Monday musings

I came across this article from one of the texts that I studied while in seminary. The class that I was taking was one of those greek terms Diaconia which incorporated the idea of church in society. The text was “Social Theory: The multicultural and classic readings, edited by Charles Lemert.” There are writings from some of the classic and modern sociologists. I was researching information about families. I found the following article interesting. I will not write the entire article but will write from the intro of the article. The title of the essay was “The Post-Work Monifesto” by Stanley Aronowitz, Dawn Esposito, William DiFazio, and Margaret Yard.

I did not include the date as I will do so later.
“The bottom is falling out and with it our sense of well-being. For two centuries, despite depressions and wars, America was the “golden door” behind which beckoned the call of the Good Life. Yet, today the United States is more accurately characterized as the home of downsizing jobs and lost security, of disappointed hopes and expectations. For many, recent economic and political developments point to the withering away of comfortable full-time jobs “with a future.” With jobless futures have also come deteriorating and lost benefits, from quality health care to assurances like social security that were once guaranteed—in only minimally in the United States—by the employment contract. If the current situation is allowed to continue on its present course, only the few will be able to enjoy life without the constant stress of economic worries…It is anxiety—certainly not the economy—which becomes democratized as the quest for secure paid labor consumes more of our time, uniting people in divergent job and class strata from blue-collar to middle and upper managements as perhaps not for centuries before. For no one is immune as these distinctions themselves commence to collapse, and are rendered increasingly meaningless by the immensity of socioeconomic transformations emblematic of our age.”

The authors go on to tell of some of the results of this turn around. Employers will be demanding employees to pay more for their benefits or do away with them entirely. Employees will be less willing to challenge decisions for fear of losing their jobs. This even affects people such as physicians who are working for HMO’s who dictate what treatment and what pay the physicians will receive. Even academics are affected as tenure is no longer a guarantee of employment. The only ones that seem less affected are “the multimillion dollar salaries and stock options of corporate executives which will remain in effect.”

I remember talking to someone about our current recession two years ago. I pointed out that our nation seemed to be heading to a recession. This person guaranteed me that we were not. It was shortly there after that the economy tanked. As I was reading this article and some written around the same time pointing to the future problems, it seems very prophetic. The article was written 1998 eleven years ago. This was pre-2001 and written at time that the economy had all the appearances of being robust. Little did people pay attention to what was happening. This has quite an effect on what is happening with families and the stresses that we face today.

Sometimes we need to pull back and reflect on our lives. The authors do point out that there is hope. We also know of a hope in Christ. What we need to do is remember to make our spiritual lives the priority and place our dependence on God.