Reich and Rose

I was assigned to evaluate the two arguments. In “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer,” Robert Reich makes the argument that the 3 different “economic boats” are changing. One being the boat which contains routine producers and is (as Reich claims) sinking very rapidly. The 2^nd, the service industry is sinking steadily from having to contain the burden of the backlash that has occurred from the 1^st. And the third is, unfortunately, rising steadily from the use of global economic webs and competition for cheap labor across the globe. This is Reich’s position and he wishes to convince his reader of this claim. The medium that he uses is a scholarly journal. This is no surprise to me because the argument is extremely objective and of his own personal views. His argument simply wishes to make the case completely. The most used type of appeal in his argument is logos. He is almost obnoxiously heavy on his logos. His sources are cited. He uses concrete facts and statistics, e.g. “In the early 1950’s, more than 40 percent of this group joined unions; by the late 1980’s, less than 20 percent.” This also adds to his Ethos (the reader thinks of him as a more credible person due to the fact that his not just spewing his opinion; rather he uses cold, hard numbers). However, Mike Rose in his “Blue-Collar Brilliance” makes a quite different type of argumentation. Where Reich makes appeals to reason, Rose makes an appeal to emotion. Through his use of anecdotes (personal accounts of events that have happened), Rose exemplifies pathos because the reader makes a strong emotional connection to the people in the stories. His pathos also helps his Ethos because the reader is much more likely to feel like he/she knows Rose and his family. His ethos is also established through his anecdotes because it makes him seem like a relatable, empathetic person. Another thing that I forgot to mention is the fact that one of the things that the Bedford Handbook told us to look for is whether or not the source is scholarly. Reich’s article is much more scholarly. 

Changing your collar

In Robert Reichs "Why the rich are getting richer" he speaks on the subject of the decline in assembly jobs. In the 1950's to the 1970's most of the american middle class depended on factory jobs to make a living. At the time these type of jobs paid well. The American people were able to make a living and support their family with these jobs. But towards the 1960's the big corperations discovered that other countrys or states were willing to work for less. This began the cycle of outsourcing jobs to other places to save money. This hurt the Amercian people putting alot of people out of work or making them work for far less. This would start the shift in the American work force from blue collar to white collar, which led to competition. He later goes on to share how this meant most of the blue collar workers would not be able to keep up in this new economy. How the poor middle class would only become poorer and the rich richer.
In the article "Blue Collar Brilliance" writer Mike Rose tells us of his personal experience with the blue collar work force which supports Reich's claim of the blue collar work force having more trouble than before. He tells of us his familys struggles to support itself and some of the sacrifices made for each other. But rather than barrage us with page after page of information he tells us stories that show the resourcefulness and competence required of a person in that field.
I feel like Mike Rose proved his point better by trying to personally relate with the reader to point out the troubles of a blue collar worker. Because i as a blue collar worker myself have experienced some of these problems. And i feel that a story is always better remembered and proccesed than a list of facts and a history lesson.

Collars, Blue & White.

In "Blue Collar Brilliance, Rose goes against the norm in American culture that a college degree is a milestone of intelligence. Common thought is that a college education is the only education. Rose offers a different opinion on the matter. He says that waitresses and foremen/forewomen gain knowledge in their respective environments that's just as or even more vital than college credits. Rose states that "anyone who is effective at physical work... ...learned to work smart." To Rose, the intense thinking-on-the-go that's required during manual labor isn't as respected as it should be. This norm feeds tension between classes and tears society apart.
"Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer" Reich tells us about the current economic situation: The poor are getting extremely poor, the middle class is on the decline, and the rich are feeding off of both. Disappearing low-income jobs are making it harder and harder to for the lower class to stay afloat. Going back to the growing disparity mentioned by Rose, Reich also points out the division between people caused by socio-economic status.
To me, Rose had the stronger argument. I found his use of personal experiences to be quite persuasive. The use of this technique made me as the reader feel as if I was hearing the argument from a real person. It was more effective than the barrage of information presented by Reich. Rose's argument feels more legitimate and thus his point was received better.

