"Why should the guy who mows the lawn make $53 an hour?"

Hello MACers and fellow intellectuals! I have just had a conversation that I think will turn into a paper when I send in my application materials for my doctoral degree. This is still a work in progress. Please respond and add feedback!

This past week, I had one of the most triggering conversations I've had in a long while. The topic of the discussion was the purpose and inefficiencies of unions in blue-collar professions because they often make the bargaining between corporations and employees when the corporations do not make substantial profits difficult, to say the least. One of the supporting arguments of my comrade who disagrees with the efficiency of trade unions was "why should the guy who mows the lawn make $53 an hour?"

In all honesty, this struck a nerve with me because my uncle recently retired from a career as a proud entrepreneur and landscaper (the more appropriate term for "the guy who mows the lawn"). But beyond my personal feelings, in the midst of a recession that mainly affects blue-collar workers, corporate bailouts with tax payers' money, an enormous amount of home foreclosures due to unemployment, and the plight of the blue-collar population which is the driving force of the American economy, the issue of questioning the monetary compensation for the work of a landscaper and his fellow blue-collar American citizens calls into question the issues of education, class, capitalism and our value system in the United States. For one to truly understand why a landscaper should make $53 an hour or what changes should transpire so that $53 a hour would be unreasonable, she needs to understand the principles of systematic oppression, inherited privilege, inherited poverty, and the barriers that exist to maintain the status quo of a divide between the "haves" and "have-nots" within our capitalistic society.

Education

What I consider to be the most effective method to have a meeting of minds with opposing views is to follow the methods of my man Jesus Christ and answer a question with a question: "why SHOULDN'T the guy who mows the lawn make $53 an hour?" The most obvious answer is education. Because no one knows all landscapers, let's not assume their level of education. (I once had a bus driver who said he graduated from U of M.) But it is fair to say that the requirements for the average landscaper does not include an advanced degree.

In our society, we value and compensate those with a formal education and more credentials and rightly so. In order to make progress, we want to encourage intellectual curiosity and technological advances. (I definitely want my doctor, lawyer, accountant, teachers, architect, engineer etc. to be well-qualified.) However, should the divide in the standard of living between those with a formal education and those without be as severe as it exists today?

As so eloquently stated by Cottom in his book Why Education is Useless "education... is not really about inculcating learning or knowledge but rather about breeding social distinction. It serves elites, not the truth. The careerism of today's students and the transformation of universities into 'knowledge factories' only make explicit the crude calculations of ambition that have always served to uphold the most subtle refinements of thought. Education is a masquerade of power, a mechanism of power, and a means to power; beyond that, it is useless. As Dr. Timothy Leary taught us, if you really want to learn something, one of the first steps you must take is to drop out" (p. 3).

Now of course, I am an educator so I must make a distinction between education and learning. Education occurs within a classroom. Learning occurs in the real world or is an application of education. And I agree that if education (what you learn in the classroom) cannot be applied, it is useless. This is why when my students ask me "why do we need to know this?" I'm prepared with a question better than "it's on the exam". Otherwise, they might study the information to pass the exam, but beyond that the information will serve them no purpose. If I do not provide my students with learning that will prepare them to be productive, contributing members of society, then I have not done my job.

So there is much that can be learned from this passage. Did the man who "mows the lawn" not receive a formal education because he was simply a lazy failure in school or because there are social structures in place to prevent him from pursuing a higher education? Was it because of the fact that his father also "mowed the lawn" so he was consequently born in a neighborhood where the school system was not up to par with those in more affluent neighborhoods because it was funded by property taxes of blue-collar workers thus he inherited his father's social status and poverty or he just fell asleep too much in 5th hour? Is the guy who graduated from a prestigious college automatically more intelligent and valuable than the guy who didn't and therefore worthy of a higher standard of living, or is it possible that the college graduate was simply born at the right place and into the right family?

By the way, how much does $53 an hour amount to?

$53/ hour x 7 hours/day x 5 days/week x 48 weeks/ year = $89,040 per year before taxes, which is roughly twice the average American household income.

One might think "that's way too much". However, in order to provide for your family, own your own home, and set aside enough money to help your children to pursue an education to make more opportunities available to them, this is a reasonable amount. However, a classist elitist (who wants to maintain the status quo and keep the "lower classes" ignorant because they're easier to manipulate and control ESPECIALLY if they didn't have the backing of a union) would say that amount is too much because it works against his favor.

If we lived in a society where climbing the social ladder were merit based as opposed to (for the most part) inherited (bought), then it would be fair to say that "you didn't work hard enough and that's why you make no money". However, reality tells us the contrary.

Let's work with the assumption that $89,040 per year before taxes is unreasonable for a landscaper. Why is it always the "guy who mows the lawn" who's on the chopping block first? Only recently after the bailouts have we questioned whether there should be a cap on the amount of money that executives of companies should make, especially the corporations that accepted bailout money.

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Ok, that's all I got for now. I'm going to go on to talk about:

Co-op businesses

For more info --> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.coop0112,0,685322.story

Values-Based Management

For more info --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKY1t965qE

Marxism

I understand this is idealistic and we have to be aware of moral hazard, but this should apply to corporate America as well

I'm not trying to vilify CEOs. But we need to engage in more social activism and how everyone needs to become a part of the political process so that corporations cannot manipulate the working-class citizens.

I want to break down the term "working-class citizen". Does this imply that the other classes do not work?

The mere idea of "distributing the wealth" won't necessarily solve anything because we'd simply be breeding a new generation and/or demographic of privilege/poverty

How our values have to change so that we're willing to make more sacrifices to make the system work for everyone and to rightly compensate those who make our society function (fire fighters, police officers, teachers, etc.)

Harvard's mission to offer free tuition for low-income families earning less than $60K