Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

[percept¡on]

This writer tries surviving working low wage jobs in 3 American cities, sheds incredible light on the real state of the working class. I'd highly recommend it to all.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...817639?v=glance (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805063897/002-8309753-1817639?v=glance)

[Soul Rebel]

haha....i started a thread on this like a year ago and got no responses.

anywho, its a fabulous book. she really managed to capture the struggles that many of us go to in our day to day lives and in our jobs. The thing is that the book not only shows the troubles of the working class, but how these problems are often intensified by race and gender. Just amazing.

The thing is that she's not really trying to survive. Like she says at the beginning of the book- shes leaving her comfy life behind, including her money. This was just a study for her. She didnt depend on it, she was just trying to understand how it feels to be someone who does depend on it.

[mentalbunny]

I've been meaning to read it for ages.

[redstar2000]

It is an excellent book...one of the few that I've ever read that shows the America that I've actually seen with my own eyes.

I think it's also good for another reason...it's the probable future of the American working class!

Scary.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[percept¡on]

What do you guys think of this criticism, by a communist friend of mine:


I had mixed feelings about the book. Its very well-written and entertaining and informative. But too much of her privileged ass situation comes through. She says a lot of sh1t like, "Wow, I had no idea most people's work was so repetitive," and "Wow, I had no idea its actually hard for some people to find a place to rent, nevermind a place to buy."

For working class people, the book is one-half vindication and one-half condescending garbage. Why couldn't she just ASK the people she worked with what THEY thought? Its like white people trying to tell the world what its like to be black, just because they "lived in the ghetto" for a year. Or straight people writing books about what its like to be gay cuz they have a few gay friends (for a short period of time).

Theres just a certain amount of "I CAN TELL YOUR OWN STORY BETTER THAN YOU CAN--AND, I CAN TELL MY OWN STORY BETTER THAN YOU CAN." Basically it eradicates the voices of the real millions of people who go through all the sh1t she does on her playing dress-up vacation.

Thats a little harsh I think, because I think for middle-class and upper-class America (all races), its a great informative book. And I think for the working poor, it can be a good book because it shows that all this sh1t is 1) WRONG, and 2) part of a much bigger capitalist system. BUT it fails to challenge the predominant class status that have a phD and being a professional gives you--you control the voices of the people you study. Its a weird hierarchical thing of its own. And I think thats why only 1 of the working-class people I know who've read the book really liked it.

I disagree obviously, but he makes some good points.

[mentalbunny]

He made some excellent points, but I haven't read it so I don't know for sure how true they are.

Also, for the english equivalent, search out Hard Work by Polly Toynbee.

[Marxist in Nebraska]

I read the book last summer, and I thought it was great. It should be required reading, especially for all the right-wingers who shout to the heavens with indignation about how low income people are only there because they are lazy.

The book reveals the miserable state of the bottom strata in American society:

Our pathetic excuse for social welfare, and the Labyrinth one must trek through to get even the table scraps that are offered. Ehrenreich commented that a real working person is unlikely to have either the free time, the institutional know-how, or even the transportation (for her, she had to drive all over the city to get what she needed) to actually collect the ragged welfare. Is that the whole point? Make welfare such a headache that no one will follow through to get it?

Why not get a job instead? Because you will be payed close to minimum wage for a job that is physically gruelling. Ehrenreich believes the only reason she could carry on with her deadend jobs for a month was that she was in such good health from her relatively easy and nurtured life. As if minimum wage is not sufficiently debilitating, she experiences ways where an employer will require a significant period of unpaid work! Because if you do not want to give the company a free hour of labor, then they can find someone more desperate than you who will. Welfare and unemployment insurance are so pathetic that super-exploited work still beats not having any job.

It is difficult to afford shelter. The minimum-wage earners cannot afford to pay a deposit on an apartment, and in many cities will live in these slummy motel-like places that rent by the week. The rent is so high on them that a worker is likely to pay twice as much as for a real apartment, but it is the only option with tolerable payments.

And the scariest part of this for me: all of this desperation, and non-existance of opportunity... was toward the end of Clinton's presidency. The economy was as solid as it had been in years. How many millions of American workers have been reduced to the Nickel and Dimed lifestyle in the recession we have experienced in the last five years? And has the superexploitation worsened, with an even bigger pool of desperate, unemployed workers to play off of one another?

This was definitely a book for me that reinforced my beliefs in communism, as it showed how capitalism can devour millions of people even when the economy is "healthy" by all self-identified indicators.