Author Barbara Ehrenreich talks about her new book, This Land is Their Land, a candid look at American capitalism, the economy and the lives of the working poor.
Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Great to be with you, Neal</s>CONAN: And when you describe that divided nation, you conclude that the U.S. economy is a zero-sum game. It didn't always used to be, you say, but it is now. What do you mean by that</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Well, there was an idea early in the 20th century coming from Henry Ford, for example, that employers had to pay enough to their workers so that their workers could buy the product. Henry Ford wanted to pay his workers enough so that they could buy Fords. And then somewhere, like, in the 1970s, 1980s, we went away from that, and the idea in every company became to squeeze as much as you could out of the workers, and not worry too much if they weren't really able to be the same kind of consumers anymore. That, in a nutshell, is why we are where we are today, you know, with people defaulting on debts. People can't, you know, buy more stuff and cause economic growth</s>CONAN: Yet, we've seen, except in recent years, that the standard of living for most Americans has been rising steadily over all those years</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Not for in the most recent years. What happened in..</s>CONAN: I agree with that, but certainly since the 1970s..</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yeah, yeah. In the most recent years, in the last, oh, you know, four, five years of this decade, we've seen a real stagnation in people's wages and salaries. The only big gains were among the 0.1 percent at the very top</s>CONAN: So if you look at employers, and you have a lot to say about our largest employer in your book. A lot of people are talking about, we have to find ways to make service jobs, which are the jobs that most people have in this country these days, to make those jobs the same kind of job you were talking about, the Ford jobs, where people could afford to buy the products of the companies that they worked for. Is there a way to do that</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Well, we'd have to reverse a lot of things we've been doing. We'd have to have, you know, more protection of worker's rights, so that they can organize, for example. That's the traditional American way of kind of bootstrapping your way up, was to have a union. We'd have to have more living-wage legislation and higher wages than we now do. We'd have to raise the federal minimum wage above the measly seven dollars and change - it's going to go up to in 09. All kinds of things, yeah</s>CONAN: And, but it takes a huge reversal of policy</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yes, it would take a big reversal, because everything has been going the other way. Look at, you know, the last eight years' tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts in various services for the middle class and the poor and the elderly and children. So, yeah, we'd have to turn all that around</s>CONAN: You write, at one point, and you're a sarcastic writer, so I'm never quite sure what you mean, but do you feel betrayed by your country</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): I think that was in a satirical essay</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): (Soundbite of laughter</s>CONAN: OK</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yes, entitled "Flee America.</s>CONAN: Yes</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): And how it's about - it's sort of a satire about being a fake website to match you with an alternative nation. But no, I don't feel betrayed. I wouldn't use that word. But I feel ever more angry and determined to get America as we used to know it up and running again</s>CONAN: And do you see any prospect - now that we're in this economic situation, where everybody's deeply concerned about what's been going on, the stock market falling and the house values falling and unemployment going up, though still much lower, well, than it was in the 1970s. Nevertheless, with the economic situation as it is, do you see any prospect for some of these changes to start happening</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Only if we make them happen. I mean, just because things are bad doesn't mean that good change will happen. I think we have, you know, have a chance for a new approach, depending on who we elect for president. But it's still, you know, if that were to be Obama, it's going to take a lot of pressure on him, I think, to get him to realize that this is an emergency in many people's lives</s>CONAN: Do you find him an advocate for the poor</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Certainly more than the alternative</s>CONAN: Sounds like it's the lesser of two evils you're thinking about</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): No, I think there are some very inspiring things about him, but I also think he needs a lot of pressure from below</s>CONAN: Let's see if we can get some callers on the line with Barbara Ehrenreich. Again, her new book is called "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation." 800-989-8255 is the email address and - is the phone number. The email address is talk@npr.org. Let's start with Sara, Sara is calling us from Rochester in New York</s>SARA (Caller): Hi, how are you? Thank you for taking my call</s>CONAN: Go ahead, please</s>SARA (Caller): Barbara, I'm a big fan of your books, and I appreciate the work that you do to expose realities for many Americans. My comment is about the statement was made earlier that the American standard of living has gone up, and I just wanted to say I think that there is a strong relationship between the appearance of that and the availability of credit, and also the marketing of credit to people who can't afford to pay it back.