The focus of our public discourse has been on how American companies are competing with Japanese, German, and other foreign companies. What this allows us to ignore is how each of those American companies is really in competition with the families of the workers. That's the real competition.

Most of us have jobs that require some handling of other peoples' feelings and our own, and in that sense, we are all partly flight attendants.

I think we have a rawer version of capitalism and a more fragile community and family base than other nations. We are a more individualistic culture. From the Boston Tea Party on, we've had too little faith in government.

Arlie Russell Hochschild Quotes