<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Even managers and executives of businesses and corporations "work". I think what David was referring to is what has been known as the "proletariat", those at the lowest ends of the wage scale, especially industrial workers, those that expend human energy with their hands rather more than with their minds or at computer terminals. Most in the categories you mention would not consider themselves "workers" in the Marxist sense. (That may be part of our social problem.) But my original point was that it was somewhat simplistic to say that the increase in efficiency in the post WWII years was to be credited mostly to the "workers" in the more narrow sense. --mkb<div><br><div><div>On Dec 13, 2010, at 1:48 PM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Just a side issue related to the discussion:<div>Scientists, engineers, researchers, teachers, machinists, grad students, academicians, assembly line folks, cooks, doctors, lawyers, wait staff, innovators, artists, actors, maintenance staff, cinematographers, pro-ball players, social workers, miners etc etc etc all are <i>workers</i>, i e part of labor, rather than management. Yr differentiation should be the hierarchy and systems under which they work, and the protections and benefits they have as workers, not the snobbery attached to their job title. Jmho.</div><div> --Jenifer <br><br>--- On <b>Mon, 12/13/10, David Green <i><<a href="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com">davegreen84@yahoo.com</a>></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: David Green <<a href="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com">davegreen84@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss]
Commentary submitted to N-G<br>To: "Morton K. Brussel" <<a href="mailto:brussel@illinois.edu">brussel@illinois.edu</a>><br>Cc: "Peace Discuss" <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>><br>Date: Monday, December 13, 2010, 8:55 AM<br><br><div id="yiv1854209885"><style type="text/css"><!--#yiv1854209885 DIV {margin:0px;}--></style><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt;"><div>I do understand the point of your remarks, Mort. It's a question of how much more the scientists, engineers, etc. should benefit from the profits from productivity increases generated by their work, relative to workers. But it's not clear that the innovators themselves even benefit that much in the context of the marketing of these innovations, relative to the Bill Gates's of the world, etc. It's not clear how much innovators should be entitled to profit when their work is being funded by the public, and those profits couldn't exist without a publicly-supported infrastructure
(including education) that operates on so many levels. It's not clear that innovators profiting considerably more than workers is socially just, or good for society in general. In the final analysis, we have an
innovative system within which financiers profit the most. Do they deserve it? It seems to me that we should err on the side of social justice and relative equality rather than individual reward. If innovators aren't happy with a decent, well-above average living rather than exorbitant rewards, then let them withhold their genius from mankind and work on Rube Goldberg machines. Mankind will be better off with a little less innovation by people of this sort, and a lot more equality.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>DG<br></div>
<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;"><br>
<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma">
<hr size="1">
<b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">From:</span></b> Morton K. Brussel <<a href="mailto:brussel@illinois.edu">brussel@illinois.edu</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">To:</span></b> David Green <<a href="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com">davegreen84@yahoo.com</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Cc:</span></b> Peace Discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sun, December 12, 2010 11:10:11 PM<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G<br></font><br>
Yeah, and that system was better (for the people!) than what succeeded it. But you are grossly missing the point of my original remarks. --mkb
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On Dec 12, 2010, at 7:26 PM, David Green wrote:</div><br class="yiv1854209885Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="WIDOWS:2;TEXT-TRANSFORM:none;TEXT-INDENT:0px;BORDER-COLLAPSE:separate;FONT:medium Helvetica;WHITE-SPACE:normal;ORPHANS:2;LETTER-SPACING:normal;WORD-SPACING:0px;" class="yiv1854209885Apple-style-span">
<div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT-FAMILY:times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">You mean, the Bell Telephone that was accorded by regulatory authorities to serve as a monopoly on behalf of the government, and ostensibly the people?</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT-FAMILY:times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;"><br>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT-FAMILY:times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma">
<hr size="1">
<b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">From:</span></b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>Morton K. Brussel <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:brussel@illinois.edu" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=brussel@illinois.edu">brussel@illinois.edu</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">To:</span></b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>David Johnson <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=dlj725@hughes.net">dlj725@hughes.net</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Cc:</span></b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>David Green <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=davegreen84@yahoo.com">davegreen84@yahoo.com</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Sent:</span></b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sun, December 12, 2010
6:34:08 PM<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold;">Subject:</span></b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G<br></font><br>Davids,
