College of Business Administration

Seminar in Business and the Good Society

Written Assignment 2

1) In closing her book, Ehrenreich states:

When someone works for less pay than she can live on—when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently—then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The “working poor,” as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

Some of the 'nameless benefactors' may well be shareholders, whose wealth is in part, it might be argued, built on the sacrifice of the 'working poor.'

Compare and contrast the duties managers have to shareholders and to their low-wage employees, being certain to indicate how a manager ought to balance these potentially competing stakeholder interests.

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