Write one page in response to one of the following prompts:
At the end of the chapter on earning, Shklar claims that the right to work should be on par with any other right that contributes to one's standing as a citizen. Should we have a right to work in the same way that we have a right to vote
Also, click here for the civics questions on the U.S. citizenship naturalization test.
Lastly, you don't have to write anything about this, but consider the following passage from Shklar's chapter on earning:
The defender of the helpless poor wants to protect them against an army of predatory aristocrats who are denying them their rights and sustenance. The poor are social victims who are being denied racial equality, opportunities for decent work and education, and access to normal public goods. If more were done for them, they too would become upstanding laborers. The opposing party of individual effort, like Frederick Douglass, hopes that government will do nothing more than ensure fair play for all. Anyone who truly wants to work, they argue, can find employment, and with it will come standing and self-respect. Both parties deeply believe in self-discipline, in independence, in work as the primary source of all value and all dignity, and in the ideal of a society of self-supporting democratic citizens. Each one sees the other as a threat to democracy and to the values of work and independence which they so profoundly share. (pp. 96-97)
After we discuss Shklar's chapter on earning, we will use this passage as our point of departure for discussing American political ideologies.
