{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":143,"pdf_page":151,"physical_index":151,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"489a477f13d4124814b1ae4c1b7aa421cc6b7c0265b8887b1ebf7003265e0df3"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Defining “getting ahead” as material accumulation rather than occupational mobility made sense in a context in which there were limited opportunities for advancement at work. Autoworkers in the 1950s were under no illusions about the constraints of their class position. The diferent groups of workers interviewed in the 1950s by Chinoy—and, in separate studies, by Guest, and Berger—all expressed pessimism about their chances of upward occupational mobility. In research, conducted in the mid-1950s, on attitudes of autoworkers, Richard Guest found that while workers aspired to improve their jobs, at the same time they had little faith that it would happen. Some 60.7 percent of young workers and 81.5 percent of older workers rated their chances of occupational mobility as “poor or no chance” (Guest 1954, p. 158). Indeed, Guest concludes his article by commenting on the degree to which the findings of his survey echo those of Chinoy’s ethnographic study. Guest’s workers, like Chinoy’s, were in general quite negative about their jobs and bleakly realistic about their chances for upward occupational mobility. Chinoy notes that workers often mentioned their long-term plans to escape the factory and go into business, yet he observes that these plans typically did not lead to action. Bennet Berger’s ethnography of a suburban community of autoworkers in the late 1950s, like Guest’s research, also echoes Chinoy’s findings on attitudes to social mobility. Berger found that the workers he interviewed were very much resigned to spending their lives in the factory. Of his interviewees, 94 percent reported that they thought of their jobs as “permanent,” and only 3 percent reported “keeping their eyes open for something better” (Berger [1961] 1970, p. 16).\n\nLike the workers described by the Lynds, Chinoy’s informants tended to find meaning not in their work but in their leisure time activities. One thing shared by Chinoy’s workers and those of the Middletown studies is a sense of profound alienation from their work. “The things I like about my job are quitting time, pay day, days of, and vacations,” lamented one of Chinoy’s (1955, p. 85) informants. Another informant, whose opinion, according to Chinoy, was quite representative of those of the workers he spoke with, commented that his satisfactions came from “the things I do when I get home” (p. 132).23 “Their main interests lie in the things they do in their leisure hours” notes Chinoy (p. 115). Yet, unlike the Lynds’ workers, those interviewed by Chinoy associated the idea of “getting ahead” with the project of using the wage to accumulate commodities. On Chinoy’s assessment, “advancement has come to mean the progressive accumulation of things as well as the increasing capacity to consume.” As one worker interviewed by Chinoy explained: “A lot of people think getting ahead means getting to be a millionaire. Not for me though. If I can just increase the value of my possessions as the years go by instead of just breaking even or falling behind, if I can keep adding possessions and property, . . . I’ll figure I got ahead quite a bit” (p. 126). Similarly, another worker averred, “We’re all working for one purpose—to get ahead,” continuing, “I don’t think a person should be satisfied. My next step is a nice modern home of my own. That’s what I mean by bettering yourself—or getting ahead” (p. 126). The definition of getting ahead was, then, to a large extent couched in terms of the accumulation of material possessions. Chinoy summarized the attitude as follows: “If one manages to buy a new car, if each year sees a major addition to the household—a washing machine, a refrigerator, a new living room suite, now probably a television set—then one is getting ahead” (p. 126).\n\nEconomic Fairness and the Wage Labor Background\n\n143","previous_page":142,"next_page":144}