The World is Flat & Nickel and Dimed
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Library Print Resources

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Food, Eric Schlosser (TX945.3 .S355 2002)

The Wal-Mart effect : how the world’s most powerful company really works, and how it’s transforming the American economy by Charles Fishman ( HF5429.215.U6 F57 2006)

Library Movies

The Corporation

Supersize Me

Modern Times

Why Wal-Mart Works

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices

Online Resources

Henry Holt's Reader's Guide to Nickel and Dimed

Slipper Rock University's Summer Reading Program

National Coalition for the Homeless

Preamble Center for Public Policy

Economic Policy Institute

Video critique of The World Is Flat from MK Press

Quotes
(Questions are below)

“How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?”

“low-wage workers are no more homogeneous in personality or ability than people who write for a living, and no less likely to be funny or bright.”

“Just bear in mind, when I stumble, that this is in fact the best-case scenario: a person with every advantage that ethnicity and  education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of  exuberant prosperity, to survive in the economy’s lower  depths.”

there is a “common trade-off between affordability and convenience.” 

“the want ads are not a reliable measure of the actual jobs available at any particular time. They are, as I should have guessed from Max’s comment, the employers’ insurance policy against the relentless turnover of the low-wage workforce.”

“She dips into her own tip money to buy biscuits and gravy for an out-of-work mechanic who’s used up all his money on dental surgery,  inspiring me to pick up the tab for his pie and milk. Maybe the same high levels of agape can be found throughout the ‘hospitality  industry’.”

“We should also know that the lockers in the break room and whatever is in them can be searched at any time.”

“I haven’t been treated this way — lined up in the corridor, threatened with locker searches, peppered with carelessly aimed accusations — since at least junior high school.”

“housing, in almost every case, is the principal source of disruption in their lives.”

“There are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs.”

“Customers are in fact the major obstacle to the smooth  transformation of information into food and food into money — they are, in short, the enemy.”

“... the only recreation ever referred to is partying, which requires little more than some beer, a joint, and a few close friends.”

“There are not exactly people here but what amounts to canned labor,  being preserved between shifts from the heat.”

“There is no vindication in this exit, no fuck-you surge of relief, just an overwhelming dank sense of failure pressing down on me and the entire parking lot.”

“What these tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine, since the “right” answers should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination.”

“three thousand square feet, which is usually considered the size threshold for household help, or the point at which a house becomes unmanageable to the people who live in it”

“So ours is a world of pain — managed by Excedrin and Advil,  compensated for with cigarettes and, in one or two cases and then  only on weekends, with booze.”

“In 1999, somewhere between 14 and 18 percent of households employed an outside to do the cleaning ...”

“Nor do I believe that management rules by divine right or the  undiluted force of superior knowledge, as the ‘surveys’ demand you acknowledge.”

“They are the shoppers, I am the antishopper, whose goal is to make it look as if they’d never been in the store.”

“Once I let the clothes take charge, once I understand that iI am only the means of their reunification, they just fly out of the cart to their natural homes.”

“... there’s something wrong when you’re not paid enough to buy a Wal- Mart shirt, a clearanced Wal-Mart shirt with a stain on it.”

“Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow.  You don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high.”

“There is no real ‘labor shortage’, only a shortage of people willing to work at the wages currently being offered.”

“What surprised and offended me most about the low-wage workplace (and yes, here all my middle-class privilege is on display) was the extent to which one is required to surrender one’s basic civil rights and — what boils down to the same thing — self-respect.”

“We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world’s preeminent  democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their  waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship”

Questions for Nickel and Dimed

Why, according to Ehrenreich, do companies test their employees for drugs?

Describe your worst job application experience? Or write a short story describing a terrible experience.

What are the labor laws in Hawaii like? Are there important issues? Have there been debates about changing them?

How many people in Hawaii are in prison? How many families are affected by the prison system?

How do companies benefit from unpaid work? How do they get people to work for free?

What does Ehrenreich say about the importance of a work ethic for low wage jobs?

What is the dumbest management rule that you’ve ever had to deal with?

