Bait and Switch -- Barbara

Bait and Switch -- Barbara Ehrenrich

Barbara Ehrenreich is an American sociologist and political activist with a feminist bent who actually describes herself as a "myth buster," yet is a widely read democratic socialist that the New Yorker magazine calls "a veteran muckraker" (Ehrenreich, Interview, 1989; Bait and Switch, 2005). Her major research interest is based on the way that society interacts with individuals in a way that tends to engender more divisiveness than inclusions -- for example, the minimum wage underclass, the way employers tend to arrest the development of employees, the way that the dreams of American middle class are almost impossible, and the juxtaposition between those who want to work and actualize and those who actually accomplish that need.

Bait and Switch is subtitled "the futile pursuit of the American dream." Although in this expose, Ehrenreich attempts to move into the mid-level corporate world to expose the perceived injustices she feels are endemic for the middle class trying to achieve, she is really unable to fake her way into the industries she so clearly wants to critique. What Ehrenreich does is try to infiltrate the perceived "cushy" corporate jobs of the mid-level manager, mid-level office worker; and all of those who seem to continually demonize the lower class. She sees this as important because, according to her view, for the first time in decades, it is this middle-class that is also suffering in the modern economy. Instead of being able to move from a solid middle-class background into school and then a career, she finds that it is increasingly difficult to attain, let alone maintain, the standard of living of the previous generation. The title really sums up her thesis: the American dream is really no longer possible in the way it was for parents and grandparents. Instead, mature capitalism has brought about more what might be described as "the killing fields of corporate capitalism," that continually churns, but the fuel it uses is the individual it claims to serve (Press, 2005).

In terms of using the books as a way to make some sense out of what it is that constitutes a "good life" in the contemporary world, one can old fall back on the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean -- "Happiness is found not at the end of the road, but on the journey." As Ehrenreich found, in some case you are your resume, but in other cases the individual is clearly NOT their resume. Instead, looking at what the book calls white-collar life "at its most miserable and precarious" (p. 216), one can only glean that this is clearly not the place for everyone, nor is it the do all end-all of Protestant expectations of actualization. In fact, pining for that perfect corporate job will likely not fulfill many needs because it is a roller-coaster of Machiavellianism, game-playing, extreme selfishness from employers and a purposeful sense of never being good enough, never doing a good enough job, and indeed, keeping the individual feeling that they must continually do better just to maintain -- without consequence to health, family, or indeed, the very actualization that was the point of school and job in the first place. Instead, if there is any lesson in this book, it is that in order to really be happy in life, one must find a balance, a way to intellectually and emotionally stimulate oneself, but still earn the requisite salary to ensure that one's family is able to do more than exist from paycheck to paycheck. The best advice from the book might be summed up in something Ehrenreich did not pen, but could have, "Does anyone really think that their tombstone will say, 'Here lies John Doe, He Wishes He Had Spent More Time At Work.'"