Low wage Jobs: Walmart, capitalism, class.

Many low-wage jobs, especially in the service sector or time managed to absolutely capitalize of the efficiency of production. The bureaucratic-technical organization that takes place in many job sectors reflects an attempt at a type of hyper rational (irrational) organization of job functions to a point of mechanical exactness. (Lecture 2) Many of the low-wage jobs and the company structures around them have the advantage to micro-manage the actions of the working process to the point where the virtual functioning of the machine is a template proliferating the business further. "Nickel and Dimed" and my own experiences elucidate the power dynamics of a worker existing in the work force in which high unemployment co exists with low wage pay. The predominance of service and retail sector as some of the largest low wage employers in America means that there few chances that workers avoid the dehumanizing aspects of the McDonaldization in a work place.

Coventry's River: Bridle Brook to Pikers Lane: Pik...

Nickel and Dimed

Barbara Ehrenreich by David Shankbone, New York Ci...

The systemic dogma's of Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability, and Control through mechanization, accentuate the prioritized value of commodity's over people. This "rationality" tends to neglect the fact that we are not just consumers but probably more importantly we are workers.

Its specific nature, which is welcomed by capitalism, develops more perfectly as bureaucracy is more dehumanized - the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation. (Weber)

There are many reasons for the lack of control within the frame work of low-wage jobs. All signs point to money as a source of socio-metric units of power, and there is good reason why. Outside of work, a worker may be forced to live in squalid conditions, lacking the necessities that would be more conducive to healthier living.

Barbara Ehernreich's is "in" but not of...