Why do people go out to eat? What are the psychological, sociological, anthropological, and political explanations of this  behavior?

What ethical principles to the low-wage workers operate under? Are they self-interested? Are they concerned about others? Based on what beliefs?

How do people recover from work? How long does it take? How much does it cost? Should this be factored in when calculating how much people are earning?

How is management portrayed in the book (as individuals, and also as  a system of organization)?

Do managers work? What do they do when they work?

How much control should a company have over its workers?

Are corporations good for democracy? In what ways does Ehrenreich suggest that an economic system based on low-wages undermines a democratic society?

Do corporations promote happiness?

How many people live in their cars in Hawaii? Can you find this statistic? Who is or should be collecting this data?

What happens with a person’s sense of self when working in low-wage jobs and when having a lifestyle?

Ehrenreich gives us examples of a condescending management style.  What would a nurturing management style look like? Would it be less efficient?

How is race an important part of who works in which jobs? Is this sorting out intentional?

Ehrenreich writes: “... it would take a long time, probably months, before I could hope to be accepted into this sorority” (page 31). How are social groups formed by people in low-wage jobs? What are the  functions of those groups?

How does Ehrenreich characterize how people treat low-wage workers? What groups is she criticizing here?

Why doesn’t Ehrenreich stand up to her bosses? Would you?  Read her  account of one such non-confrontation on page 40, and write about how  you think the story would have gone if she had confronted her boss.

Ehrenreich claims that work is like a POW camp (page 41). Read a  short story or novel about life in a camp, and evaluate whether her  comparison is appropriate.

How important is attitude for work? In what ways do companies promote a positive attitude? Is this consistent with the “management by stress” approach to running a company?

Research some of the cleaning agents that are used by a typical  cleaning company? What are chemicals? What are the actual health risks?

What, according to Ehrenreich,  are the social function of soap operas? What else can perform this function?

What does she mean when she says that some hotel rooms are calibrated  while others are decorated (page 53)?

What, according to Ehrenreich, do people actually need to get a job?  She talks about needing a permanent address, but what else? Does she miss anything?

How much work does it take to find a job?

One underlying theme in the book is that other people have considerable control over the lives of poor people. How does poverty take away the rights and freedoms that middle-class people take for granted?

As a writing style, how does Ehrenreich use sarcasm and irony to make her points?

What, according to Ehrenreich, is the real function of the personality tests that employers give to potential employees?

Ehrenreich suggests (page 60) that the law of supply and demand does not apply to low-wage jobs. Is this true? What are implications for the fate of people caught in low-wage jobs?

What is the poverty level and how is it measured? Is it accurate? Is it fair? How, specifically, is it used in the society?

What are the relationships between church and poverty? Why is there such a difference?

Ehrenreich suggests (on page 68, for instance), that there are important theological aspects to low-wage businesses. What are the religions debates?

Why would a cleaning company refer to their employees as “Maids” ? What connotations are they attempting to suggest?

If Maids charges the homeowners $25 an hour, and they pay their  employees $6.75 an hour, why wouldn’t the homeowners just hire maids directly?

Watch Chaplin’s Modern Times. In what ways do these low-wage jobs turn people into machines, or make them part of larger machines?

The relationship between appearance and reality  plays an important role in Nickel and Dimed. What does Ehrenreich say about real and apparent cleanliness when she is scrubbing houses in Maine?

How do fast food and convenience stores fit into an economy based on low-wages? In what ways might a book like Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food  Nation expand on Ehrenreich’s discussion?

Why are some people poor? Contrast Ehrenreich’s arguments with those she criticizes in the book. What kind of evidence would help people decide between one account of poverty and another?

“Maybe there’s some secret division of the world’s women into breeders and drones, and those at the maid level are no longer supposed to be reproducing at all.” (page 82). Discuss this in terms of the image of society offered by Huxley in Brave New World.

Are low-wage earners slaves? In what ways might a company promote the slavishness of their employees?

How important is having a purpose in life to leading a happy life? Do  low-wage jobs fulfill that need? What else can poor people do to lead a meaningful life?

Why are decorative pots so important for a rich kitchen?

