In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 2 Philosophical Perspectives Philosophy is the method through which we comprehend the world around us. It is also a basis for action. Often the philosophic premises of both thought and action lie beneath the surface and go unexamined. This is a mistake. There are many different philosophic premises that underlie how we try to understand and comprehend the world we live in and how we act on this understanding. And many of these premises are in conflict. The purpose of this chapter is to establish the philosophic ground that will become the method of this book. That ground can be illuminated through a personal experience. On a warm early spring day in 1980, I was sitting outside at a picnic table in a small, rectangular concrete area adjacent to a cinder block factory building. The concrete slab was fully enclosed on three sides by a chain-link fence; there was no way in or out except through the factory. The place was the Solo Cup Company's area for employee breaks on warm days. I was on break from my job as a maintenance mechanic. I was alone, since the break schedule of maintenance people was based on times when everything was running properly. Soon, however, a small group of Latino material handlers arrived for their regularly scheduled break. They were talking rapidly and with considerable agitation. Unabashed eavesdropping revealed two facts: "Mucho policia acerca de Wisconsin Steel" (There are a lot of police around Wisconsin Steel); and "Cerrado!" (Closed). Knowing a number of workers at Wisconsin Steel, I went and sat with the other Solo Cup Company workers in order to learn more. What I learned was this. In the dead of night, the Chase Manhattan Bank Corporation of New York City flew a planeload of security guards to this Southeast Chicago steel mill to secure their assets. Wisconsin Steel had gone bankrupt. The private security force entered the mill, escorted workers inside to the plant gates, and placed a bilingual sign there: Closed/Cerrado. Workers arriving for the next shift found the mill surrounded by Chicago police. A mill that for nearly 100 years had been a mainstay of the Chicago economy was gone in a period of less than an Copyrighted Material 14 CHAPTER 2 hour, 3 , 500 living wage jobs were lost instantly. Personal chaos ensued. Workers' paychecks bounced; pension funds were unavailable; eventually, homes, cars, and other possessions were lost; alcoholism, drug abuse, divorces, and even suicide among the displaced workers were on the rise. This was the beginning of more that was to come. During the following decade, the Chicago area suffered a net loss of over 150,000 living wage manufacturing jobs. How can we comprehend this incredible event? Some analysts of the loss of manufacturing jobs have tended to step back from the lives of the individual workers, focusing their attention instead on the economic shift away from manufacturing. 1 Others have focused on changes in steel and other manufacturing process and product technologies.2 In Chapter 3, I situate the Wisconsin Steel closing as part of a major shift in the organization of global capitalism. In Chapter 4, I focus on the causes of plant closings in Chicago and on what happened to the people who used to work at Wisconsin Steel and other factories and to their standard of living. The analysis of Chapters 3 and 4 and the remainder of the book is based on three philosophic premises: the nature of value and values; space and place; and permanence and change. Philosophy isn't really applied to concrete activities; rather, it is recreated or worked out through action and reflection on action. The chapters that follow are reflections on events I have studied or participated in. Thus, each chapter of this book is a further elaboration of the basic ideas that are presented in this chapter. Value and Values I recently had a conversation with two friends about the rising price of property. We were in a remote area of rural Wisconsin that had begun to attract summer residents from surrounding urban locations like Chicago. The price of land was skyrocketing. I remarked to my friends that the land was now priced way beyond what it was worth. "What do you mean?It's worth whatever people want to pay for it," one friend vigorously asserted. "Maybe," said the second friend, who was a permanent resident of the area and living on a modest fixed income. "But if...

Share