---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 15:21:06 +0000
From: Robert Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Moral Meaning of Work: Part 2
Wilson belongs neither to the left nor to the right's tradition of
romanticizing a world beyond necessity. For him, the disappearance of
work is not an opportunity but a tragedy. Yet Wilson parts company
with those conservatives who insist on work to teach lessons of
unfreedom. Conservatives see in such an agenda the necessary
correctives to what they take to be immoral conduct, whereas for
Wilson the "disciplines and regularities" of work provide an
opportunity for deprived people to become autonomous agents in
charge of their own lives.
In his effort to find out why so many jobs have disappeared from
inner-city neighborhoods, Wilson and his associates interviewed
employers representing 179 Chicago-area firms seeking workers for
entry-level, low-wage jobs. One of the reasons the firms said they
were reluctant to hire people from the ghetto was the lack of
language and mathematical skill required even for the most basic of
jobs. There may well have been racist elements in their reasoning,
although Wilson reports no differences on this point between black
and white employers. At the same time, these employers were taking
note of an unexpected consequence of the digitalization of the
American economy: Jobs are not so much rendered mindless but rather
require the application of cognitive capacity. Some jobs in America
may have been de-skilled, but most of them remain too skilled for
badly educated inner-city black males without sufficient work
experience.
Robert Campbell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
