‘Wage Slavery’: Piven Calls Working for ‘Livelihood’ Not ‘Appropriate’ – Better to Be ‘Active’ in ‘Community’
- Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:38am by
Benny Johnson
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According To Frances Fox Piven:
- Self-service industry is bad because it kills jobs
- Wonders why people have to work for a livelihood: not “appropriate”
- Low-income jobs are “wage slavery”
- Laments jobs at Walmart
- Being a “participant in their community” is a good alternative to working
- Reagan “steamrolled” the poor by eliminating the ideals of guaranteed income, right to welfare and the right to support
Last week, The Blaze exclusively covered Penn Professor Philippe Bourgois’s anti-capitalist, anti-American, pro-Marxist rant to Bryn Mawr College students. But Bourgois was not the only one in the room with alarming ideas. Avowed socialist professor Frances Fox Piven was on the panel as well, ready to espouse her own vision for what is the matter with America.
When the question was posed from the audience “How do we get more jobs for the poor?” Piven took time to then downplay the need for jobs.
The professor began by attacking the elimination of jobs due to technology and convenience, much as President Obama had done with ATM‘s last summer. She lamented people pumping their own gas and checking out their own groceries before declaring that people deserve a livelihood whether they work or not.
“Do we really think that people only deserve a livelihood if they’re willing to work 40, 50, 60 hours a week for 6 or 7 or 8 dollars an hour?”
Piven declared this practice of working for an income as not “appropriate.” She went on to define her idea of a standard American low income job: A single mother, working at Walmart, on food-stamps, leaving her child with her drug-addicted brother-in-law. After painting this demeaning picture the professor asked rhetorically, “Whats so great about that?”
Professor Piven’s alternative to working? “Be an active participant in their community.”
She went on to blame Ronald Reagan for “steamrolling” the poor by eliminating the Marxist ideals of guaranteed income, right to welfare and the right to support. And she closed by lamenting that Reagan forced liberals to discuss the practice of job creation, even though some of the jobs could be defined as “wage slavery.”
Watch the stunning remarks Below:
Key Piven Quotes:
“It’s not exactly a mystery, why there are no jobs, why jobs are so hard to find. We’ve been eliminating jobs. We send them abroad to low wage countries; we eliminate the jobs in the gasoline station– you pump your own gas, you pack your own groceries, check out your own stuff at K-Mart.”
“I don’t think we should just do the jobs mantra. Do we really think that people only deserve a livelihood if they’re willing to work 40, 50, 60 hours a week for 6 or 7 or 8 dollars an hour? I don‘t think that’s appropriate.”
“What about all these women that were forced into the low-wage labor market? They are working at Wal-Mart, for example, putting all the stuff back on the hangers that the customers knock off the hangers, and things like that. And they’re leaving their kids with their mother, or their drug-addicted brother-in-law, in order to go to Wal-Mart and earn minimum wage, and maybe also collect food stamps in order to survive. What’s so great about that?”
“Why can’t they work in their– you know, be an active participant in their community, take care of their own kids.”
“Ronald Reagan started the steamroller, which persuaded liberals that they shouldn’t talk about income maintenance, they shouldn’t talk about guaranteed income, they shouldn’t talk about the right to welfare, the right to support.They shouldn’t only talk about jobs.”
“Well, I think we should talk about income support and remember that in the 19th century the working class activists thought that a lot of these jobs were wage slavery.”
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Comments (180)
Azaleamom
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:05amSo I suppose that Ms Piven is willing to give her salary that she “worked?” 40, 50, 60 Horus/wk for, as well as all any retirement as a result of that job, and tote a sign through the streets of Chicago In solidarity with her minimum wage brothers and sisters!! I doubt it!! What a hipocit, as most socialist are.
Report Post »sawbuck
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:43amPiven is a low-life… bum…Just like our fearless leader..
Both of them wouldn’t know what a “real” job is …
Even if it bit them on their community organizing azz….
Typical liberal thinking…
Report Post »Wanting a Tiffany paycheck…on a McDonalds… work-week
drbage
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:58amColumbia and UPenn, you want me to pay how much each year of my hard earned money so my child can listen to this?????!!!!! Ms Piven either than seeing/hearing about WalMart and K-Mart, when is the last time you visited one if ever?
