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TheWarOnWork 5 - 08 Apr 2010 - Main.AmandaBell
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| | I'm a UAW kid. For that reason I'm sure it isn't coincidental that Mike Rowe, host of the television show Dirty Jobs, has always been a source of constant fascination for me. In case you're unfamiliar with the show, each episode of Dirty Jobs documents Mike Rowe spending one day doing some socially integral job that we, despite having reaped the efforts of the workers, have probably never ever considered. It's fascinating if you have any interest in learning how exterminators kill rats or how old mattresses are disposed of, but there's probably sufficient entertainment value to be found in watching Rowe inseminate sheep or fall in pig shit even if you couldn't care less about the industrial foundations that make "civilized life possible for the rest of us," in the words of the show's introduction. It depends on your entertainment goals I suppose.
After reading the first few chapters of Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, I definitely was reminded of Mike Rowe, but I started thinking less about what he taught me about how the Golden Gate Bridge gets painted and more about his opinions regarding societal attitudes about industrial work. I think that Mr Rowe, having spent thousands of hours actually performing over 250 different jobs, is in a fairly unique position to comment. | | | What principles? Putting his profits over human lives? Copying the ancient tactic of dangling an extra few bucks' pay in front of his employees in order to keep them from having safety and pensions? | |
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< | Who speaks well of this man? A few employees who've fallen for his ancient method of manipulating worker's thoughts and fears. A lawyer who has cut settlements with him (out of which I'm sure the lawyer gets a comfy percentage. Great gig -- open your law practice near a sleazy mine owner, wait for the deaths and the suits to roll in, then sue and settle with the guy out of court. Of course the lawyer "respects" this scum, he's his meal ticket.) People who are more economically independent of him have nothing nice to say at all. | >
> | Who speaks well of this man? A few employees who've fallen for his hardly original method of manipulating workers' thoughts and fears. A lawyer who has cut settlements with him (out of which I'm sure the lawyer gets a comfy percentage. Great gig -- open your law practice near a sleazy mine owner, wait for the deaths and the suits to roll in, then sue and settle with the guy out of court. Of course the lawyer "respects" this scum, he's his meal ticket.) People who are more economically independent of him have nothing nice to say at all. | | | I find it really disturbing that the NYT tried to write a flattering profile of this person. It speaks to our current worship of any CEO or financier who manages to get rich, no matter how they did it. (Admit it NYT -- you think Dick Fuld, Hank Greenberg, and these other billionaire capitalist ubermen who wrecked the economy are superior to plumbers and waitresses, don't you? And you think this guy is superior to the workers he's killed.) |
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