How much work is involved for something trying to get free help? Does the government bureaucracy help or hurt the poor?

What kinds of rebellion are available to the working poor? What might these rebellions accomplish?

How does Ehrenreich contrast the religion of the rich and the religion of the poor? How does this contrast correspond with other contrasts that she makes?

What would make a worker apologize for getting hurt on the job? When Holly hurts her ankle while Ehrenreich is in Maine, what are the social factors that encourage Holly to take responsibility for getting hurt? Does this seem fair?

How is helplessness created in a society?

What is the difference between being tired and being defeated? Why is being defeated more of a social problem?

“... you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped” — what do the working poor actually want? What, according to Ehrenreich, should they want?

Is it effective to call employers “pimps”? What effect does Ehrenreich hope to achieve with this?

What effect does the desire for the boss’s approval have on low-wage workers? Ehrenreich discusses this when she is in Maine. What are the psychological elements of this relationship? What are the political implications?

While in Maine, Ehrenreich claims that “the poor have disappeared from the culture at large” (page 118). What does this mean? Watch some form of mass media (newspaper, television) and see if the poor  are visible). Why might this claim be important?

“When presenting yourself as a potential employee, you can never be too much of a suck-up” (page 124). Does this create a nation of liars? Moral philosophy sometimes talks of authentic versus inauthentic ways of life. How does the economic system connect to an authentic human existence?

How does a low-wage economy use language (specifically the choice of words) to mask the actual relationships between people?

Ehrenreich claims that people working at Wal-Mart are forced to be perky and compliant at the same time (page 127). Is this even possible? Why would a company want people to be like that?

If you had to write a guide to how to survive in a low-wage job in  Hawaii, what information and advice would you include?

Do children make poverty better or worse?

When she is selling in Minnesota, what does she say are the functions of drug testing?  If it’s not really about testing for drugs, then why would companies spend so much money doing it? Are there other ways that a company could achieve the same goals.

How might an anthropologist study “the Cult of Sam”?

What is the actual philosophy of Wal-Mart? What is their account of  human nature, of the ideal society, and of the good life?

What advantages do employers have because they are able to control the hiring process? Is Ehrenreich correct when she argues that the potential employees are never really free agents?

Is the comparison Ehrenreich makes between herself and Survivor  appropriate?

In what ways does working for Wal-Mart help Ehrenreich offer a sociological explanation for someone’s moral character? Why, for instance, does she become mean?

One theme in Nickel and Dimed is how different people are treated (or  want to act) like children. Compare how the low-wage employees and middle-class shoppers are compared to children.

What does Ehrenreich mean by the claim that there are no “exotic” places anymore? How does she connect the rise of Wal-Mart to this?

Near the end of the book, Ehrenreich suggests a connection between capitalism and cannibalism. What might she mean by this? Does her discussion of the working-poor actually support this claim?

How might primatology be useful in understanding the behavior of people working at a place like Wal-Mart?

In the evalution section at the end of Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich criticizes the welfare-to-work programs. What are these programs trying to do? Are her criticisms effective?

At the end of the book, Ehrenreich writes of a “money taboo”. What does she mean by this, and how does it connect to her general vision of the economy. Who benefits and why from the various myths and taboos that Ehrenreich discusses in the book.

What does she mean by “the high cost of repression” (page 212) and how does that fit into the general connection she makes between the economic system and democracy?

What is Ehrenreich getting at when she claims that the poor are the “major philanthropists of our society”? (page 221). Is this irony?

Make a complete schedule of your week, noting how much time you take to do everything that you do: attending class, shopping, sleeping, watching television. How do you think the hours you spend in a week differ from other kinds of people: one’s with children, or one’s working at a low-wage job, or one’s who have a high-paying job?

