Workless Blues: A review of Louis Uchitelle: “The Disposable American: Layoffs and their Consequences”

By JoAnn Wypijewski

"There is a road that winds, forks and detours through America, and along that road lie the discarded expectations and illusions of an age"

A generation ago the road had a name - The Rust Belt. We could have been forgiven that the lost jobs, lost income, lost security were geographic phenomena - an inevitable aspect of the decline of industrial cities - which were replaced by newer industrial locations. However the new are now suffering the same impacts. No major political party approaches that road and it is not mentioned in debates. But sine the early 1980s 30 million Americans have lost full-time jobs as part of the business of America is business strategy. This review looks at the impacts of the decline of real wages at the same time as the top 1% of earners raked in massive fortunes. Reagan, Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr are in the spotlight and the rise of Hilary Clinton as the possible next President does not auger well for the forgotten class.

(Published by Random House)

(New Left Review. no. 42, November-December 2006)