</s>SARA (Caller): And I think that there needs to be much more strict regulation of markets that have been taking advantage of people by making them believe that they are able to afford more than they are through the extension of credit. And we actually have a negative savings rate and a humongous amount of consumer credit. Between the national debt and consumer debt, we are the largest debtor nation in the world. And I think it's an unfortunate thing that we refuse to regulate those industries</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Thank you, Sara. You know, I should have said that. You beat me to it. That was good. You know, is it one thing that sort of glossed over our grave problems in the last five or six years was easy credit, and easy credit became our nation's substitute for decent wages. You know, you couldn't hope to save enough for that house, but boy, did they have a mortgage for you, you know</s>CONAN: And then you could take out a home-equity loan, even putting yourself further in the whole</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Oh, yes</s>SARA (Caller): Exactly, and I have many friends in their mid-30s who are losing their houses and who will have a very long-term issue in terms of their credit standing because they were promised that they could just skip all the steps of saving and everything else and just buy on time for things that were just way beyond their means</s>CONAN: Do you think they bear any responsibility for the fact they didn't read the fine print</s>SARA (Caller): Absolutely, but even if you do read the fine print, it's written in such ridiculous jargon that it's impossible to understand. And then you have someone standing across from you, or sitting across from you at the table telling you, you know, we believe that you will be able to pay this back. We know that you are credit-worthy. And people are pretty prone to believing what people say to them about what they can have versus..</s>CONAN: Do you think they bear any responsibility for not..</s>SARA (Caller): Instant gratification culture here</s>CONAN: Sara, excuse me, do you think they bare any responsibility for not thinking that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is</s>SARA (Caller): Yeah, I think that people do, but the thing about it is, there's very little consumer education around this, and that's been I think very consciously designed as well. Many of the people that I went to college with didn't have any financial education until college, and that personal money management, which is a very basic overview, was like a shock to their system.</s>SARA (Caller): Most of them had already been extended credit before they were even out of high school. So, I think that there is a tremendous amount of information coming at us from one side with a certain point of view that you can have, have, have and you must have, have, have, versus being very wise and intelligent consumers</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): But Neal, I have to take issue with you. I think there is way too much emphasis today on consumer education, financial education, as a solution to these problems. I think it's way overstated. You probably don't read the fine print. I bought a house last summer. Did I read the mortgage? Of course not</s>CONAN: But did you think that you couldn't afford it</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): No, no, I thought I could, and so far..</s>CONAN: And I suspect that's true</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Knock on wood, I can so far. But I think, you know, partly, you know, things are designed to be tricky. But also, you know, a lot of people don't have enough money to manage. You know, if you're making 10 dollars an hour, 15 dollars an hour, even, you don't have a whole lot to even, you know, to bill with. It's just triage every month</s>CONAN: Sara, thanks very much for the call</s>SARA (Caller): Thank you. Have a good day</s>CONAN: So long. Let's see if we can talk to Joe, and Joe is with us from La Crosse in Wisconsin</s>JOE (Caller): Good afternoon</s>CONAN: Good afternoon</s>JOE (Caller): I think you just exempted a third of the workforce from demonstrating any personal responsibility, if they don't have that much money to manage. I think it becomes incumbent that we demonstrate that personal responsibility, particularly when we don't have that much money to manage. Which actually wasn't my point, but I felt I had to respond to that. But what I was going to say was one of the things that seems to have gone unnoticed is that up until and including the Reagan years, whenever there was an increase in the productivity in the workforce, particularly in manufacturing, that increase translated to increase in pay and or benefits to the workforce.</s>JOE (Caller): But beginning in the 1990s what happened was we saw, in some cases, dramatic increases in productivity. Manufacturing productivity in the last 10 years has gone through the roof. But that has not translated to any significant benefits to the workforce. And I do agree with much of your point. We need a minimum wage. We don't have one. We have a number that's ridiculous when you think about somebody trying to support themselves, much less a family. So, we do have to rethink the structure of our economic system.</s>JOE (Caller): But part of the problem, and I think the fundamental problem, perhaps, is that now money chases its own tail, and we no longer talk about the purpose of money, which is to help develop the initiatives and the creativity of the individual. And I think that's something that's lost from our discussion, and I think when we don't include that, then it makes it all too easy to start thinking about people and paper clips and go merrily on our way discussing economics and high finance without including the human element and indeed ultimately the spiritual element</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Joe, you make a really good point - I couldn't emphasize this more - is that one of the disturbing and fascinating thing that's happened in recent years, like the last five years, is the decoupling of the major economic indicators from how people were actually feeling and living. You had plenty of economic growth, that didn't translate into wage increases.