As usual, great richness in this week's NY Times Book Review section. I'm intrigued by Gavin Weightman's The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World 1776-1914. The basic thesis is that the Industrial Revolution should be viewed as a series of opportunities taken with emerging technologies and infrastructures, rather than quantum leaps by Great Men. We see much further when we stand on the shoulders of giants, etc.
The reviewer, Stephen Mihm, faults the book only for its failed attempt to draw grand unifying theories out of the stories of individuals.
Showing posts with label books-economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books-economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Bait and Switch: a second look
I was too hasty in my previous post. The last chapter of Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch contains some provocative ideas. (Come to think of it, this was the problem with Nickeled and Dimed too - her analysis of her experience, in the final chapter, was a lot more interesting than the bland details of the indignities she suffered. Sometimes common experiences aren't bonding; they are just boring.)
Some observations:
1.If we can generalize from her experience and those of the job-seekers she met, corporate America is as age-biased as ever. This is a bigger and bigger problem on 2 fronts: there will be more and more middle-aged people in America; and people will work more and more years to close the pension gap and the impending blow-up of Social Security.
2.The old Weberian idea that "you work hard and you will be rewarded" is no longer true (if it ever was, although it's very much the foundation of the 20th century middle-class psyche) and white-collar workers, no less than blue-collar workers, have to adjust to uncertainty and a rapidly changing occupational mix. Their main loyalty must be to themselves (and their brand) because they will not get any loyalty from their corporation - they are completely expendable.
3.The white-collar unemployed could be a powerful force for social and economic change in this country. They have skills, education, intelligence, resources, access. Yet they tend to be marginalized into self-help job-seeking groups of the many kinds she journals. Moreover, the attitudes and activities of these job-seeking groups reinforce passivity, victimhood, isolation, and silence. Unemployment continues to be shameful, especially for white-collar workers, and especially for men.
4.Current corporate infrastructure (and accountability to shareholders) rewards job-cutting, which betters the short-term bottom line. No CEO ever got atta-boys from his board by saving jobs or cutting his own perks so that subordinates could remain employed.
5.Corporations blather endlessly about diversity and teamwork, but in fact LACK of diversity and individualism are what get you ahead.
6.Many of the so-called professions of corporate America don't have clearly defined tasks and barriers to entry (marketing, say, or PR) and thus employees in those fields are vulnerable to the perceptions, rather than the realities, of those evaluating them.
It would be useful to think about how these points could be tested and operationalized, as a part of the larger project of looking at sectoral shifts in labor markets.
Some observations:
1.If we can generalize from her experience and those of the job-seekers she met, corporate America is as age-biased as ever. This is a bigger and bigger problem on 2 fronts: there will be more and more middle-aged people in America; and people will work more and more years to close the pension gap and the impending blow-up of Social Security.
2.The old Weberian idea that "you work hard and you will be rewarded" is no longer true (if it ever was, although it's very much the foundation of the 20th century middle-class psyche) and white-collar workers, no less than blue-collar workers, have to adjust to uncertainty and a rapidly changing occupational mix. Their main loyalty must be to themselves (and their brand) because they will not get any loyalty from their corporation - they are completely expendable.
3.The white-collar unemployed could be a powerful force for social and economic change in this country. They have skills, education, intelligence, resources, access. Yet they tend to be marginalized into self-help job-seeking groups of the many kinds she journals. Moreover, the attitudes and activities of these job-seeking groups reinforce passivity, victimhood, isolation, and silence. Unemployment continues to be shameful, especially for white-collar workers, and especially for men.
4.Current corporate infrastructure (and accountability to shareholders) rewards job-cutting, which betters the short-term bottom line. No CEO ever got atta-boys from his board by saving jobs or cutting his own perks so that subordinates could remain employed.
5.Corporations blather endlessly about diversity and teamwork, but in fact LACK of diversity and individualism are what get you ahead.
6.Many of the so-called professions of corporate America don't have clearly defined tasks and barriers to entry (marketing, say, or PR) and thus employees in those fields are vulnerable to the perceptions, rather than the realities, of those evaluating them.
It would be useful to think about how these points could be tested and operationalized, as a part of the larger project of looking at sectoral shifts in labor markets.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Bait and Switch...
...is the name of a book by Barbara Ehrenreich about the soul-sucking depression of the white-collar unemployed (even before the current financial melt-down; imagine if she were researching and writing it now!).
On impulse* I picked up a copy for $2 at the Friends of the Library booksale this morning, and am about 2/3 through.
It is so thoroughly a downer that I believe I will throw it away when I am finished. I can feel its bad karma seeping through the house. I NEVER throw books away; I've only done it once before, and that was after the pure revulsion of reading the first several chapters of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. I saw his Glamorama at the library this morning too and gave it a wide berth. Yuck, yuck, YUCK.
*I am planning on using a chapter from Nickeled and Dimed in my economic geography class this fall, but Bait and Switch is mainly about those who profiteer from "coaching" the unemployed on networking, dressing-for-success, resume-writing, etc. They are a seamy and exploitive (although pathetic) bunch. Ewww.
On impulse* I picked up a copy for $2 at the Friends of the Library booksale this morning, and am about 2/3 through.
It is so thoroughly a downer that I believe I will throw it away when I am finished. I can feel its bad karma seeping through the house. I NEVER throw books away; I've only done it once before, and that was after the pure revulsion of reading the first several chapters of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. I saw his Glamorama at the library this morning too and gave it a wide berth. Yuck, yuck, YUCK.
*I am planning on using a chapter from Nickeled and Dimed in my economic geography class this fall, but Bait and Switch is mainly about those who profiteer from "coaching" the unemployed on networking, dressing-for-success, resume-writing, etc. They are a seamy and exploitive (although pathetic) bunch. Ewww.
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