Why People Work-for Money, for Dignity, for Advancement
Everybody must work. Life cannot be passed in idleness. The grass must be cut, the child must be fed, and the elderly person must be helped across the street. To feel healthy we must work out, and if we have a muscle cramp we cannot sit and cry like a child, rather we must work out our stiffness and soreness with stretching. However, when we hear the word "work," quite often what comes to mind is not merely effort in the sense of expending energy, but paid labor. America has always idealized the value of making one's fortune from nothing, working by the sweat of one's brow, much as is depicted in Richard Rodriguez's essay on "Los Pobres." However, Henry Louis Gates Jr., an African-American, would caution that not all work is inherently dignifying. Work must uplift the mind as well as the body. Barbara Ehrenreich in her essay from Nickel and Dimed, and Robert Reich "Why the Poor are Getting Poorer, and the Rich Richer," would likewise caution that work alone is not uplifting, and work must be fairly paid and above all respected by society to satisfy the heart and soul of the worker.It is Ehrenreich's point of view that offers perhaps the most comprehensive, and the most satisfying portrait of work on a human as well as on a s
Reich, however, by stressing economics to such a degree, does not provide as holistic a view of work as Ehrenreich. Gates acknowledges the need for esteem as well as financial remuneration from work, and he stresses a wider valuing of certain occupations in society, although unlike Ehrenreich, he does not take as positive a view of manual labor, perhaps given his history as an African-American. Work should not be valued in this society based upon an antiquated class system, and also people should be able to get by on the minimum wage. However, working with one's hands, whether managing a number of crowded tables at a busy restaurant, or just working at Wal-Mart requires skills of speed, time management, and demands effort upon the person working, just as much as any professional occupation. Technology is increasingly replacing human beings, or outsourced occupations. reminds that perspectives upon work are colored, literally and metaphorically, but the legacy of racism and slavery, and that the generations of sons and daughter of former slaves must seek to undo the intellectual legacy of slavery, which regards African-Americans as inferior, and only fit for manual work. Richard Rodriguez speaks poetically about the silence of the migrant field hands he saw, and speaks about how it haunted and elevated him, but who knows what hard worries and cares these men really felt? Their stories are now lost to time, without the ability to get an education, or a platform to articulate what it is really like, knowing that one will not be able to feed one's family, even if one is laboring for twelve hours a day in the hot sun, while the owner of the farm sits in a cool, air-conditioned room, sipping iced tea and reaping the profits of the toil of others. Robert Reich takes a similarly class-based tone as Ehrenreich in his argument about why the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer in modern American society. It is only because such work has been so poorly paid over the course of American history that such jobs are regarded as expendable, and wealth is seen as equal to success. This may have worked for Rodriquez, but it was hardly true of all of the individuals with whom he labored, side by side, when he was growing up. Also, the status of one's work should not be equated with one's personal worth. As America becomes increasingly corporate in nature, many lowly paid positions are being shipped overseas. This sense of a need for work to be truly fulfilling, rather than to simply fill time, and the fact that work must be fairly paid else it cause resentment is seconded by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Ultimately, dignity and financial payment is what is due to all workers, for both are the purpose of work and workers should not be "Nickel and Dimed" out of their just rewards.
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