Collar Color Matters

In the first essay I read, Blue Collar Brilliance, by Mike Rose, the author speaks in depth about work ethic as well as the amount of intelligence different types of jobs take. He gives good examples and seems very credible because everything that he talks about has happened to him and his family and he was able to witness all of this with his own two eyes. He speaks about how he watched his mother work through her job in a diner and how he would watch the cooks and waitresses as well as listen to their conversations and observe their work patterns and how they get things done. I think Mike Rose is trying to make the point that some jobs, although they may be considered in the lower class, take a certain amount of knowledge and skill that most people have to pick up themselves through hard work rather than high school or even college educations. In the second article that I read, “Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” By Robert Reich, he explains how some work fields are declining faster than others right now because of the growing amount of competition out there caused by the more and more people that are entering the field. Robert Reich explains how blue collar job holders stand no chance any longer and how white collar jobs are now soaring through the roof. He explains very well how the rich are prospering while the poorer, lower class people are still struggling and how that struggle is likely not going to get better. Both articles were very good reads and I enjoyed both, however I agree with, “Why the Rich are getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” by Robert Reich slightly more than “Blue Collar Brilliance” as written by Mike Rose.

rich getting richer

 Mike rose shares his personal experiences and ideas of cognitive psychology. Rose thinks that the everyday work that most of America does is not mindless. he believes that society today is devaluing the work that these hard working people do on an everyday bases. all the words he uses kind of sugar coats what people really think. This sis what socially separates a fully functioning society and also creates inequality
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Robert Reich explains the dilemma we all face as americans of the growing inequality in our falling society. With more and more people joining the work force, the competition for work is harder. all of the low-income jobs today are being stripped away and all the high salary jobs are jumping off the charts. He also explains how these people that rely on the low-income jobs do not even stand a chance in the competition with all the whit-collar jobs that soaring.

Both of these arguments are very convincing, but Robert Reich's is definitely stronger. Mike rose uses a good amount of personal experiences and not a lot of facts. Reich's argument also had more validity due to his formal language and presentation, and the fact that he was a professor. his work is original and his argument has tangible data.

starting with the first assigned article was "Blue-collar brilliance" by Mike Rose tells about his struggles as a child, and what he saw his parents go through at lower-middle class. Back then in the 50's there was a time were the American dream flourished in their lifetime. By his family owning their own restaurant. This story explains in first person the hardships he experienced. Through the eyes of someone personally. Throughout this story he goes through the idea that Certain jobs require workers to make, check and verify calculations, and to collect and interpret data. The blue collar is worker, for most people that don't know is the working class, blue indicting the "dirt" on their shirt. In the blue-collar workplace, directions, plans, and reference books rely on illustrations, some representational and others, like blueprints, that require training to interpret. The second article is "Why the Rich are getting richer and the Poor, Poorer." by Robert Reich. I would have to agree with Reich. When he says " national borders no longer deine our economic fates. We are now in different boats, one sinking rapidly, one sinking more slowly, and the third rising steadily." We in all that means the Government as we know it has gone to complete garbage. We have no money for anything, they can't even supply the states with reinforcements in anything. Slowly the middle class is disappearing. With no money the states cant get money for educational uses. So the richer schools get nicer things while the poorer schools don't. One reason those schools don't make high SAT scores to prepare them for college which they will fail at. Then are blamed for our country's poverty and high crime rate problems. The prices of standard living is going up while wages are falling to almost minimum. When it comes to American losing jobs to foreign natives people get upset. Which i honestly don't understand why, because they do the jobs no one wants to do anyway. and i dont know how i am going to finish this.

Blue-Collar and White-Collar

In “Blue Collar Brilliance”, Mike Rose discusses his experiences and ideas of studying cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is the study of the mind and brain function including things like memory, attention span, learning, decision-making, etc. Rose tells us how blue-collar (manual labor) work fields requires more literacy and thinking levels, and social and interactive levels than we tend to see. Rose says, “If we believe everyday work to be mindless, then that will affect the work we create in the future” (Rose 254). Rose thinks that society is devaluing “the full range of everyday cognition” (Rose 254) and identifying “certain” people in society as dumb asses or in his nicer words: “Not that bright” (Rose 245). By doing this we are continuing to socially separate different groups in society.

In “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer”, Robert Reich explains how routine producers are “sinking rapidly” (Reich 485) by large amounts of competition, and more and more people joining the field. Reich says “In particular the burden is borne by those who no longer have good-paying routine production jobs within advances economies like the United States” (Reich 488). Reich is explaining how people with low-income jobs aren’t standing a chance anymore; how these jobs are vanishing. Salaries and benefits of the U.S.’s wealthiest are soaring while those of other average Americans are declining.

I think that both of these authors make a very strong argument, but I would say that Robert Reich’s “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” was the strongest. I believe it made a more effective argument because Reich gave many statistics, examples, studies, and data to prove his argument, while Mike Rose’s was more personal experiences. Reich’s reading was more credible due to his formal language and presentation, and because he is/was a professor at very scholarly universities. He gives original work and data to make his argument.