1 comments about Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment Insecurity (A Columbia / SSRC Book (Privatization of Risk)).

1. With the increasing focus on job [in]security as the economic crisis we're in worsens, this is a must-read book for all those interested and/or concerned. Professor Newman is an expert in the field and provides a tremendous amount of insight - all of it understandable for non-experts - into just what it means to have an insecure job and the implications it results in.

2 comments about Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States.

1. This excellent book describes how women have always worked in what is today the USA. Well written with good examples it tells the story of how women moved from working primarily at home industries through early factory days (and how factories were made acceptable and then degraded into sweat shops and worse). It continues the story through the 19th and 20th centuries, discussing how often public perceptions and rhetoric conflicted with actual work practices. I am very glad it is out in a new edition and that a new generation will have easy access to it.



2. I've been reading US women's history for a couple of years now,
   working on background for a novel, and I have seen nothing that
   matches this book for careful, detailed exposition of the role of
   women in the workplace. I'm most familiar with the period from
   1880 to 1910, and Kessler-Harris covers that era thoroughly and
   convincingly. Reading about the earlier years, though, has greatly
   increased my understanding of the period I've been studying.
   
   Kessler-Harris shows how paternalistic beliefs about "woman's
   place," and views of women as weak and basically stupid, have from
   the beginning deeply influenced the lives of women of all classes, but
   she also shows how even the development of new machinery in
   factories was shaped by the needs of employers to find cheap
   workers--who were, of course, women.
   
   I wish women would read this book. Talk about
   consciousness-raising!
   
   Having done a good deal of historical research with primary sources, on other subjects and in other periods, I know Kessler-Harris has been thorough and conscientious. She also writes very well. I'm going to buy the new edition, because whatever she has to say will be fascinating.

5 comments about Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy.

1. I am not an economist, but some of my best friends are. And much of my work as a labor law professor, has involved dealing with ideas couched in economic terms. Even so, there is a lot about economics as it is really practiced, that comes as a surprise.

   Several years, when the news was full of predictions from leading economists about the effects of a new policy on the economy, I asked a group of economists whether these sorts of predictions were based on studies of effects in the world. The economists told me that these predictions none of these predictions were ever tested. All that was ever done was to create simplified theories about how the economy worked and then use those theories to make predictions. No one ever checked to make certain those theories were valid.

   Imagine what healthcare would be like if doctors and scientists operated this way. Actually, we don't have to imagine. This is how life was in the Middle Ages when doctors tried to balance the body's four humors, and everyone knew the sun revolved around the earth. The models got more and more complex as reality did not jibe with theory.

   So all of us have our fates determined by economists whose methods are no more up to date than the 16th century. Consider Alan Greenspan, the hero of the Fed. He and his colleagues for years were convinced that the only way to fight inflation - and inflation had to be fought at all costs - was to raise interest rates any time unemployment fell below 5.8%. The effect was that higher interest rates increased unemployment. In the early 1990's, unemployment began to fall below this danger level, but no inflation appeared. Pressure was put on the Fed not to raise interest rates, enough pressure that they held off. Unemployment plunged ever lower with no inflation. Did the economists admit that their theory had to be discarded based on the evidence/ Of course not. They responded that they needed to refine the theory to account for this aberration from the theory, but the theory was still solid.

   Michael Yates does a much better job at leading the reader through classic economic theory and exploring the many ways in which those theories stand unproven - and yet they still rule the world. Yates provides a fair and balanced look at the claims of classic economics for economies and for global trade and demonstrates that there is no evidence to support those claims.

   There is no question that Michael Yates is passionate and has strong opinions. He does nothing to hide his views and is fair and open with the reader as he presents his arguments against classical economics and his ideas as to what should replace those disproven theories. I won't even try to summarize the. Yates deserves to be read and his arguments digested in full.

   Yates is a wonderful writer and educator. He should be. He had a long teaching career at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, among prisoners, and with unionists. He is clear without ever talking down to his audiences. Over the years he has opened up the world of economics to many of us, and through this book will reach even more. I recommend it strongly.




