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 Amazing Parallels - Elusive Republic & Nickel and Dimed 
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You all know how big I am on connections - schema theory at work in my mind. Too often it becomes a tangled web. But anyway, here's my latest connection. So I have been reading Elusive Republic and the debate on corruptibility of luxury items produced through the manufacturing sector. I see so many parallels between the exploited poor in the workhouses in England and the working poor in today's society. The republican statesmen who held a vision of a societal utopia that offered men (women and slaves didn't count) land, independence and liberty to pursue their interests decried a manufacturing based economic system that led to the unequal distribution of wealth and sentenced laborers to a lifetime of menial, mindless drudgery. And yet, ironically, that's what we've got. Even though Ehrenreich finds work in the service (as opposed to manufacturing) sector, she - and most especially her coworkers - are sentenced to hard labor in order to survive. How did we get from the idealized Republic that men like Madison and Franklin articulated to today's reality? Has the moment of corruption that they feared inevitable finally arrived? Was it ever unavoidable? Could it have been postponed, or better yet, transformed?

Now contrast all these questions with the creation myth that we will be reading in Quinn's Ishmael. I listened to this book on tape years ago and am now re-reading it. There are more parallels. It is a compelling, fascinating read and has the potential to be life-changing if we have the courage to look at Ishmael's theory and accept the premises upon which it is based.

Cindy

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Cindy Fowler

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Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:27 pm
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Cindy, To me, it seems that America has become just what our founding fathers, Jefferson in particular feared. A nation in which industry keeps workers in the lower class, until they can dump the American workers into unemployment and higher foreign workers for less money. We have become corrupt England. As far as a solution though, my only thought is to become a nation less dependent on manufacturing. I know this is much easier said than done though, and I am at a loss as to how we could make this happen. I will openly admit that I have thought that Jefferson had the right idea about America being a farming nation since I read about this in high school. And today, more than ever I think Jefferson was right. We could easily live without many of luxuries we have. My question is, Would the simple life that Jefferson envisioned for the nation really have been as bad as many philosophers of that time made it seem?


Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:21 pm
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Girls,
I think that Americans have gotten in over our heads. Young married couples seem to want the luxuries right away. We want everything now that our parents have. What we don't realize is that they have worked very hard to get what they have now. Every generation wants to start a step ahead and have so many luxuries. While reading Nickel and Dimed and the part about the Merry Maids cleaning these huge houses with so many luxuries really bothered me. I was thinking that these rich people could sell some of their art and help the poor pregnant lady working herself death get some days off, or a different job. Some of the wealth in this nation needs to be spread around!!

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Deborah Hess


Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:38 pm
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