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Keeping Up With the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare
In his latest book of interlinked essays, cultural critic Vijay Prashad examines the contradictions of the American economy. He assesses a range of related the oft-vaunted US economy, propped up by the rising debt of poor and middle-class workers; welfare policies that punish those attempting to escape the grip of debt and poverty; and a prison industry that regulates and houses the unemployed, as well as a reserve army of laborers.
Prashad argues that the advent of mass production and advertising has converted citizens into consumers whose desires are captured by the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." Yet, as Prashad so persuasively demonstrates, "keeping up with the Joneses" is a Americans have gone into massive consumer debt, with the poorest forty percent of the public borrowing money to compensate for stagnant incomes, not to spend on luxuries. Only the richest twenty percent borrow money to invest in stocks. Not surprisingly, in the last few years, income and wealth differentials have risen to record highs. By making crystal-clear connections between the economy, welfare reform and the profit-driven prison industrial complex, Prashad offers a vision for a sustainable and vital anti-imperialist movement.
Prashad argues that the advent of mass production and advertising has converted citizens into consumers whose desires are captured by the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." Yet, as Prashad so persuasively demonstrates, "keeping up with the Joneses" is a Americans have gone into massive consumer debt, with the poorest forty percent of the public borrowing money to compensate for stagnant incomes, not to spend on luxuries. Only the richest twenty percent borrow money to invest in stocks. Not surprisingly, in the last few years, income and wealth differentials have risen to record highs. By making crystal-clear connections between the economy, welfare reform and the profit-driven prison industrial complex, Prashad offers a vision for a sustainable and vital anti-imperialist movement.
- GenresEconomicsNonfiction
214 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2003
About the author
Vijay Prashad
88 books858 followersVijay Prashad is an Indian Marxist historian, journalist, political commentator, and editor. He is the executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, editor of LeftWord Books, writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, and a senior non-resident fellow at the Renmin University of China's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies. Prashad is known for his criticisms of capitalism, neocolonialism, American exceptionalism, and Western imperialism, and his support for communism and the Global South.
He attended The Doon School as a child. He records that he was subjected to violent rape in his early teens while at school. He received a BA from Pomona College in 1989 as well as a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994, writing a dissertation under the supervision of Bernard Cohn.
He was the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and a professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1996 to 2017.
He also has provided political commentary for Monthly Review and Salon. He has had three articles published in The Nation. With Tings Chak he edits the international edition of the Chinese journal Wenhua Zongheng.
He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,[26] and co-founder of the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL).
He attended The Doon School as a child. He records that he was subjected to violent rape in his early teens while at school. He received a BA from Pomona College in 1989 as well as a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994, writing a dissertation under the supervision of Bernard Cohn.
He was the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and a professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1996 to 2017.
He also has provided political commentary for Monthly Review and Salon. He has had three articles published in The Nation. With Tings Chak he edits the international edition of the Chinese journal Wenhua Zongheng.
He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,[26] and co-founder of the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL).
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August 13, 2014
Enter the Contingent Class
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
Militant and emphatic to the extent of being unreadable, the book is very light on analysis but original in its first-hand mapping of grassroot activism in the US, documented through direct sources (the alphabet soup is beyond the grasp of the non-US reader though). The voices of the campaigners and community organizers reveal a deep understanding of capitalism by the people at the margins that is not matched by consistent poltical action plans on the part of their leaders, but the very presence of the tiny, non-cool groups on the ground sends out a powerful signal of hope ("In San Francisco you can't spit and not hit an activist on the head", an activist is quoted as saying).
The book is not up to the promise of its title, which makes allusions to the link between financial markets and the hardships of anglo-saxon capitalism (debt, prison, workfare). However it has the merit of introducing and speaking on behalf of the "contingent class" (the 'precariat' for other authors - see The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class), identified as the hottest engine of political change and the vanguard of class struggle.
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
Militant and emphatic to the extent of being unreadable, the book is very light on analysis but original in its first-hand mapping of grassroot activism in the US, documented through direct sources (the alphabet soup is beyond the grasp of the non-US reader though). The voices of the campaigners and community organizers reveal a deep understanding of capitalism by the people at the margins that is not matched by consistent poltical action plans on the part of their leaders, but the very presence of the tiny, non-cool groups on the ground sends out a powerful signal of hope ("In San Francisco you can't spit and not hit an activist on the head", an activist is quoted as saying).
The book is not up to the promise of its title, which makes allusions to the link between financial markets and the hardships of anglo-saxon capitalism (debt, prison, workfare). However it has the merit of introducing and speaking on behalf of the "contingent class" (the 'precariat' for other authors - see The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class), identified as the hottest engine of political change and the vanguard of class struggle.
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