More Than a Job

The Rust Belt is coming to grips with the changing world of work. Automation, international competition, and industry consolidation eat away at steel and coal production. As manufacturing jobs lose ground to white-collar or low-wage service work, a new work ethic is developing and threatening to replace the work culture that sustained a blue-collar middle class. Economic security now demands a college education, but many resist what seems foreign to blue-collar values based on manual labor. From joining gangs to opting out of work entirely, resistance to the cultural transformation of the post-industrial economy takes on many forms, most of which hinder the transmission of a work ethic from parent to child. Now, people in the Rust Belt are not just worried about the future of work; they are uncertain if there will even be one.

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Activism, Half-Baked: Profit and Progressive Values in Corporate America

In the past year, protests over racial injustice and threats to U.S. democracy have sparked a wave of activism across corporate America. Company leaders have hosted community conversations, signed letters, released statements, promised donations, and shared hashtags picked up from their fifteen-year-old daughters. But with many of these objectives left unmet, the value of corporate activism runs into pressing questions: What really defines an “activist” company? How can companies engage authentically and effectively in activism, without exploiting social-justice issues as marketing tactics? And how can we, as consumers, identify and endorse the companies who are driving social change?

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