William Greider, "Work Rules"

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:  

1. Using your own reading of "Work Rules" rather than a dictionary, explain what Greider means by "the socialization of powerlessness"? What does "socialization" involve, and how do people become "socialized" into one way of life or another? If most people are indeed powerless on the job, why do so many of them indicate high rates of job satisfaction in polls? Is job satisfaction the same thing as autonomy? Is job satisfaction inconsistent with a master-servant relationship?  

2. After paying particular attention to Greider's discussion of Karl Marx, would you say that Greider is a Marxist? Does Greider make an argument in favor of private property, or against it? Are worker-owned businesses less consistent with the free market than corporations owned by entrepreneurs and stockholders? Are corporations in some ways less consistent with free market ideals than worker-owned companies?  

3. The subtitle to the book from which this excerpt was taken is "Opening Paths to a Moral Economy." In what ways might the treatment of people as things-which David Ellerman refers to on p. 220-contribute to the erosion of ethical codes that healthy societies depend on? What might Greider have in mind when he argues for a "moral economy"? Aren't all economies "amoral," that is, morally neutral? What would be the characteristics of an "immoral" economy?  

Questions for Writing:  

1. Greider refers to his grandfather McClure, who "proudly reported himself 'unemployed' to the census taker in 1900." Investigate the work history of your own family. If you can, find out something about what your grandparents did for a living, and also about the conditions under which they labored. Would you say that you enjoy more prosperity than they did? More personal freedom? More security? Does your family's experience confirm, complicate, or contradict Greider's argument?  

2. Will worker-owned businesses really solve the problem of citizens' powerlessness? Drawing on the examples that Greider provides-United Airlines and Solidarity-discuss the economic obstacles that stand in the way of workplace equality. In a worker-owned company, will employees still need to "rent" themselves? If one purpose of a business is to compete with other businesses, what pressures work against the achievement of worker equality? In what ways might worker equality provide a competitive advantage?  

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. In "America's Other Drug Problem," Arnold Relman and Marcia Angell describe the economic forces that drive innovation in the pharmaceuticals industry. If drug companies were transferred to worker ownership, would that arrangement make any difference in the behavior of the companies in the marketplace? In other words, would the company be able to say no to highly profitable innovations that might actually be less effective than the older drugs they replace?  

2. Judging from Greider's discussion, would you say that worker-owned businesses would help to make society more democratic? In what ways might they help to rectify the problems that Lani Guinier describes in "Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule"? To what degree might worker-owned businesses have problems closely comparable to those that Guinier describes? If worker-owned businesses operate according to the principle of "majority rule," are they likely to be any more empowering than privately owned corporations?

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