2. I am not an economist, but some of my best friends are. And much of my work as a labor law professor, has involved dealing with ideas couched in economic terms. Even so, there is a lot about economics as it is really practiced, that comes as a surprise. Several years, when the news was full of predictions from leading economists about the effects of a new policy on the economy, I asked a group of economists whether these sorts of predictions were based on studies of effects in the world. The economists told me that these predictions none of these predictions were ever tested. All that was ever done was to create simplified theories about how the economy worked and then use those theories to make predictions. No one ever checked to make certain those theories were valid.
   Imagine what healthcare would be like if doctors and scientists operated this way. Actually, we don't have to imagine. This is how life was in the Middle Ages when doctors tried to balance the body's four humors, and everyone knew the sun revolved around the earth. The models got more and more complex as reality did not jibe with theory.
   So all of us have our fates determined by economists whose methods are no more up to date than the 16th century. Consider Alan Greenspan, the hero of the Fed. He and his colleagues for years were convinced that the only way to fight inflation - and inflation had to be fought at all costs - was to raise interest rates any time unemployment fell below 5.8%. The effect was that higher interest rates increased unemployment. In the early 1990's, unemployment began to fall below this danger level, but no inflation appeared. Pressure was put on the Fed not to raise interest rates, enough pressure that they held off. Unemployment plunged ever lower with no inflation. Did the economists admit that their theory had to be discarded based on the evidence/ Of course not. They responded that they needed to refine the theory to account for this aberration from the theory, but the theory was still solid.
   Michael Yates does a much better job at leading the reader through classic economic theory and exploring the many ways in which those theories stand unproven - and yet they still rule the world. Yates provides a fair and balanced look at the claims of classic economics for economies and for global trade and demonstrates that there is no evidence to support those claims.
   There is no question that Michael Yates is passionate and has strong opinions. He does nothing to hide his views and is fair and open with the reader as he presents his arguments against classical economics and his ideas as to what should replace those disproven theories. I won't even try to summarize the. Yates deserves to be read and his arguments digested in full.
   Yates is a wonderful writer and educator. He should be. He had a long teaching career at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, among prisoners, and with unionists. He is clear without ever talking down to his audiences. Over the years he has opened up the world of economics to many of us, and through this book will reach even more. I recommend it strongly.



3. This man lives in a world od distorted reality. Economic equality and poverty is bound to exist reguardless of the mode of production. Capitalism allows democracy, which is the most important issue to me. He talks about Cuba in this book... The have to give up freedom and live in poverty, but their literacy level is the same as our's; which system sounds better? Tjis was a well written book wth ample information, so I probably should have rated it better. However, I hate the message that it sends.



4. Leading labor analyst Michael Yates successfully strives to explain why the economic boom of the 1990s benefitted the wealthiest segment of business and society while doing little for the hard-working masses in Naming The System: Inequality And Work In The Global Economy. Aptly discussing a series of related issues including the inequalities that riddle the economic system of capitalism by its very nature (both within and between nations); unemployment and underemployment; contradictions within capitalism; and means for social change that battle for a better world, Naming The System is an accessible and serious economic presentation which has self-evidently been deftly researched and is skillfully argued. A welcome addition to personal and academic Economics Studies reference collections and reading lists, Naming The System is especially recommended to the attention of anyone wanting to understand the rationale behind the importance of placing limits and regulations to ensure a prosperous future for labor and management alike.



5. Yates' book "Naming the System" is a valiant attempt to explain the failures, contradictions and problems of modern globalized capitalism in terms understandable to every layman. By and large, he has succeeded, though there are some flaws.
   
   His strongest point is reconciling the arguments against the orthodox neoclassical theory of "more free markets = better" with the 'facts on the ground', in the form of valuable statistics and examples from practical experience. He enthousiastically destroys the reformist view of capitalism as followed by many social-democrats and current-day labor union leaders just as much as the libertarian approach. In addition to that, he gives a worthwhile overview of the Marxist interpretation of capitalism and why it is better able to explain certain commonplace phenomena in firm practice than the neoclassicals. Finally, he gives a non-too-critical overview of the great variety of leftist anti-capitalist movements in the world today and some general perspectives on their success, though all this is very vague.
   
   The books great benefits are the easy to understand ways in which he shows the workings of capitalism in the many kinds of injustice felt by (young) leftist-inclined people, giving them a more solid ground for their critiques. However, this accessible approach is also the big downside to Yates' work: "Naming the System" is not in-depth at all, its wording is a little simplistic and childish sometimes, and it is virtually useless to those who already have a basic Marxist understanding of the capitalist world. Nevertheless, the book is worth four stars for its excellent utility as an education book on the Marxist approach for young people (high school and students), much like Naomi Klein's book was for the anti-branding movement.