</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): You had increases in productivity, as you talked about, didn't translate into wage increases. You had falling - you had low unemployment. All of these things, because it's not just about, you know, economic indicators. It's about power. And what's impossible for people to organize to get more money out of their bosses, well, it doesn't help you that your productivity is so high</s>CONAN: Yeah, we just did a show this week about inflation is theoretically at four percent but to a lot of people it feels like it's a lot higher</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): It sure does. Four percent, that can't be right</s>JOE (Caller): Absolutely, and I think one of the things that sometimes gets lost is we make the statement, it's not personal, it's just business. But if you think about it that statement is always and has to be a lie because, ultimately it's going to personal to somebody somewhere along the line</s>CONAN: Joe, thanks very much for the call. We appreciate it.</s>JOE (Caller): Thank you</s>CONAN: We're talking with Barbara Ehrenreich about her new book, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation." You're listening to Talk of the Nation from NPR News. And John is with us, John from St. Louis</s>JOHN (Caller): Hi, great show. It's something that really touches my heart. I was wanting to know if there was anything in the book about one company buying another and letting thousands go. My wife and myself are victims of Pillsbury being bought by General Mills. And you know, they come in and they have a smile on their face and they just rip your life apart with the stroke of a pen, just like the previous caller said, in the name of business. And God knows there's something wrong with that. And we need a separation of corporate America and our government. Thank you very much</s>CONAN: John, thanks for the call. Corporate mergers</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yeah, excellent point, John. It's not only the mergers. It's the whole downsizing trend that began really in the '80s, accelerated in the '90s, where companies and the CEOs, especially the stockholders, were rewarded the more they could cut costs in the short term by laying people off. And mergers are another part of it. There's no thought in any of this about - of accountability toward people, toward the workers, toward the community or anyone</s>CONAN: Let's go to Nate. Nate's with us from Cleveland</s>NATE (Caller): Yes, hi. Thank you. I just wanted to ask the author, I'm a small business owner, and she talks about raising the wages for workers. That's fine and I understand, you know, it sounds good, but the problem is that if you raise the wages, then the cost of the good produced will go up. So therefore, the goods will go up along with their wages and they'll cancel each other out</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Well, you know, we've had an experiment in this since about 1998. Twenty-nine states have raised their minimum wages above the federal minimum wage</s>CONAN: You write about Washington, the state of Washington</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yeah, the state of Washington, for example, you know, getting up to eight dollars an hour. And so the question was, all these predictions were being made, Nate, saying well, when that happens, you know, the states that raise their minimum wages, they are going to go downhill right away. Nobody will live in them. The company - you know, restaurant and hotel industries will shut down. Did not happen, did not happen.</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): In fact, you know, there's interesting comparisons between state of Washington and Idaho, which has a very low minimum wage. People, they were doing better in Washington. Business was booming. Now more and more small businesses are saying, yeah, we want a better - we want a higher minimum wage, but we want it for everybody</s>NATE (Caller): Yeah, I see that point, I guess, just personally speaking, I just know for my business what it will do and I just - I think there should be a better way. I just think that across the board mandating that wages go up sometimes is shortsighted. So, I thank you for your time</s>CONAN: Nate, thanks for the call, and good luck with your business</s>NATE (Caller): Thanks</s>CONAN: And Barbara Ehrenreich, as you write about the book, there's essays about a lot of things. In fact, as I understand it, this book started as a blog</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): A lot of the essays in it, yeah, were blogged on my website and also at thenation.com and Huffington Post. And then I just thought, hey, you got a bunch of these, maybe they make sense together in some way</s>CONAN: And are you continuing to write the blog</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Yeah, I posted one on Sunday, in fact</s>CONAN: And your interests are wide-ranging. I mean, you write about everything from the movies to obviously economics and the like..</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): And science</s>CONAN: And science as well, yes. What fascinates you the most, do you think</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Oh my God, how can I answer that? Everything fascinates me. That's the trouble</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): That's why I have to be a journalist, because it's, you know, short attention span, on to the next question. You know what I'm talking about, Neal</s>CONAN: I do. I've had a life of short attention spans</s>CONAN: And regrettably, this span has just about evaporated, but thank you so much for being with us today</s>Dr. BARBARA EHRENREICH (Author, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation"): Oh, my pleasure</s>CONAN: Barbara Ehrenreich and her new book, "This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation." She was kind enough to join us here today in Studio 3A. We'll be at the Newseum tomorrow and talking about relations between the media and the FBI. We'll also be talking with the brother of the Unabomber, the man who turned him in. Stay with us for that. I'm Neal Conan. This is Talk of the Nation from NPR News