Re: Precarization was: Re: AUT: Backward workers, was: Negri and

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thiago Oppermann wrote:

>I am, of course, using Wal Mart as a metaphor here, but it strikes me that
>this company has used certain ideological instruments, notably Christianity
>and The Family, as modes for the control of workers.

My wife has just published a book on Wal-Mart, focusing on its
discrimination against women (Liza Featherstone, Selling Women Short,
Basic Books). There are a lot of worker interviews in the book, and
it's worth reading not only for its main topic, but also as a measure
of the consciousness of the U.S. working class, or at least its
female half. (I'm not biased, of course.) In a phrase, it's really
really underdeveloped.

The view of Wal-Mart as a "Christian" and "family-oriented" company
isn't something the company has to spend a lot of time propagating -
the workers (even those involved in the class-action lawsuit against
the company for its egregious sexism) do it on their own. Many
workers are shocked when they discover that this
Christian/family-centered company behaves so badly. A large part of
this myth emerges from fictitious views of founder Sam Walton, whom
they imagine to have been a good Christian family man, when in fact
he never went to church and saw little of his family. They also
imagine that the company got worse after his death (about 10 years
ago), which is another fantasy.

Doug


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