5 comments about Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America.

1. The most unsettling aspect of Barbara Ehrenreich's eye-opening foray into the world of the working poor is that the situation hasn't improved. In fact, it's gotten worse. The U.S. economy was booming in the late 1990s when she began her project, working anonymously in various minimum-wage jobs and reporting about the experience. Though she steps in and out of the lives of the minimum-wage workers who befriend her, she is a very powerful, effective advocate for them. In her book, she shows that living decently on about $7 an hour (still the minimum wage in most states) is impossible. However, Ehrenreich gives it a try in three cities, working as a waitress, housekeeper and Wal-Mart clerk. She reports from the front lines, where the working poor eat potato chips for dinner and sleep in fleabag motels, and she does the same. She finds that minimum-wage workers lead a dreary existence, toiling away in obscurity day after day with little hope, just getting by as long as they don't fall ill, need dental work or get in a car wreck. The terribly sad part is that many see no light at the end of the tunnel. getAbstract finds that Ehrenreich is a gifted writer with keen perceptions and a wry sense of humor. Her narrative flows effortlessly as she enlightens, educates and entertains. If only she had a magic wand.



2. I originally read this book when it was first published! I found it hard hitting, have quoted from it frequently and have recommended it to numerous indivduals.
   I feel her book does not go far enough, because; let us be honest, she knew she would "get out" of the circumstances. It was an experiment for her; and that kept her from sinking into despair. Total desperation, and fear that her children would never have full tummies. This is the plight of the working poor everywhere in America. To say it is not is to close ones eyes and live in ignorance.
   This book is best read without the snacks, without the liquid refreshment within arms reach. Let your stomach be a little empty, so you can permit your body to feel the book as well.



3. This book tells the reality for too many Americans, who don't qualify for the Bush/McCain tax cuts. Sad, and scary, reading.



4. There are no words that I could use to describe this woman's attitude that haven't already been sprinkled throughout Amazon reviews; whiny, preachy, arrogant, self-righteous, annoying...you get the point. She seems to be the worst kind of person: the kind that pretends to care about the plight of others in order to further her own career. I'd put her up there with Jesse and Reverend Al. Allow me to quote her actual words:
   
   "I originally sought what I assumed would be a relatively easy job in hotel housekeeping and found myself steered into waitressing, no doubt because of my ethnicity and English skills."
   
   "Unlike many low-wage workers, I have the further advantage of being white and a native English speaker."
   
   "I ruled out places like New York and L.A., for example, where the working class consists mainly of people of color and a white woman with unaccented English seeking entry-level jobs might only look desperate or weird."
   
   I'm sorry, is she white and privileged? I didn't happen to catch that part. Also, yeah, it would look desperate. That's what you get when you're actually poor. You know, desperate.
   
   She laces the book with many footnotes and statistics, which are actually interesting, but she clearly has no idea what to do when she becomes the statistic. This is the prime example of what happens when you study all the charts, and you see them all laid on in black and white, then try to actually claim them as your own life and look foolish. You know how many homeless people lived on the streets from `90-'95? Okay, good. They're going to shut your power off because you're late on the payments. What are you going to do with that statistic?
   
   "Ideally, at least if I were seeking to replicate the experience of a woman entering the workforce from welfare, I would have had a couple children in tow...In addition to being mobile and unencumbered, I am probably in a lot better health than most members of the long-term low-wage workforce. I had everything going for me."
   
   Wow. All that and a killer personality. You really do have everything. Way to go. You've successfully exploited and no doubt offended the people whose lives your book claims to showcase.
   
   In fairness, she is able to step outside of herself and note that "almost anyone could do what I did...In fact, millions of Americans do it everyday, with a lot less fanfare and dithering." Although, I can't help but feel like she decided to write a book about what it was like for her to be poor for a few months, instead of what it's like to actually be poor.
   
   All of the above quotes come from the first 10 pompous pages. I decided then that I did not care for this book, but made myself read until I couldn't take it anymore, which occurred on page 32. One of my favorite examples of her detachment is when she turns down a job that pays $7 an hour (in the mid-90s, mind you) because it "involves standing in one spot for eight hours a day."
   
   Here's another funny one: "About a third of a server's job is "side work" invisible to customers." I just think it's hilarious that she put the term "side work" in quotes like that, as if nobody had ever heard the term before.
   
