A Shift in the Job Market

With today's economic situation, every aspect of the economy is changing, including the face of a typical worker. The face of a typical American worker has never remained constant for very long, in the beginning there were farmers who's main difference was what they grew. Then emerged small business and craftsmen such as newspaper's, some of these small businesses dramatically transformed into huge corporations which ushered in the era of assembly lines and sweatshops. One could argue that this was when the worker transformed from a unique individual who took pride in each of his works into simply a number on the assembly line who's only purpose was to tighten that one bolt or cut that one piece of metal. This was the time when a businessman's goal turned from quality to quantity, and not just about the end product. Individual workers were turned into a simple huge number. It's easy to get that feeling these days with all these huge numbers being thrown around, you lose some of the effect after hearing over and over again "GM to cut 30,000 jobs" or "Stimulus package worth $1 trillion". Workers are bundled together so much that they have been turned into a labor force, as if they were one thing thrown around, like the cattle or pigs of the stockyards. No one takes notice when they hear "we slaughter 50,000 pigs" but the most hardened men cringe when they hear the scream of one single pig being slaughtered. I found the similarity while reading a local article about a family diner going out of business and 5 people losing their jobs and having to sell their house with their future in jeopardy. Those 5 people losing their jobs and well being is a tragedy, "GM cuts 30,000 jobs" is only a statistic. Im not very sure why we react so differently, but it might be linked to the time period we are studying in AS, proving that the dehumanization of the masses of factory workers still lingers in little places to this day.