Youth Employment and American 'Work Ethics'

Richard Gibson rgibson at pipeline.com
Thu May 14 10:16:25 PDT 1998


At least a dozen state school systems demand that students perforem "volunteer" work without pay as a requirement for graduation.

At 10:28 AM 5/14/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Though many teenagers are forced by economic hardships to work for pay, it
>seems that in the US even those teenagers who can easily afford not to work
>tend to work for pay, doing shit work for lousy wages for long hours,
>instead of reading, becoming politically active, having fun, cultivating an
>aptitude for the enjoyment of time spent without purpose, or doing anything
>that is more worthwhile than creating surplus value for the low-wage
>service industry. The following excerpt from the May 13, 1998 BLS daily
>report suggests the extent of the pernicious effects of the ideology of
>'Work Ethics' upon youths in the US.
>
>Yoshie
>
Rich Gibson Director of International Social Studies Wayne State University College of Education Detroit MI 48202

http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html

Life travels upward in spirals.

Those who take pains to search the shadows

of the past below us, then, can better judge the

tiny arc up which they climb,

more surely guess the dim

curves of the future above them.



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