   I am honestly offended by her ignorance of a subject she claims to have not only researched, but "lived". I know people who live this book. I live this book. I've never known anyone to turn down any job because they asked for a urine screen, unless they were going to undoubtedly fail. Actually, they'd take the test anyway, and cross their fingers. Not Barbara, though. It's beneath her. "If you want to stack Cheerios boxes or vacuum hotel rooms" she writes, "you have to be willing to squat down and pee in front of a health worker." This doesn't make any sense to her, stating that "$6 and a couple of dimes to start with are not enough, I decide, to compensate for this indignity."
   
   You know what's indignity? When they take your kids away because you can't feed them. That's indignity.
   
   I never made it to the second chapter, but the first few sentences of the opening paragraph are intriguing at the least:
   
   "I chose Maine for its whiteness." Very first words of the chapter. Believe me, it gets better: "This might not make Maine an ideal setting in which to hunker down for the long haul, but it made it the perfect place for a blue-eyed, English-speaking Caucasian to infiltrate the low-wage workforce, no questions asked."
   
   Caucasian? Who says that? This woman is very misguided. She did this "experiment" about ten years ago, but I think white people worked minimum wage jobs then, as they do now. Except in Maine, apparently.
   
   This is not a book about being poor. It is a book about a bored, middle-class woman who decides to go slumming, and she doesn't even follow her own rules that closely. She busts out her debit card when needed, she turns down jobs actual poor people would kill to have, and she does it all with the empathy and compassion of Adolf Hitler. There are people who think this book deserved its bestseller status. I'm not one of them. There are people who hail it as a classic, those who think that this woman has done the working-class a favor by writing this garbage. Those people are not working-class people. Those people are not my people.
   
   2 stars, simply because I had to keep reading in order to find out how she would insult me next.



5. Many of us have worked at jobs that barely paid the bills, and paid us much less than we considered we were worth. An increasing number of people live lives dependent on such jobs. How does one make it in a country where the rents, food costs, transportation costs and health care costs routinely outpace the rise of minimum wages? Barbara Ehrenreich tried an experiment - she took on the task of finding such jobs, one in cleaning, one in restaurant serving, and one in retail, to see if she could make it even for a month on such wages.
   
   Ehrenreich confesses to cheating - her transportation was always assured, she started with a comfortable sum, and really didn't have to worry about the longer-term issues of health care or saving for the unexpected. Still, the experiment was eye-opening. Despite the fact that the population served by places that cater to low-wage earners such as weekly residential hotels and food kitchens, it often costs more in time and money for people to take advantage of such things. The amount of time Ehrenreich spent trying to get free food amounted to a considerable sum, even if calculated at the minimum wage. Of course, this was also time that could not be spent in terms of education or job searching - how can one improve one's lot in life if basic survival needs take up so much time and energy?
   
   I work with people and teach in schools where people, even if they aren't living on absolute minimum wages, still exist in a state where an auto breakdown can make the difference between finishing the semester or not, or where a computer breakdown or inability to get to a free library computer can make the difference of getting through a degree program. Most low-wage earners are among the hardest working people in the country, as Ehrenreich discovers in her experiment, and many have family obligations on top of the job-and-a-half or two-job life (and, of course, many of those are single mothers). From big box stores to small businesses, the routine infringement of privacy and personal rights was intense, but something that apparently is treated as routine, both by those who invade and those invaded.
   
   Ehrenreich's book has been used as community reads and common reading projects at various schools and colleges. There are some critiques worth mentioning - Ehrenreich's politics are on the liberal side, and that turns off some readers (including, as it happens, many who fall in the low-wage category). Her message can be distorted to fit different political agendas, not always of her intention. The experiment also presents a few slices of life that are far from a statistical or scientific study; as an anecdotal piece, this is very fascinating, but one needs to look elsewhere for facts and figures. As Ehrenreich states, however, it is hard to calculate in this bracket - the official poverty levels bear little relationship to who really is or is not poor, and that can vary from one part of the country to another. Ehrenreich's experiment also doesn't fully capture the experience of much of the poor, who also tend to be minorities; a bit of this poked through as Ehrenreich found she was sometimes considered for certain roles and not others just because she was not a minority.
   
   On the whole, this is a fascinating book, well worth reading by those of us in the more comfortable classes to see just what many have to go through to survive in our generally affluent society.

No comments about Work, Life, and Family Imbalance: How to Level the Playing Field.

1 comments about The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology).

