American Way essays

American Way essays There's nothing more ingrained in the American value system than work ethic that involves the notion that hard work will lead to the fulfillment of the American dream, economic success. According to the New York Times (Schmitt, 2001), there's ample evidence to suggest that American hard work is paying off as evidenced by a sharp increase in living standards shown by census data for the 1990s.[1] The proof provided by the article includes: An increase in high school and college graduates An increase in people owning cars, with eighteen percent owning three bigger homes, with an increase in the number of houses with seven growing family incomes However, books such as Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Schlosser, 2001)[2] and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (Ehrenreich, 2002)[3] dispute the claims of The New York Times. These works argue that working class people are now working longer, harder hours than ever before with little reward or hope for a better future. These books claim that hard work may be the American way, but it is certainly not to key to the American dream. Schlosser describes the "deskilling" of fast food jobs and the grueling labor involved. Fast food jobs have their origins in the assembly line systems adopted by American manufacturers in the early twentieth century (Schlosser, p. 68). In a restaurant assembly line, tasks are broken up into small, repetitive bits requiring little or no skill, while machines and operating systems do the things that require timing and training (Schlosser, p. 69). In the chapter called Behind the Counter, Elisa, is a sixteen year old fast food worker who must get up at 5:15 in the morning to arrive at work on time. She and her manager open the restaurant by turning on the ovens and grills and getting the food and ...