The Dog Walker

"Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."Mikhail Bakunin

The tag that I've heard used to describe Joshua Stephens book, The Dog Walker, to people is that it is a book about an anarchist who walks the dogs of the wealthy clientele he protests in order to make things meet. While this is an entirely true description of the book, Stephens' tales of his time working as a professional dog walker in Washington DC are so much more. This book was an incredible commentary on politics, race, sex, economics, the relationships that people have with their dogs, and the relationships that people have with each other. On top of all of that, it is incredibly funny.

The book is organised as a series of essays discussing everything from the ways that capitalist economics make no sense in a care based trade to why poop is extremely funny (don't lie, everyone laughs inside when someone farts). It is extremely well written, following the authors own experiences while explaining them in a broader context.

This book was fantastically interesting to me. I knew very little about anarchism, and this was a wonderful introduction to the political theory. Stephens does a wonderful job of explaining it, and some of the movements that have been driven by the theory, without becoming dry. The book maintains its humor even in the more serious passages and brings new light to many old ideas.

I could relate extremely well to the recollections contained in the book, having worked for hourly wages that aren't remotely close to a living wage for most of my life. He examines the idea of subsidized income (remember when MacDonald's that stated that a full time employee would have to make $800 some where else just to make ends meet) and why that thought process is substantially flawed, stating that

 "neoliberalism has apparently gone so off the rails that the role of "job creator" has been stripped of its usefulness to society."

While I'm sure there are many people who disagree with this, there still seems to be something very wrong with the idea of an employer saying "maybe we need to ask the question: can you afford to work here?" (this has actually been said to me by an employer, and I am still very bewildered by it).

 Stephens also looks into many of the aspects of care, retail, and service industries that many people don't think about, and the level of risk management that is involved that many people don't see. Holding the keys to someones house, babysitting someones loved ones (as I get older I am amazed at the returns that were expected for the 5 bucks an hour I was paid at babysitting gigs when I was 13), or even the idea, on guided wilderness tours , that the guides job is not only to insure that you had fun, but to insure that you come home in one piece... very few people actually think about the amount of training and preparation involved.

This book was a funny, fascinating, and unorthodox look at many of the systems in place in the country that we don't see, and how many of these systems, under certain circumstances, can lead us to not value people. Charming and laugh-out-loud funny, I highly recommend this book.