Report Post »JGraham III
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:30amWhat an old crone! It is laughable to see a woman the likes of her pontificate about life, wages and the realities of things like single motherhood when she hasn’t poked her nose outside the “safe” ivy covered environment of Academia and couldn’t survive for 5 minutes if confronted with the daily duties most of us know only too well. She reeks of pride and arrogance, but happily there is an end to all of this. The Good Book says of her kind: ‘pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.’ With the towering intellect this woman thinks she has, it should be a spetacular show. I only wish I could sell tickets to the event; maybe I could recoup the expenses incurred from being a single parent…
Report Post »marhee9
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:46amI love it that the liberals have people like Piven as their spokespeople. I hope she keeps spewing her communist views so that more and more poeple wake up and say……what??? There are so many people that think they’re liberals, until they hear someone like this speak out. There is a great video out called bizarro world that shows how crazy the whole Obama campaign has gotten. It’s hilarious.
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovzRxR4PI0
ChiefGeorge
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:29amThey still keep trying to get around the curse on Adam! That being he was cursed to work the fields and provide for his own needs vs living in a garden paradise. Same holds true for the libs who want to get around the original curse on woman which says woman will have great pains in child birth but will go back to her husband again. They try to get around this curse as well through abortion.
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:00pmlet me pre-empt JZS….
“What?”..”What’s the problem?” Why does the Blaze keep posting articles on this fingey, marginal, unknown university professor?”.
Report Post »Shasta
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:38pmShe is just mad at having grown old and wants to leave as much damage behind as posible. Soros as well.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 4:18pmHer consumption should be limited… to BS!
Report Post »damnedifwedont
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 5:34pmThis monster should have died and gone to heLL decades ago.
Report Post »Hollywood
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:32pmPiven looks like she died 10 years ago. Yes, let’s have EVERYONE doing community service and they can get their income, needed ,-Uh LIVE! from Bernuckles, at the FED. No more farmers, no more ranchers, No more Food. What a COMPLETE waste of skin. OOPS! Sorry. THAT does not look like skin. How can any SANE person,not have but utter cotempt for this HORRID person. Dead inside. Hasbeen for years!
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:38pmFor a 1% ‘er she sure has a lot of sniveling going on….
Report Post »trotula
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:03amMs. Piven: Why is the single mother a single mother? Bad choices. Why is the brother hooked n drugs? Bad choices. You’ve decided you want to live in a world without consequences. and that’s not reality.
Report Post »EarnTheAmericanDream
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:35amI have to say that your comments about single mothers are completely dillusional. Yes, some (if not many) are due to bad choices, but how about those who married, started their family (all with the same baby daddy) and suffered as a result of HIS bad choices, ie-abuse, affairs, etc? I suffered through that, and am trying to make it on my own after 8 years as a SAHM and am receiving no government assistance or child support. Or, let’s take this a step farther, what about the widows and, expecially, the moms who are only single because their spouse so selfishly laid his life on the line to protect our freedoms? While I agree that people become victims of the system, and I see your point, do NOT be so quick to judge all single mothers as being so due to “bad choices”.
Roberto G. Vasquez
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:49am@ SAWBUCK
You forgot to mention that Pivin is a communist who is working for a communist America.
Report Post »Max jones
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:59amThere are programs in place for people who are disabled and can’t take care of their families. They would go a lot further if the cheaters and thieves were eliminated from these rolls. Bad choices, lack of intelligence, criminal attitude and out right dishonesty, are what make this system seem cruel. These poor folk are being thrown under the bus, so the left can make a political point. One day soon these amoral liberals will be hanged, figurativly or literally.
Report Post »Dismayed Veteran
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:18pmEarn
Good point. Keep striving.
Report Post »LSBeene
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:50pmTo “Earn the American Dream”
Yes, widows are an exception. However – considering that :
1) The woman CHOSE to have sex with a loser who then later left is not something the woman can dodge. She engaged in an activity whose primary biological purpose is to produce a baby – and wow, one arrived. WHO she choose to do that with …. seems like she made that choice too.
2) Considering that due to the one sided divorce laws in this country, that conservative women never seem to get around to protesting, that women account for 70-80%+ of initiators for divorce and break-ups of the family – maybe we should disincentivize this practice … ya think?
There are SOME single mothers who are true victims, but for most … no, not so much. If I pick the wrong girl with whom to have sex with and she gets pregnant, and I later find out she’s a person with x, y, and z bad personality/morality traits – I get lectured as to “too bad, you should have exercised self-control”.
So – until I see conservative women on the front lines of ending a feminist jurisprudence that breaks up families and rewards bad female behavior in our divorce courts, the “not all single moms are like that” schtick rings awfully hollow and self serving.
