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It’s only 3,400 workers whom Circuit City
booted out the door, so what’s the big deal? Had the workforce at this electronics retailer grown
too large? No, Circuit City is hiring 3,400 new workers to replace those
fired. Had the fired workers been poor performers? No, they were the
corporation’s most knowledgeable and experienced sales clerks.
Their only sin was that they had worked themselves up
to earning $10 to $20 an hour. That’s hardly a fortune —
amounting to a gross annual pay topping out at $40,000 a year — but
it did allow the employees to have a small slice of middle-class life. For
generations, the achievement of moving more people into the middle class
has been a major goal of our economy and society and a proud hallmark of
“the American way.” Not only is a solid middle class a moral
measure of our civilization, but it also provides social order, a broad
consumer base for the economy, and a framework for the upward mobility of
the next generation. That’s why this firing is a big deal. Circuit
City, Wal-Mart, and other corporate giants have decided to chunk the middle
class into the trash. This firing says: Sure, you’ve been with us a
long time, helping us and the economy do well, but, hey, we can get a fresh
face for $8 an hour — and when those people rise up we’ll boot
them, too. It’s America’s new economic model; it’s all
about corporate efficiency. Is that our nation’s highest value? What does
“efficiency” matter if it has no moral grounding? This economic
model is nothing more than an excuse to extract profits from the economic
well-being of the many. What they are building is not an economy —
it’s a robbery.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2007.
