William Greider, "Work Rules"
Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:
1. Using your own reading of "Work Rules" rather than a dictionary, explain what Greider means by "the socialization of powerlessness"? What does "socialization" involve, and how do people become "socialized" into one way of life or another? If most people are indeed powerless on the job, why do so many of them indicate high rates of job satisfaction in polls? Is job satisfaction the same thing as autonomy? Is job satisfaction inconsistent with a master-servant relationship?
2. After paying particular attention to Greider's discussion of Karl Marx, would you say that Greider is a Marxist? Does Greider make an argument in favor of private property, or against it? Are worker-owned businesses less consistent with the free market than corporations owned by entrepreneurs and stockholders? Are corporations in some ways less consistent with free market ideals than worker-owned companies?
3. The subtitle to the book from which this excerpt was taken is "Opening Paths to a Moral Economy." In what ways might the treatment of people as things-which David Ellerman refers to on p. 220-contribute to the erosion of ethical codes that healthy societies depend on? What might Greider have in mind when he argues for a "moral economy"? Aren't all economies "amoral," that is, morally neutral? What would be the characteristics of an "immoral" economy?
Questions for Writing:
1. Greider refers to his grandfather McClure, who "proudly reported himself 'unemployed' to the census taker in 1900." Investigate the work history of your own family. If you can, find out something about what your grandparents did for a living, and also about the conditions under which they labored. Would you say that you enjoy more prosperity than they did? More personal freedom? More security? Does your family's experience confirm, complicate, or contradict Greider's argument?
2. Will worker-owned businesses really solve the problem of citizens' powerlessness? Drawing on the examples that Greider provides-United Airlines and Solidarity-discuss the economic obstacles that stand in the way of workplace equality. In a worker-owned company, will employees still need to "rent" themselves? If one purpose of a business is to compete with other businesses, what pressures work against the achievement of worker equality? In what ways might worker equality provide a competitive advantage?
Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:
1. In “Presumed Innocent,” Devra Davis describes the vested corporate interests that lead the pharmaceutical, medical, food, and health care industries to focus on profit rather than the environmental causes of cancer. If these industries were to become worker-owned, would the market behavior of these industries change? That is, would the workers be better able to—or more inclined to—lead these industries in the direction that Devra calls for, one where the desire to protect workers from environmental hazards outweighs the drive for profit?
2. In “Meat and Milk Factories,” Peter Singer shifts the question about the ethics of factory farming from a focus on individual producers to a focus on the system itself. One could argue that Greider, by contrast, shifts the question about the ethics of ownership from a focus on the system itself to a focus on the individuals in the system. Thus, when these two pieces are read together, the very meaning of “ethics” is destabilized. Given that we live in a market-driven system and that factory farming is a major part of that system, producing the food that supports the vast majority of those who rely on the market, is ethical action possible? Or is the only ethical action available to opt out of the system? Is opting out possible?
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