Oh, btw, I’m not some guy who lost custody of his kids – I‘m the son who didn’t see his father for 2 decades due to an acrimonious divorce, a vindictive mother, an enabling biased court system, and the deafening silence of conservative Chris
Report Post »lani59
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 4:36pmCome on Blaze, do we really need to hear more of her drivel? Wisconsin has proved where America‘s head is at and it’s not with the Unions or OWS trolls. We’re gonna take it back and the first one to go away will be Barry and his green cronies…
Report Post »Fubared
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 5:00pmEarn-
Report Post »Kudos and blah blah life sucks sometimes kumbahyah, and so forth. Pretty sure he was pointing out the 3rd or 4th generation of section 8 project dwellers that have chillins just for the sole purpose of another check. Check? She could care less about your average, middle America strife when she can recruit project peeps for a whole lot less emotion and verbage, and they have the violence thing down. You probably have nails, and don’t do the oppressed victim thing quite right-but ever to endeavor and all.
From Virginia
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 6:31pmTrue – liberals have totally destroyed the family unit. Kids for generatons were trained from birth – in a nuclear family – the values of a good work ethic in both the home and the community.
Kids were taught to be good and useful citizens in the classroom and even the media produced family oriented shows that espoused those same values. Shows about helping your neighbor or even a stray dog you might find. They certainly weren‘t about turnng in your neighbor because they didn’t believe the same thing as you.
Ever see pictures from the “old” days? There is no graffetti and no litter ANYWHERE! All liberals have brought us is decay and ruin. Every time they talk about making things better it means destroying someone else’s life – someone who contributed to the community.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:00amTruly amazing how damaging HATE is to the human mind . Hate , revenge, and anger are the primary motivators of the Left….all wrapped up in that hypocritical / misguided “ social justice” so-called philosophy “thingy.” Our angry political imams who are pushing their own brand of self-destructive beliefs like their good buddies in the International Left.
Report Post »From Virginia
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 6:38pmTrue – and no gratitude to the system that allowed them to spout their hatred and get rich doing so. This woman is useless and in the utopia she yearns for she’d be worth nothing except being either a breeder or a cleaning drudge.
Report Post »jcldwl
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:59amBLAZE!!!!!!!!! Did you really have to put this woman’s scary picture in the article twice. I didn’t watch the video in fear I would have to look at and listen to her. This woman is the wicked witch of the west. Someone needs to drop a house on her.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:48amor a a bucket of water…
Report Post »HappyHaloHousewife
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:57amThe problem with this thinking is that they expect some kind of utopia. Oh sure, everyone is going to ‘be active in the community’, what, like OWS? Guess what? Somebody has to shovel the crap. And guess what? Nobody is going to volunteer to do that. (I have 5 kids, I know.) But if someone is willing to work and get paid, then they are going to do it and screw being ‘active in the community’. What does that even mean? Hoeing the Unity Garden? Geesh.
Report Post »Nemo13
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:06amYes, this is correct. The ‘utopia idea’ never seems to include the human condition; some people lie, cheat, steal, etc. Some work hard, some don’t, issues evolve from that, etc. A society gets more complex as it gets larger and more unaccountable, and history shows us the results of when that happens. These people need to just start a cult somewhere is South America. Have they ever heard of test marketing? Piven should just get a group of like-minded fools together and go to some 3rd world country and show us how well their plans work. That would be amusing, a great reality show in the making.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:10pmWhat this dumb Commie needs to realize is that people in every society need to work. If they didn’t, who would pay for society and Government? For all her education, she is a real dummy. Money doesn’t grow on trees or appear at the will of the money fairy.
Maybe she should look at the other “Utopias” that have existed in the past. Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s great leap forward where MILLIONS of his citizens died, Pol Pot’s Utopis where many more millions died. To be as“Educated” as she is, she has apparently NEVER read a history book.
If she is so unhappy in America, she and her loony husband should leave for a country which has a UTOPIA where no one works, food magically appears and all the necessities of life just appear out of the atmosphere. A land where doctors and nurses learn everything they need without exerting any effort on their part.
Come on Frances, get into the real world. Acedemia has tainted your thought processes and you have become just another communist troll.
Report Post »Nemo13
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:55amWhy don’t nuts like her just go abroad and talk this fluff? Go to someplace like africa or something, teach them your kooky ways before they do you in.
Report Post »vanman4446
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:32pmI wonder what she teaches in her classes, stupidity.
Report Post »loveoursoldiers
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:55amIs she auditioning for WWOTW remake?