1. Lots of books have been written about poor, black males in Chicago. There is the personal ("Our America"), the journalistic ("There Are No Children Here"), and the academic ("Slim's Table"). In this book, the author tries to analyze how 26 young, poor black men think, and not just what they do or the choices they make. He has some very counterintuitive findings.

   As great as a book this is, reading it can be depressing to the nth degree. The interview subjects are just clueless about how society is organized and how the marketplace is changing. They come off as so naive and uninformed! This could really help fortify racist fallacies about black mens' intelligence.

   Further, the people in power who are most interested in hurting black men could have a field day with this book. The subjects almost never say racism is a big deal. They blame themselves entirely for what has happened in their lives. They believe that a positive attitude will change all their woes. This type of "pull yourself by the bootstraps" lets racism and classism in American institutions off the hook.

   Further, this book may hurt people who believe in or benefit from affirmative action. The author observes that those who have had the most exposures across races and classes are the most cognizant of racism and classism in this country. Many people might read this and say, "Well then blacks would be less angry at others if they didn't observe us." or "If diversity makes blacks bitter, they should not be exposed to it." etc. Thank goodness the Supreme Court already stated that affirmative action is legal in Michigan where the author works.

   Speaking of Michigan, I am surprised that the author did not complete his study there. Like Chicago, Detroit has problems with segregation, unemployment, and post-industrialization. Why keep making Chicago look bad when many urban areas are hard places in which to live for African-American men?

   Despite my critiques, I enjoyed this book. I actually do recommend it for antiracist activists and other progressive thinkers.

2 comments about Making Diversity Work: 7 Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace.

1. It is difficult to count the gains and address the challenges both met and remaining in the diversity story of the USA over the past decades. Diversity started as the "right thing to do" and ended up as a "business case" for corporate success. Supported by three core US values equality, law, and market capitalism, the diversity venture goes forward, unfortunately, with mixed success.
   
   Thiederman's revision of her already highly successful book attempts to bolster some of the weaker areas of the diversity endeavor, namely in fresh chapters substantiating the power of reason and conscious decisions to reduce bias in both word and behavior. This is done in a context that admits to the natural functions of bias that affect us all. In other words we all have built in mechanisms that can produce bias and it is in recognizing and managing these mechanisms that we can reduce their effects on our working together.
   
   Diversity experts such as Thiederman have long recognized that the management of bias and the effects of bias is a key element in the ability to offer equal opportunity and guarantee the productivity of a mixed workforce. It is the "how to" that interests us and is the focus of her book. In the US context of psychologized personal responsibility, this "how to" forms the core of what is in fact a self-help process. The seven steps for defeating bias outlined in the book are individual behavioral modifications. These include one of seeking out kinship groups, as it were finding or founding voluntary support groups, which are not unlike those constructed by psychologists and gurus for other forms of coping and self-development.
   
   Lest the reader think I am trying to be cynical here, this is not the case. I am simply pointing out that how USians seek to do diversity is very US American in its cultural values and processes, as is to be expected. My interest as an expatriate trainer and consultant, working in cross-cultural and diversity initiatives in Europe and Asia, is to carefully observe the US approaches for both what they can contribute elsewhere as well as to discover what does not fit and may indeed become counterproductive to what we hope to achieve in non-US contexts. It is in that perspective that I review resources such as this with the hope that these comments produce some food for thought and fresh perspectives for the target market of the work as well as for others.
   
   Thiederman is asking the reader (and hopefully user) of the processes in this book to enter on a kind of enlightened self development that is often in conflict with the current epistemology of the US public. We are living in a period in which opinion, thinking, and belief are largely the function of political and corporate storytelling that determines what our fears and our worries should be all about. Such stories frequently support and reinforce the biases about others that reside in our unconscious. Thiederman is right on target in pointing out that our biases, the fearful stories we have been taught to tell ourselves, serve as a kind of "magic" for disappearing unpleasant and unresolved realities. Judgments about others are the inner Jeannie and Samantha whose antics take less effort than rational thinking about reality.
   
   To examine these dynamics with the rational mind may not be easy psychologically or even socially as doing so tends to develops critics, whistleblowers, as well as the kind of individuals who can respond effectively to what Thiederman describes as "Gateway Events" in which opportunities arise to prevent or identify and reduce bias in action, but in which courage and--albeit carefully constructed--candor and confrontation, are required.
   
