The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy Paperback – March 1, 2011

This is a well written glimpse into the everyday interactions between low income workers and the higher income professionals that partially make up their world (teachers, bosses, healthcare workers in particular). It spreads tremendous light on the pervasive narrative of american opportunity and illustrates how structural forces conspire to create and preserver poverty. I hope every politician at all levels will read this book.Our social programs often seemed designed to make poverty hard (as if it isn't excruciating already) with an expectation that the poor will then be motivated to not be poor any more. This book illustrates the incredible restrictions and limitations that low wage workers face and thus demonstrates why that is such a preposterous idea.It offers hope in the everyday kindness of the teachers, managers and health care workers who recognize the plight of the low wage earners with whom they interact but also offers a dooming caution in the personas of some uncaring managers who are content to pay wages below the level of subsistence only because they can't find a way to pay less.Dobson shows how the very american notion of an honest days pay for an honest days work is under threat yielding to a level of exploitation that most would condemn if only they were aware of it. Due to Dodson' efforts, perhasp now we will be.

The Moral Underground addresses a very important subject and is a jarring wake-up call about the ways our economy has changed over the last generation. "Welfare reform" has "succeeded" in that we've removed the safety net; now the working poor get paid less than it costs to live, and this has terrible effects on children and on other workers up and down the economic scale. That's all true, and Dodson says so, but I wish she would have gone a little deeper in her analyisis of this subject. This seemed more like a metabook in that much of it was about how the book was written. It's a bad sign when a 200 page book begins referring to itself in the past tense 20 pages from the end. She keeps introducing the subject and describing what she's about to tell us, and then she refers back to the introduction during the telling. I kept wondering when we were going to get to the meat.

An excellent book on the difficulty of the managers and others who have to see their employees live on low-wages, unable to make ends meet.It questions the economic and political system of the USA, which authorized the exploitation of people. This makes them face a "moral dilemma", ignore the sufferings of their employees for the defense of a corruptive system based on profit, or became at different levels outlaws, to help these parents, single-mother, often persons from minority groups, and feel anew like human beings and not machines, simple tools of the economy.

You will not hear an argument from me about the pressing need for change in some of America's institutions in regards to labor, families and health insurance. But frankly, this book takes the idea that there needs to be change and slaughters it. There is no active thesis that binds the book together. The chapters and parts of the book move haphazardly along in a disjointed and unorganized way. The interviews are all basically the same story, there is not much insight revealed after the first couple in a part of the book and the analysis that follows adds nothing constructive to the discussion of the issue, not to mention it is intensely biased in favor of one side. I see really no point in this book that promotes itself as a reason to read this book-I gave it two stars because I like the issue, not the book itself. At the end of every book, the reader has the right to ask "so, what?" There was no answer to that question in this book-no call to action, no unique insight. Just repeating the work of others and monotonous interviews.

it was very interesting and informative. I would highly recommend this book if you want to learn something about real people.

The author does a great job of introducing the reader to a very harsh reality.

An eye opening and very important read. I could not put it down

This book covers three main "middle level" economic backgrounds and how each is personally and professionally affected by the "poverty level" workforce. The theme of most people seem to be the same throughout the book as most are willing and ready to help out hard working mothers who cannot make ends meet, no matter what it takes. A few hard nosed curmudgeons pop into the picture from time to time and take a very conservative look at the topic at hand, but their theories are quickly quelled by the good hearted managers, teachers, priests, etc. It makes you ask yourself if you would do the same thing for a worker of yours no matter what the consequence was. It definitely presents a moral business dilemma.Note the author makes sure you know she wrote this book for the "poverty level" workforce who are not on drugs and lazy/living off the government. This book is written about all the other people working below a livable wage trying to make it in this country.It would be nice if this book provided a more direct analysis on how to fix these types of issues as I think that is what most readers would be looking forward to reading about after picking up this book. It is definitely more of a documentary on her findings based on the studies/group studies she conducted. But I truly feel this book does a great job of conveying how tough/impossible life is for honest people who make $8 an hour and have kids.Imagine working 13 hour days with no insurance for very little money and supporting kids who need you desperately and you cannot be there for them? Physically or mentally? Dealing with public transportation and bosses that do not understand your plight? Teachers who think you are neglecting your own kids just because you cannot take a day off of work for a special one on one meeting? Dealing with the mental health issues that poverty brings along that ultimately effects you and your family like Dominos? I cannot imagine that life.

著者の Lisa Doson は元労組の活動家、看護婦、マサチューセッツ州職員をへてボストン大学の教授をしている。彼女は２０００年以降継続的にアメリカの低賃金労働者、特にシングルマザー、黒人、ラティノ、移民の女性を中心に東部と中西部で聞き取り調査をした。その結果、現代のアメリカの貧困は個人の力では如何ともし難い経済運営の失策あるいは選択の誤りを個人が受けている結果と思える状況にあると言っている。現在、アメリカには時給９ドル以下で年収が１９０００ドルに満たない人が２５％いる。３９％の子供が貧困家庭に暮している。　人は仕事を持ち仕事上の責任を果たすべきであるというのが労働の倫理である。しかしながら、これは労働契約の一面に過ぎない。もう一面は不文律ではあるが、人は働けば生活が維持できる賃金が貰えるべきである。人はそう考えて働いている。しかし現実はそうではない。精一杯働いても、一日に二つの仕事をしても、生活を維持できない人達が沢山いる。この本の８割以上がそういった人達の実例の叙述に当てられている。　これらの低賃金の人達も子供や家族の幸福について何時も考えている。しかし現実には最低限の生活も出来ない収入しかないケースが沢山ある。しかしアメリカ政府は経営に失敗した銀行や企業の救済に何十億ドルもの支出をしている。特にこの十年のアメリカ経済においては富の配分がおかしい。　移民、シングルマザー、黒人、ラティノ等の女性が貧困層となり犠牲となっている。日々この貧困層を接する、中間層はこれらの人々を「怠惰である、倫理観が欠如している」と見る傾向がある。しかし、一方では貧困層の実態の理不尽さをみて、組織の規則、規範、ルールを無視してコッソリと救いの手を差し伸べる人たちもいる。これがthe moral underground である。「隠れているユダヤ人を助けるためにナチスにうそを言うのはモラルに反することだろうか。」民主主義とは誰かから与えられるものではない。アメリカの経済で正義が行われていない今、必要であれば市民としての抵抗 civil disobedience も必要である。　著者はこの状況をみて、家族が生活できる給与、低賃金労働者とその子供達への教育の保証、健康に暮せる制度を求める。　私自身がアメリカの貧困の実態を目の前で見てきた経験から納得でき説得力のある内容の本であると思う。