaner where she came from but had to learn everything from scratch to work at this new job. The maid works for a manager named Tammy. Tammy use to be a maid just like her, and is now a manager of her own company. I believe that if anyone works hard enough they’ll be able to achieve success just like Tammy.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, “RIP, the Middle Class”, by Edward McClelland. He starts to explain how the middle class is diminishing. Back in the days, if you did not achieve a college degree you were okay. You were still able to afford things that you wanted or needed. It uses to be easier to find jobs…you just needed two arms, two legs, and willing to learn new things for the job. Now you have to be willingly to get a college degree to be able to have a chance to achieve success (which isn’t guaranteed).
I used to believe that if a person worked hard then they would reach success but my mind has kind of changed after reading these two readings. Edward McClelland, author of “RIP, the Middle Class”, states, “the ‘70s were a time when people without culture or education had the money to not only indulge their passions but flaunt them in front of the entire nation”. People could graduate, or drop out, of high school and obtain a well-paying job. This well-paying job would be enough to feed, house, and clothe the employee. These days, a person could graduate college and have zero guarantee of a well-paying job that could provide all of the above. A person would have to pick and choose between them. McClelland also says, “the shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism” but the failure of the government. He claims it is the government’s fault because of its lack of involvement. This is bullshit because the government should not have to rescue us. It is not their job to baby us and give higher pay just because we want the money, honey!!
ReplyDeleteIn the reading, “From Nickel and Dimed”, by Barbara Ehrenreich, she has the job from hell. Cleaning up after people and ridding their house of filth would fucking suck. She works almost nine hour days, has a five minute lunch break, payed $6.25 an hour, and cannot drink fucking water during the job. People in that specific line of work must work their asses off, but is all that hard work going to bring them to success? Ehrenreich proudly says, “I have gotten through a week at The Maids without mishap, injury, or insurrection.” So maybe that’s her success.
What is success? For everybody it is something different and the past times saw it as something completely different as well. The author of "RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013", Edward McClelland points out that "teh United States will never again be as wealthy as it was in the 1950s and '60s. Never again will 18-year-olds graduate directly from high school to jobs that pay well enough to buy a house and support a family." In that era, people saw success as being able to own a home and raise a family, and they could with what they could earn straight from high school, but not today.
ReplyDeleteToday, many people are viewing success as something completely different. Just getting through your day, your week, or even your life accomplishing a hard day's work without anything majorly negative happening. As in Barbara Ehrenreich's story about her time working for a cleaning service in Maine, she busted her ass to get through her week, but in the end she made it "without mishap, injury, insurrection." Her own version of success.
According to Edward McClelland, in his article “RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013”, the American Dream is becoming harder to attain for most people. He remembers the seventies as a time of prosperity for America, “when people without culture or education had the money to not only indulge their passions, but flaunt them in front of the entire nation.” He includes a statistic that the middle class has shrunk by seventeen percent since then, accusing deregulation of industry as leading cause for this trend. He alleges the American dream was made possible during the twentieth century solely because of New Deal policies that promoted unionization and implemented government oversight of industry. Edward McClelland offers a very convincing argument that the purchasing power of the middle class is at stake if we do not respond with government regulation.
ReplyDeleteIn “From Nickel and Dimed” Barbara Ehrenreich describes her experience with income inequality. She seems full of acceptance as though she cannot do anything to change her situation. In a depiction of her first experiences after arriving in America we can plainly see she is well educated, having possibly given a lecture at a college. She depicts herself as being out of place, yet she embraces her lower class position and stays “cheerful, energetic, and helpful”. This first occurs when she merely accepts that she will be paid a fraction of what she is worth. She also describes cleaning on her hands and knees as illogical and a “primal posture of submission” that gives gratification to “consumers of maid services.” This separation of people based on a job title is demeaning and a direct result of Income inequality.