   One could compare the advice in this book to the behavioral or spiritual handbooks of bygone years. The "spiritual exercises" in Making Diversity Work differ in one significant way from the bulk of advice found in spiritual resources classic and contemporary, which claim that the core of self management lies in developing the strength not to be perturbed by the opinions and sometimes hurtful behavior of others. "You make me feel," is the victim's leitmotif and in a society where the behaviors of others are assumed to be the determinants of how we should feel. In such a culture we are all victims, all entitled to take offense at what we perceive as or choose to believe are the slights of others that have made us feel one way or another. Not surprisingly a cult of mental and emotional damage has surfaced as a factor in US social and legal thinking.
   
   Entitlement in the USA seems to have grown to include my right to feel offended as if I had no ability to choose how I should feel. Thiederman's book is about regaining some of that power of choice. Obviously we have spontaneous reactions to what goes on about us and to what others do and say, but we also learn how not to make this the sole determinant of how we will react and respond.
   
   Guilty or innocent? Early on the reader is treated to a series of case studies in which she or he is asked to judge whether the actors are guilty or innocent of bias. Thiederman does an excellent analysis of the nuances of each case and how given certain factors it might turn out differently. Judging others in a dichotomous legal fashion, however, is part of the US mentality. It also seems to be an underlying premise of the discussion of bias, which in many respects amounts to unfair judgment. What is not called into question is use of the right to judge, nor the sense of righteousness in judging others which, if unexamined construct a vicious circle. Thiederman looks at the dynamic of expressing offense from the perspective of "guilt tripping." What is the goal of "laying a guilt trip" on someone? When is it justified? Is it vindictive or corrective? This is the same question that has to be asked of the behavior of those who impose a kind of scarlet letter on others via the abuse of so-called political correctness. Diversity training--and here I do add a touch of cynicism, having engaged in it myself for over 30 years--will never run out of clients if it fosters the mentality that it purports to correct.
   
   How all this fits into the corporate story and the corporate story of diversity is not the topic of this book, but it is the responsibility of sound diversity management. There are such questions as: Is the cultivation of a diversity culture in fact the great leveler of difference? How is diversity "consciousness" used to suppress healthy criticism in a corporate organism? Is diversity in an organization's corporate story a serious commitment or a marketing ploy or both?
   
   Thiederman writes extremely well as those who subscribe to her occasional newsletters are aware. She usually treats us to a good story, and a good reflection on it.
   
   Making Diversity Work provides two appendices, the first a sort of short summary guide that is meant to assist the reader to review and remember the basic attitudes and practices inculcated in each of the chapters, a kind of compendium or vademecum of what has been learned and should be practiced. The second appendix provides trainers with a set of activities that can be used to explore experiences of identity and bias and the emotions that are raised around them and support the learnings fostered in the book.
   
   George Simons, La Napoule, 1 August 2008



2. Dr. Thiederman cuts to the heart of the "real" diversity issues and gives both intellectual and real world help and resources. The book covers all the essential information and provides resources for group and individual learning - both personal and in the workplace.

No comments about Your Child in Film & Television (Self-Counsel Reference Series).

2 comments about Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic.

1. Boydson goes to prove that the average woman ha had to work long and hard hours that have been often under paid and overworked while the men get their payment, the women must endure long hours and work extra hard. This book seeks to tell how the women have built the economy and have been one of the major leaders yet do not get the credit that they deserve. Think about the long hours put in spinning, canning, and doing the house work without air conditioning and yet still how it is today! This si the book to read for all historians.



2. I have to modify significantly the previous reviewer's take on this book. Boydston does not argue that women did all the work while men got all the pay. What she argues is that because women did as much unpaid work as they did, factories benefited more from male labor than they might have if they'd considered and economically rewarded the female labor that went into making the male a productive worker. In other words, capitalists effectively got two for the price of one when they hired a male worker. Without a female working for free at home while practicing home economics to keep expenses low, the American labor-profit system in the early republic would have been unsustainable. To make this system palatable, Boydston argues in her concluding chapter (indeed, the chapter that really is the point of the book), the culture generated a pastoral mystique of housework . . . images and ways of talking about housework that made it seem not only natural, but part of the beauty and splendor of nature.
   
