majority of the world’s population. Under this system, only a small portion of citizens are in control of the planets capital and resources. As more wealth and power is gathered, money and factories are moved to accommodate to keeping profits high and wages low. Ultimately, the amount of profit acquired is more important than people and the environment. Adam Smith is often…
The Gilded Age: a point in history when industries took advantage of their workers and lied to the government about it. Men, women, and children alike were extremely undervalued. Whether it was low pay, long hours, or unsafe work environments people at this time were not being treated as they should have. In theory as years went by things would’ve changed. Eric Schlosser disproves that theory with his book titled Fast Food Nation (2001). About a hundred years after the mistreatment in the Gilded…
The first job someone has is often memorable in many ways, they are earning their own money, accepting a new form of responsibility, and they’re usually treated horribly because their position is seen as inferior. In today’s world, people who work jobs that don’t require a degree are looked down upon. It is often ignored that the resources that are needed to obtain the education that is required for a white collar job, are not available to everyone. A certain intelligence that comes of blue…
Most people are employed, as it is a necessity- but it’s not always an enjoyable experience. The workplace can be a dismal and strenuous environment. The poem “The Postman” by Sadhu Binning, is an embodiment of this statement, in which it shows that the reality of being a postman is a dull and lonely way of life that comes without reward. “The Postman” explains the circumstantial aspects of the postman described in the poem, and what will become of him based on those factors. In addition, the…
resonant with the article if laziness should be interpreted as unwillingness to enhance one’s skills rather than to work in general. In his article, Autor claims that the major reason for rising inequality in the US is the recent drastic growth of the wage premium related to higher education and…
Graduating high school students are faced with many challenges as they prepare to leave high school and move on into their adult life. The most urgent of these is, will you attend college? The norm now is that all students should continue their education through college, but some believe that we are encouraging too many students to this and they should instead get an entry level, low skill job or train to learn a trade skill. We are not encouraging too many students to go to college because…
Whose land is it now and will it forever be? Meaning this land was made for everyone, but is becoming the upper-class. According to Ehrenreich, if a place is truly beautiful, ordinary people can’t afford to be there. As a result, the upper-class is what caused this dilemma in life for the working-class. However, leaving many people unaware of how the upper-class are financially deteriorating the working class by raising prices, leaving no affordable houses, and inadequate for opportunities. In…
side, there were new immigrants that were arriving from Europe, China, and other countries, and were not receiving proper housing, work conditions, or even food. (Pierpaoli) Many of these problems were present during the Gilded Age and the economic gap between these rich moguls and poor immigrants was tremendous. The apartments these immigrants were often crowded, had little to no ventilation, and disease spread easily, killing many immigrants. (Grigg) Similarly, today we are in the same…
In “35 Soul-Crushing Facts about American Income Inequality”, the author, Larry Schwartz, makes it clear that the ever-increasing income and tax cuts the wealthiest Americans receive, as well as the decline in labor unions, results in the rest of the nation’s citizens to fare worse economically than those of previous generations. The writer shows that economic inequality, the difference between incomes across a population, has currently reached peak levels unprecedented since the Roaring…
While in the introduction Sinclair is described as a “realist,” it is difficult to ignore the fact that some things he describes wouldn’t have as much of an impact if it weren’t for his skill as a writer as well. For example, on page 65 he describes the changes in the scenery as Jurgis gets closer and closer to the stockyards and his writing has a way of making the imagery much more vivid. This is not to say that what he is writing about has no truth to it, but it wouldn’t be as effective a…