When Governments Fail…

This past Monday, Iceland’s coalition government collapsed amid public outcry of the government’s failure to effectively bail out their broken financial system.  Simply put, Iceland did not have deep enough pockets like the US did to provide some sort of recovery program for its banks and other financial institutions.  Although those are some of the [...]

Taylor-Mart

Maybe Frederick Taylor’s real last name was Walton. Or perhaps he had a distance cousin names Sam Walton. Either way, Taylor’s ideas on scientific management have truly become part of the American culture: “(Taylor) helped instill in us the fierce, unholy obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency that marks our age.” As Barbara Ehrenreich [...]

Explaing Our Economy in “-isms” and “-izations”

Thanks to Henry Ford and his meticulous methods to increase the productivity of workers on his assembly line, the economy transformed from one of craft production to one of mass production. In addition to “Fordism,” the past 100 years in the US economy can be explained by using “Levittownization,” “McDonaldization,” and “WalMartization.” Ford perfectly implemented [...]

WalMart – Industrial Peace?

In true Borat fasion – WalMart employees are clearly the happiness employees on the planet……NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is more than clear through the picture painted by Barbara Ehrenreich that WalMart employees probably don’t top the charts in employee satisfaction.  They seemed miserable with their wages, mindless tasks, and especially their incompetent managers, like our friend Howard.  [...]