Financial and economic gaps result in social anomie of the middle-class which dissolves primarily into the lower with but a few stragglers making it to the ruling elite. Larger cities throughout the world experience and contain economic and housing segregation because of the economic system and necessities that modern globalism. Unions have been a part of the Western world since the first few decades of the 20th Century. Growing out of central-Europe political perspectives, unions have historically represented a counter-balance to the pure, profit-driven corporations that both built wonders, and brutalized employees and that have grown in tandem with Western society. Homes, material goods, gender roles, have all been affected by the dual nature of corporations and unions.
The flow of the article was basic in that it had a beginning, middle, and end but lacked logical flow with regard to subtopics. In addition, the article clearly had a conclusion, which discussed possible solutions to the issue at hand. However, the main problem with flow of logic was in the body of the article.
Wealth Gap
The widening gap between the affluent and the poor that we see occurring in major cities around the world are an outcome of capitalism. The proletarians, the working class, and the bourgeoisies, the upper class, are the two emerging classes of people after years of capitalism and industrialization. The middle class used to exist as those who were typically middle management within a business. Those who gain the promotions or raises when this cost of living increases do not fall into poverty. The increased income of these fortunate middle-classmen will usually bump them up to the upper class bracket.
Conceptually, the middle class identifies itself with an ability to work, and save, but not to spend to excess. The trouble is, that when the cost of living increases, it is the middle class that is affected the most. When the cost of living increases, so does the minimum standard of living for the working poor, so, although the numbers themselves may increase, the living standard for the poor remains relatively the same. Also, the rich are not affected because of their disposable income, thus, it is the middle class that loses their ability to save, and thrusts them into the lower economic brackets.
Ultimately, what is to be done is what needs to be done. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing and no longer is that delegated and confined to simply to a paycheck and how many zeroes are in the bank account. The gap is growing in housing and availability of housing because the rich want their urban play lands around the world to be free and safe from those who built their wealth for them.
The reason why it is incumbent to examine home ownership, and the gap between the rich and the poor, is that the unionization only affected the material gain of a handful. After two world wars, a depression and crippling inflation, there was an understandable desire to want to purchase and hoard mere stuff. The problem though, is that the squandering of personal wealth, or relative wealth, that the Western world felt after the first-half century of turmoil, is that there was none left to have for long-term investments, which is what capitalism needs to flourish.
Unionization
Part of the unionization tactics to incentivize and partition out wage, was to help increase the satisfaction of everyday life. As a result, employees began to see obligatory insurance, discounted home loans, employee-based credit unions and other rewards that, while not an increase in salary per se, did positively affect a person’s life, this incentivizing each worker to enroll, and vote pro-union.
Of course, this is not to suggest that material purchases did not increase. The difference is that the temporal, frivolous purchases of ‘stuff’ was not able to be sustained. “Unionism would increase workers' material entitlements, thus enriching workers' lives and helping them become full Canadian citizens. In this view, purchasing power was not a retreat from politics but a point of entry into civic life” (Belisle, 2005, p. 645). The reason is that, while people were making more money as a whole, the money was going into long-term investments because the quality of life had increased over the war-time destitution and despair. As the quality of life increased, the desire to squander the now relatively abundant resources dwindled, and there was tremendous enfranchisement.
The steps were taken on purpose. Authorities new there was a collective desire to have a better day-to-day life, and that meant people were looking for opportunities. But, said desire was also very strong, and there was an innate fear that people would forget how to ration, proportion and would become gluttonous on mild economic freedom. Instead of allowing that to happen, society was reminded of the virtue of conservation, and the precious nature of physical goods. The result was a positive economic outcome.
Adverts
The mechanism to propel the outcome was not imposed in particularly positive means however. Gender targeted advertisements were used to persuade and manipulate the public’s aspect. As men left the home to work instead of fight, women were no longer in the absentee-men’s jobs. “This view caused them to valorize the masculine-typed traits of rationalism, virility,
and autonomy, and to denigrate the feminine-typed traits of passion, decadence, and dependence” (Belisle, 2005, p. 643). Women were now at home, coping with the blooming baby-boom, and advertisements were specifically designed to target them, as they now were the ones who had the time, responsibility and inclination to spend money on daily life.
There was a great rift that opened up as a result of the separate spheres of home and life. Men, who were drawn to unions because of the fair wages and benefits for their families, were beginning to have conflict with their families because of the perceived lack of luxury. “ The desire to strengthen the male breadwinner/female homemaker family model, along with the notion that increased prosperity would foster national improvement, guided both the state's and the CCF's approaches to postwar reconstruction” (Belisle, 2005, p.646).
Conclusion
Although it does not appear easy to identify, there was little that was not affected by subsequent world wars. Perspectives on success, wealth and quality of life changed, as well as the expectation of employees and employers. To help mitigate the new aspects, certain gender roles were enforced to help cope with the new limitations and sacrifices of the new paradigm of Western life. Not only did the working man derive his sense of manhood from his ability to provide for his family, the respectability ofthe working-class family hinged on the husband's ability to earn a family wage” (Belisle, 2005, p. 651). Newly bourgeoning economic growth was centrally focused on sustenance via employee satisfaction, which was a new approach that divorced itself from the robber-baron past of ignoring workers. Purchasing power and life had to be redefined if success was going to be a symbiotic endeavor.
References
Belisle, D. (2005). Exploring Postwar Consumption: The Campaign to Unionize Eaton's in
Toronto, 1948-1952. Canadian Historical Review, 86(4), 641-672.
