Module three: Social and Economic Rights: A 20th Century US Perspective.

The United States of America, to many people represents the ultimate embodiment of capitalism, the world where you can really make it big, the place to be if you want to get anywhere. The American Dream indeed is the picture quite a few people have around the world, of this country where poverty doesn’t exist much. And sure, it’s true one doesn’t see many people here begging on streets in rags or street children running astray. However that doesn’t mean that people living in this country don’t go through almost the same kind of stress such as trying to figure out where the next meal will come from, how to make ends meet, especially those with other mouths to feed.
Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America manages to portray very effectively the stress that comes with the life of a person entering the labor market through welfare reform. She manages to outline the difficult and demanding working situations people working in the lower tiers of the labor market experience such as those of waiters and house cleaning staff. Ehrenreich mentions how the pay she receives hardly makes ends meet for herself, and often this is after doing hours of back breaking work that yields to paying off of rent that is too high for a person working in that strata, and oh, perhaps a meal or two from the convenience store. One realizes how people trying to make ends meet in America often face physical and emotional stress, to the extent that people start believing that life is not more than a struggle to just survive and each move determines whether you pass, or fail. This is clearly apparent in the first chapter of the book where after quitting her waitressing job, Ehrenreich she reflects: “There is vindication in this exit, no fuck-you surge of relief, just an overwhelming dank sense of failure pressing down on me…” (Ehrenreich, 48). This shows how not only does a person go through physically and emotionally painful situations in the workplace, but in the end they seem to blame themselves for their inability to stick to the job that obvious takes more than gives. One can say that Ehrenreich is referring to failure in the sense that her investigation as a journalist is going poorly, but she does mention how she felt a failure for “reasons best known to hardworking, generous people like Gail and Ellen…” (Ibid) her co-workers, people with similar working experiences. In another case Ehrenreich says “I’m sorry, I tried to ignore it, but it undermines my efficiency when I’m have to work alongside people who are crying, fainting, starving, or otherwise visibly suffering…” (Ehrenreich, 112) again indicating the kinds of stress people go through in such working conditions. These are just some of the examples of what people in the labor class of the society go through. One may point out that it’s probably a way of life for those people and once you get used to it, it’s not so bad. Nevertheless, I’m sure the pain and stress is still tantamount.
As a person not coming from this country, it is apparent to me that the environment here significantly is more about being independent and paving a road for yourself where you can be successful in this capitalist society. Again, there is that very prevalent sense of either being successful or failing and you are the only person responsible for that. To an extent this is true, but at the same time this may create a sense of isolation that may lead to self-decay. It may be stretching it to link this idea to the laissez-faire theory mentioned in Cass Sunstein’s The Second Bill of Rights. FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More than Ever, or rather, the myth of the theory. Sunstein is right in proclaiming that no one opposes government intervention and that a large amount of the population depends on it. The laissez-faire theory is, according to Sunstein, “a hopelessly inadequate description of any system of liberty, including free market” (Sunstein, 19). This is apparent when in America the government offers free healthcare to people who can’t afford it, or free education. However Ehrenreich mentions how the government fails to cover one aspect of providing basic necessities, and that is housing. She discusses how government expenditures on public housing have fallen since the 1980’s (Ehrenreich, 201) and housing prices remain expensive, whereas wages remain “flat” as Ehrenreich puts it. This again, poses countless problems to those in the labor class.
To wrap up, America the idea may represent opportunity and a road to success, but without sufficient education or background one can’t get very far. Needless to say, this is the case in probably every society, however it’s interesting to realize how people may have access to facilities here in America, but relatively, life can be equally as miserable for a person in America’s labor class compared to a person coming from a poor background in a lesser developed country – not literally, but both probably face the same kind of stress relative to the society they live in.