Report Post »Get the water ready!
loveoursoldiers
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:04amI meant to say Wizard of OZ remake, of course, with her being the WWOTW
Report Post »I’m sure you got that. but for thse in Riolinda! ( ?sp)
Wildblue3
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:34amLove,
Report Post »Don’t remake the classic. Baum did other Oz books. In Land of Oz, there was a Witch called Mombi who was older and uglier than WWOTW. Piven could play her
Atilla
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:55amPiven and her rhetoric are the reasons why government education is mandatory. You have to be a product of it to believe anything that comes out of her mouth.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:54amIn Piven‘s case it’s sad that the female of our species generally outlives the male.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:38amHow would you like to work 40 hours a week Slayer? It would be like a vacation for me.
Report Post »burnteye86
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:26amI heard that!
Report Post »NEAF
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:53amHow many jobs has she created? None? She is a parasite.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:52amPiven is just a throwback to the 60′s a radical communist yearning for communism here in America,you’re a sick twisted bitch because communism is a death cult responsible for the deaths of millions.
That’s why people flee communism throughout history but I have news for you you communist heathen,Americans won‘t flee we’ll defeat you everywhere you cockroaches expose yourselves.
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:10amWell said!
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:51amAgree. The 60s were bad enough then. This time is even worse . with the Far Left in positions of power…with Ayers ” getting up each day to destroy capitalism ?” Why isn’t that one , at least , in jail ? He is our political Charles Manson . Why is he free to poison young minds ?
Report Post »Nemo13
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:51amShe needs to be photoshop’d bad, take out some of the scary. That one pic, if she had a cloak, she would look like a Sith Lord from Star Wars! Her gaze looks like that atheist guy who wrote that book whatever it was called, why do they all look alike in the face? The same deranged stare, haha…
Report Post »Grillmark55
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:50amI wonder how much of her money she gives away. My guess is probably 0 – and I‘d be willing to bet that she doesn’t lecture for free either!
Report Post »And I agree – PLEASE stop posting her picture. Can’t somebody just draw a picture or something?
RightUnite
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:49amIsn’t this old dried up hag dead yet?? Uuuggghhh! Man! Get this psychotic old demented fool some help to her final demise!
Report Post »thefnshow
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:53ami was going to say the same thing…i don‘t like saying that but c’mon…while we’re at it,take van jones,george soros,bill ayers and bernadette doran with you grandma
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:56amJust another aging Commie with one foot in the grave. If NO ONE works, WHO will PAY for all those she thinks should not? Ridiculous premise and way past the point of even debating. BYE BYE old hag!
Report Post »Mandors
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:47amFunny, there’s no welfare in a communist country like Piven wants. You work or you sit in prison.
Report Post »wolverine
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:47amDo you know how to starve a liberal, Hide their food stamps under their work clothes
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:46amApparently the only job important to the Crypt Keeper is her own. Read about her involvement in strikes when she was at Boston College.
Report Post »Beachbaby
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:45amIf you do not work, you do not eat. She’s senile and weird. She’s ready for a nursing home.
Report Post »drlax15m
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:45amfirst she complains we’re eliminating too many low wage jobs w/ self-service, then she says those jobs aren’t good enough anyway, she seems confused
Report Post »HKS
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:45amTalk about a rag, really. Are liberals that dumb?
Report Post »Atilla
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:53amYes
Report Post »timej31
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:45amI love all the points made for the very reasons she laments them. I only use self serve lines and toll booths that are automated.
Report Post »Fubared
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:44amIck. Stop showing pics of this hag. She could ruin a teenager’s morning wood in a nanosecond.
Report Post »Gordon62221
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:53amRotflmao!!!!!
Report Post »matt708
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:43amhey Piven when are you going to quit your job at the university?
Report Post »Abraham Young
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:43amThe left are empty of substance but thrive on appearances. They lure the hearts and minds of their adherents with illusion and deception.
True happiness comes from the heart, not trying to whack people over the head with government mandates or community involvement, which too often is collectivism in disguise.
BHO thinks individual salvation is dependent upon collective salvation. In truth, it is just the reverse. First fix yourself, and then society will improve. Trying to fix others is the downfall of liberal theology.
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:55amWhen you say: “First fix yourself, and then society will improve. Trying to fix others is the downfall of liberal theology,” YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!
Report Post »Mike N
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 12:34pm.
Report Post »Hit the nail on the head!
RightPolitically
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:43amWon’t this old prune just go away?
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