Boom Bust And Exodus Summary

“Boom, Bust & Exodus: The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities” is a nonfiction book written by Chad Broughton, which discusses the lives affected by the relocation of a Maytag appliance plant from Illinois to Mexico. This account offers a more dialed in perspective of those impacted by globalization first hand, therefore allowing the consequences of these changes to be personified rather than statistical. This disquisitions main topics, however, will be the effects of globalization as well as the challenges it has created for both Americans and Mexicans, including those followed in the book.
Globalization in the context of sociology is a multiplex of ideas and theories. It’s difficult to truly understand what globalization is

without acknowledging the different factors that create the bigger picture. According to our notes from our Sociology course by Professor Dunn, “To understand globalization, we have to frame globalization within the context of modernity.” When speaking about modernity, we are using the ideals according to Anthony Giddens. Modernity consists of four institutions which include capitalism, industrialism, administrative surveillance and military power. However, modernity develops into globalization when these institutions begin to extend themselves beyond “Western Core countries” and become dimensions of globalization. These four dimensions are world capitalist economy, international division of labour, world military order and nation-state system. However, Boom, Bust & Exodus also mentions about how the institutions of modernity cannot be held to a single model of advancement but instead develop uniquely to their own, “There has never been a single type of transition. The industrial revolution taking place in Mexico’s north is not like England’s in the late 1700s and early 1800s, or that of northern U.S.cities such as Chicago in the late 1800s, or that of China more recently.” Globalization is extremely complex, it’s roles and processes have a skeleton but are very flexible in order for use to understand how it becomes what it is.
Globalization has decreased global inequality, but it has also increased inequality in the United States.

Political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson are mentioned in Boom, Bust & Exodus, with a quote saying, “There is more inequality among workers with the same level of skills (measured by age, education and literacy) in the United States than there is among all workers in some of the more equal rich nations.” This is because the elite of the United States have come to value their own businesses for their own financial gain by outsourcing workers in other countries, which then hurts blue collar workers within the U.S. and mistreats as well as underpays the outsourced workers. This is exactly what happens in Boom, Bust & Exodus, where workers of the Maytag appliance plant go out of work because of the company’s decision to move to Mexico for cheaper labour. The workers in Illinois were making approximately $15 an hour, but once the company moved to Mexico, their wages were set to $1.10 an hour. Globalization has deeply affected those in the lower-class, who may be considered as less educated or unskilled to low skilled workers. In the text of Boom, Bust & Exodus, Broughton states, “Rising inequality is less about education gaps than it is about those at the very top of the income distribution pulling away.” The income rates of those who are rich have exponentially increased over the last few decades, while the poor have only become poorer. According to our notes,

the bottom 50% had an average post-tax income of $21,000 in 1980 while only increasing to $25,000 in 2015. However, the top 1% had an average post-tax income of $344,000 in 1980 and has rapidly risen to a whopping $1,000,000 by 2014.
Globalization provides challenges that have to be dealt with for both the American and Mexican workers in Boom, Bust & Exodus. A good example of this is the challenges Mexican workers working at Planta Maytag III had to face. Workers at this plant were making an average of only 70 pesos per hour, which added up to $6.25 per day. This cheap labour from outsourced workers put many Americans out of work because of such competitive labour wages. One character that can represent these impacts of globalization is Pablo Lara Sanchez. In the text, it describes the life Lara has built for himself with all his years of extreme hard work:
“...he did other line work for fifty to sixty hours each week. His home was on an unpaved road in the southern reaches of Reynosa’s outer slums in Colonia La Joya. On weekends lara had built his large family’s sturdy home by himself, enclosing it with a chain-link fence held up by thick tree-branch posts. His address “601”, was spray painted in black on the makeshift gate to his home. After years of work, the Lara home was nicer than most, with smooth concrete floors and good rain protection. Coffee mugs and skillets hung from nails…”
The excerpt describes the quality of life Lara lives in comparison to those as well.

A house with “good rain protection”, “spray painted address” and “smooth concrete floors” is described as nicer than most. The consequence of cheap labour in order to provide cheaper prices for consumers has left these people struggling, working so hard while they cannot even afford a decent meal. This kind of housing would be considered very poor in America, and the fact that Lara is described to be nicer than most only shows that poverty is a life that is well-known to workers in urban areas. However, statistically we may not see this, because the poverty line has been set so low. Broughton states, “If Lara worked fifty weeks in a year, averaging 6.5 hours of overtime a year, he would earn about $3,000. The Lara Family , through Pablo’s sheer volume of work, lived above the official poverty line for urban dwellers.” This is an extreme contrast to the Illinois workers in the beginning of the book, who earned $15.10 an hour with benefits such as insurance and retirement. The book also mentions a peso crisis in 1994, and it worsened the wage gap because it allowed foreign companies to outsource and hire Mexicans workers for even

cheaper.
However, some may claim globalization can provide people with new opportunities. Maytag employers made claims that workers were able to “broaden their education, gain technical skills, and progress through the ranks even from the operator level”. Lara disagreed with this, saying at age 28 he was still trying to finish high school and that maybe the opportunities were for those who had “no kids, some english proficiency and a solid educational footing”. Globalization can provide some with opportunities, but the percentage is very little. The opportunities that Maytag mentions seemed as if they were more possible for American workers.
Boom, Bust and Exodus highlights the hardships globalization creates for not only Americans but also the foreign workers who are supposedly above the poverty line but barely make enough to have a decent place to live or a good meal. It’s an unlivable wage that causes the workers to work extremely hard, and does not or barely can support them and their family, while putting Americans out of work. We need to look at globalization closer, and realize the consequences of low consumer prices and fight for fair wages for all across the globe.