Cannon Fodder
Published by marco on
“My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers—the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being “reamed out” by managers—are part of what keeps wages low. If you’re made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you’re paid is what you are actually worth. It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker or, for that matter, a drug addict or thief. On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done.”
Her heart’s in the right place—and she’s mostly right. I know many people who fit her description: living lives of quiet desperation and trying to do what they think is the right thing, no matter how impossible the task appears. However, drug addicts and slackers and thieves do exist, even among the poor. While we absolutely should not consign the poor as a group to the dustbin of history, we don’t need to do the poor the disservice of romanticizing them, either. We should just treat them as individuals, each as fallible or as capable of dignity and honor as anyone else. Perhaps more so than the rich who denigrate them without cause, but also not each and every one angelic.