by Orrin Konheim

Barbara Ehrenreich is my favorite author in the field of economics. She's been a featured columnist in The New York Times and Times Magazine and has written some 15 books. I discovered her through her best selling book "Nickel and Dimed" in which she threw away her writing credentials and posed as an inexperienced worker to see firsthand if she could get by on minimum wage for a year and a half.

In her latest book, "This Land is Their Land," Ehrenreich presents a series of essays on how the lower classes, and even the college educated, has been disenfranchised in this economy.

Here are some excerpts from a great essay of hers "The Shame Game":

"Shame hangs heavy over the economic landscape: The shame of the newly laid off, the shame of the chronically poor..... shame is a verb as well as a noun. Almost nobody arrives at shame on their own...It  may be wiser to think of shame as a relationship rather than just a feeling- a relationship of domination in which the mocking judgments of the dominant are internalized by the dominated.....The ultimate trick is to make people ashamed of the injuries inflicted upon them......

Something similar goes on in the case of the laid off and unemployed, thanks to the prevailing Calvinist form of Protestantism, according to which productivity and employment are the source of one's identity as well as one's income. Not working? Then what are you? And to put the Calvinist message in crude theological terms: Go to Hell.

For those who feel their full measure over unemployment, there is an entire shame industry shame industry to whip them into shape.....Laid off and coming up empty on your job search? You must be too "negative" and hence attracting negative circumstances into your life. To paraphrase one coach I've heard: We're not hear to talk about the economy or the market; we're here to talk about you."

I know this essay sounds overly rebellious and doesn't solve the problem of being out of a job, but what's the lesson here? In the last paragraph:

"Shame is a potent weapon but it should never be used against the already injured and aggrieved. Instead, let's turn it against the aggrievers: Shame on Ford and GM for putting all their eggs in the SUV basket and then laying off thousands. Shame on the CEOs who make eight-figure incomes while their lowest-paid employees trudge between food banks. Shame on Congress for leaving us with an unemployment insurance program that covers only a little more than a third of the laid off.

Everyone else should hold their heads up high."