Quotes
(Questions are below)

 “Totalitarian systems depend on a monopoly of  information and force.” (page 54)

“... we were the only economy standing after World War II, and we had no serious competition for forty years. That gave us a huge head of steam but also gradually bred a sense of entitlement and a culture of complacency.” (page 325)

“When you study history and look at every civilization that has grown  up and died off, they all leave one remnant — a major sports coliseum at the heart of their capital.”  (page 359)

“President Kennedy understood that the competition with the Soviet Union was not a space race but a science race, which was really an education race.” (page 368)

“You are courting a political backlash by those who can and will get churned up by this flattening process, and that backlash could become  ferocious if we hit any kind of prolonged recession.” (page 379)

“Does your society have more memories than dreams or more dreams  than memories?”  (page 553)

Questions for The World Is Flat

Friedman appeals to Columbus mythology “Columbus was searching for hardware — precious metals, silks, and spices — the sources of wealth in his day. I was searching for software, brainpower, complex algorithms, knowledge workers, call centers, transmission protocols, breakthroughs in optical engineering — the sources of wealth in our day.” (page 4) Columbus was also looking for slaves and plunder. What does the mythical basis of Friedman’s book suggest about the book’s argument.

Friedman claims that “The global competitive playing field was being   leveled.” (page 8). Does this contrast with Nickel and Dimed?

Does Friedman downplay the contrast between owner and worker? Is that distinction going away with globalization?

In The World is Flat, the dominant voice is management. Find a  passage in the book where the voice of the employee is given and analyze whether the passage offers a fair and balanced view.

Friedman claims that “Change is natural” (page 21) But does that mean that change is good?  Death is natural, so is pain. How does Friedman’s appeal to destiny  (specifically economic destiny) support his arguments.

How does Friedman talk about freedom? What do you think he means by the term?

What is the relationship between the easy flow of information and  government secrecy? Is government become more or less secretive in  response to the new technologies?

Friedman devotes a chapter to discuss the success of Wal-Mart. How  does his argument fit into the broader debates about Wal-Mart? There are several movies to watch and books to read that will fill out the debate.

Does Friedman spend enough time discussing the role of new technology in surveillance? Does a flatten world make us more or less  susceptible to surveillance?

Friedman notes that the new technologies and companies are less “command-and-control oriented” (page 208). Is this true for all of  the significant companies in today’s economy? Does this describe Wal-Mart? Does it apply to the energy sector?

What are significant international organizations? What role do they  play in the flattening or unflattening of the world?

Find instances in the book when Friedman refers to “most people” or “everyone”  and consider who he is actually talking about. Is there bias in who is included?

“The cold, hard truth is that management, shareholders, and investors are largely indifferent to where their profits come from or even where the employment is created.” (page 245). Does a flattened world encourage companies to act more or less responsibly?

“The Indians and the Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top — and that is a good thing! They want higher standards of living, not sweatshops....” (page 271). When Friedman talks about the Indians and the Chinese, who is he actually talking about? Why can’t some Indians and Chinese want a higher standard of living  and sweatshops?

Friedman rarely mentions the military (as both a social force and an economic presence). What impact does the military have on flattening the world? Does the military become better as a result of the world flattening?

When Friedman claims that “Ireland today is the richest country in  the European Union after Luxembourg”  (page 406) what does he mean by “richest”? Is this a good measure of the quality of life of the country? Or of happiness? Or of economic power?

Why is it that countries in Latin America do not have market economies? What is Friedman’s account of Latin American history? Are there important events or influences that he does not consider?

Is Friedman a technological determinist?  Given the impact of  technology on human affairs, how much freedom do people, corporations, or governments have to respond to technological changes?

Friedman mentions the “fourteen Grand Challenges” (page 466). Choose one and discuss how the problem is being defined, how it is being addressed, and what hope their is to meet that challenge.

“The world’s poor do not resent the rich anywhere nearly as much as the left-wing parties in the developed world imagine.” (page 472) Does Friedman ever justify claims like this? Who is he talking to when he talks to the world’s poor or the left-wing parties.

Friedman suggests that the anti-globalization movement in the west tends to cause violence. Choose an appropriate violent confrontation involving anti-globalization groups and analyze in detail how the violence occurred.

Friedman appeals to cosmic moral images: for instance “the forces of  darkness as well as the forces of light” (page 510). Is the book really a book about morality, even though it appears to be a book about economics and technology?

Who is the book’s main audience? Is the message catered to their beliefs and expectations?