   The previous reviewer's take suggests that this book in some way could be read as perpetuating a simplistic male/female gender war mentality. Instead, where this book really leads is to a common enemy of the mass of men and women: an exploitative political economy that thrives on the poverty of the family. Women entering the marketplace has done little to solve the problem. Indeed, what Boydston shows is that women have always been in the marketplace. If you think about it after reading this book, it becomes pretty clear that in the postmodern, post industrial age, capital is still getting two workers for the price of one: women working for less pay than men and men working for less pay than they have before. Meanwhile, the economy absorbs the on average lower female wage in a network of childcare services (daycare, formula, etc.) and "busy lifestyle" services (convenience food, maid services, etc.) that leave the situation little changed. Meanwhile, of course, the marketing machine continues working overtime to naturalize this situation.

5 comments about Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas.

1. This subject is getting a lot of ranting from people on the outskirts who know squat. Manufacturing is one thing, but IT is where the real action is. I work in IT outsourcing and I have seen both sides, while so many are talking from 3rd hand knowledge. Number 1 issue is that these imported visa techies are more sinned against then sinning. The imported worker isn't fully paid, gets only a paltry salary, the winner in the game, the true elite, are mddlemen ....It's all the vendor/employers who make the money, and sometimes there are so many layers of them, they don't even make much; and, they are rarely US corporate..... Oddly enough, most of them are immigrants themselves. Some immigrant guy gets a stable of visa guys with desireable skills (e.g., SAP) and vends them to other vendors, perhaps more than to actual US companies (you have to be a "preferred vendor" to get in on the action with the largest US Companies). Who knows what the poor visa guy actually gets, while the large US companies who seek to buy this contingent H1 visa labor don't get much of a bargin either. Yeah, they try to get competition for the sake of lower rates, but they also TRY to squeeze from the top and demand the TOP Tier "preferred" vendors send them with visa techies with such and such skills for a ceiling of $X; however, there are STILL market forces, and these middle level vendor/employers know the rates and sometimes the preferred vedor above them cannot not find or provide someone when any of the layers cannot make at least a minimal amount on the rate. Consequently, the rates creep up, and end up not that far behind the going rate. I have seen some Corporations/Companies have to re-process their original req with higher salaries cause they need someone badly, and eventully they go to the 2nd tier vendors. Ultimately while they may pay slightly less on the contract than for a full time guy, and slightly less than a US guy, it's not that much less, only a little, while the vendor middle-men gets his bucks (and more and more of them pop up every day). These vendor/employers make their bucks either on specific skills (lake SAP, .NET) or on volume, like parasites. Meanwhile US Companies cannot be bothered with hiring entry level. They need someone to "hit the ground running." The imported guys are just beyond entry level, having already got that back home from the same US companies overseas OR from other foreign companies or domestic companies over there. So, yeah, they are up and running faster than an entry level guy. The real tragedy is that our US IT grads have so few entry level jobs available. And the big bonanza, right now (jobs paying over $100k) is in managerial IT. The ones who have a leg up on those are the visa guys who tough it out and survive to get that magic Green Card. Having survived all the levels, they are often the best candidates for these well paid positions, and compete with native born US citizens who survived the tech bust. However, understandably, these GC guys want a competitive salary with their American counterparts. When the best candidates for these jobs are Green Cards, the US grads who never got the entry level job originally, lose out once again. Meanwhile, in places like India, IT is booming, and they badly need midlevel managers, so who will go? How many Americans are ready to uproot and learn Hindi? There is an r2i movement (r2i==return to India).... Probably all those Green Card guys who earned their stripes here, will go back, and again the US IT departments will have to go to another 3rd world country, and start the whole mess all over. Meanwhile, the rest of us low paid flunkies are barely making ends meet, work long hours, and get NO health benefits.



2. How come I don't see anyone without a job? Dont waste your money buying this useless book. Watch a movie in the theaters instead.



3. The book is easy to read and seems to exude a great political, commonsense vision. At times, Lou Dobbs sounds more like a member of the "red team" and not the conservative that he has been popularly famed. His book has some, good, solid points though others are not as strong as there could be challenges in application of such legislations and repercusions. Nonetheless, the book is a good tool of education for all!
   
   Other excellent books for reading: Fluctuating Life
   
   Quest for a Dream: A Life Committed to Progress
   
   Let's Talk Africa and More



4. Outrage over shifting of American jobs to Mexico (and others). Effective solutions are thin for number of chapters on subject. Roll back NAFTA? Re- write NAFTA?



5. Dobbs demonstrates a total waste of a Harvard education. Never says anything difinitive -- just political ranting, same as the TV show.