Working Hard or Hardly Working

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of those rare writers who is not only smart and unapologetically progressive, but really funny. That's quite a feat considering the deadly serious subjects she takes on, including the middle class, war, marriage, cancer, and corporations.

Like Alexis de Tocqueville, Ehrenreich seems most interested in the characters, mythologies and systems that make the United States what it is. In hundreds of articles and a dozen books, she's focused on how this country works, who it works for, and who is left behind.

In the bestseller Nickel and Dimed, she worked at a variety of low-wage jobs with the idea of answering the question of how people in the working poor survive and make ends meet. Her latest book, Bait and Switch, was inspired by a reader who asked, "What about those of us in the middle class who do everything we're supposed to; what about those of us go to college, work hard, get a job, and then find ourselves unemployed and unable to pay the bills?"

Ehrenreich spoke with AlterNet about class, prevailing American mythologies, and why she's through with going under cover.

Back in the spring, NPR did a show about a recent study showing that class mobility in the United States is basically nonexistent. The single most indicative factor of a person's income is that person's parents' income. Lower classes in Canada, Britain, Germany and France have a far easier time moving their way up the social ladder than their American counterparts. Yet, a New York Times study found that 80 percent of Americans believe it's still possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Did your experience in Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed give you any sense of why that belief still persists?

EHRENREICH: There is a tremendous American theme about positive thinking. We have a hard time dealing with truly bad news and discouraging information. Throughout my experience trying to get a white-collar job, I was encouraged to think positively. You are supposed to see your job loss as some great break, your chance to move on to something bigger and better. The reality is that 70 percent of people who lose their jobs and do get rehired, are rehired at a lower pay. But to criticize the system, or to be negative is considered "un-American."

It was a similar attitude that drove me crazy when I was dealing with breast cancer. Despite study after study showing there was no correlation, everyone kept telling me that my outcome would be better if I had a better attitude.

What's so offensive about that insistence, whether in relation to illness or job loss, is the implication that the victim is at fault. If you don't get better or you don't find a better job, then there must be something wrong with your attitude. The government (or the doctor, or the employer) doesn't have to take responsibility for providing for you, because if you aren't doing well, it's your fault. And of course it's an outlook that's enormously satisfying for those on top, because it implies they deserve to be there because of their winning attitudes.

It makes sense that people holding power would believe this, but why do you think others believe it, despite their own experience?

The belief in a positive attitude is so ingrained in American thinking. You can see it in the late 19th century, with the advent of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. In the '50s, it was called the Power of Positive Thinking. In the '70s, it was called EST.

Now it's in all the business books I've read. It's crammed down people's throats in books like Who Moved My Cheese.

One job-seeker I met, told me he'd "gotten over" all the negative feelings he had from his firing. He'd absorbed all these feelings in the hopes that this would get him a better job!

What happens to that anger?