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">Thanks for your remarks, certainly true, but the invention then had to be brought to the marketplace. That's where the entrepreneurs, Bell Telephone, and others (especially in the computing sector) saw its technological evolution. </div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">--Mort</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">On Dec 12, 2010, at 4:39 PM, David Johnson wrote:</div><br class="yiv1854209885Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="WIDOWS:2;TEXT-TRANSFORM:none;TEXT-INDENT:0px;BORDER-COLLAPSE:separate;FONT:medium Helvetica;WHITE-SPACE:normal;ORPHANS:2;LETTER-SPACING:normal;WORD-SPACING:0px;" class="yiv1854209885Apple-style-span">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;WORD-WRAP:break-word;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">" Entrepreneurs had a fairly large contribution here, i.e., the capitalist system."</font></font></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial">Mort,</font></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial">Three Physists ( Bardeen, Shockley, and Brattain ) who WORKED for Bell Laboratory ( ie. EMPLOYEES aka WORKERS ) invented the transistor in 1947.</font></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial">The capitalist system had nothing to do with the invention except to enable Bell Labs reap the vast majority of the profits.</font></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial">David J.</font></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:rgb(0,0,0) 2px solid;PADDING-LEFT:5px;PADDING-RIGHT:0px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-RIGHT:0px;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;">----- Original Message -----</div>
<div style="BACKGROUND-COLOR:rgb(228,228,228);MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>From:</b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><a rel="nofollow" title="brussel@illinois.edu" ymailto="mailto:brussel@illinois.edu" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=brussel@illinois.edu">Morton K. Brussel</a></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>To:</b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><a rel="nofollow" title="davegreen84@yahoo.com" ymailto="mailto:davegreen84@yahoo.com" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=davegreen84@yahoo.com">David Green</a></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Cc:</b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><a rel="nofollow" title="peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" ymailto="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace Discuss</a></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Sent:</b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sunday, December 12, 2010 4:02 PM</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Subject:</b><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br></div>Valuable observations and facts. I would only quibble with one argument: The gain in productivity (during the years quoted) was probably less due to the work and sweat of the nonprofessional "workers" than to the<span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span>invention of the transistor and its subsequent technology. The question/argument than might become who should get the benefits from the increased productivity.
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">Of course, without the workers, professional and other, the gains in productivity would not have been realizable…. Take it from there…</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">--mkb</div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">On Dec 12, 2010, at 1:07 PM, David Green wrote:</div><br class="yiv1854209885Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="WIDOWS:2;TEXT-TRANSFORM:none;TEXT-INDENT:0px;BORDER-COLLAPSE:separate;FONT:medium Helvetica;WHITE-SPACE:normal;ORPHANS:2;LETTER-SPACING:normal;WORD-SPACING:0px;" class="yiv1854209885Apple-style-span">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;FONT-FAMILY:times, serif;COLOR:rgb(0,0,0);FONT-SIZE:12pt;">
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri"><b>Misguided critics of public schools ignore fundamental economic realities</b></font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">David Green</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">It is conventional wisdom that good schools are essential to a healthy economy. It is true that schools are responsible for the basic literacy, skills, and educability of those entering the workforce. It does not follow, however, that schools are to blame for the dismal economic outlook for many Americans.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">Misguided perspectives on the relationship between economy and education lead critics to focus on daily activities and outcomes of teachers, parents, and students. These critics avoid the fundamental nature of growing economic inequality and its evolution over the past three decades. Their criticism is not only profoundly misguided, but part of the problem. They are in denial regarding the class-stratified nature of an American economy that has victimized working people and their children in a systematic and structural manner.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">The facts are clear, and their implications easily discerned. These facts address the long-term relationship between worker productivity and wages; the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy; and the sources of recessions and high rates of unemployment. Given the basic existence of universal and functional public schooling, none of these trends has been determined by the relative merits of schools, teachers, students, or parents, whatever their specific achievements. These trends have been completely determined by the corporate, financial, political, and ideological powers that be.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">The Pew Charitable Trusts’<span> <span class="yiv1854209885Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>“Economic Mobility Project,” available online, clarifies the evolving relationship between productivity and wages. Since 1945, the American worker has increased productivity by at least 2% per year, consistently throughout. This means that efficiency—output per person-hour in the production and provision of goods and services—has doubled twice during this 65-year period, both before and after the advent of computers and a high-tech-based economy.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">This historical and structural increase in productivity—and hence both national and per capita wealth—has depended on innovation, skill, and effort by scientists, technicians, managers, business owners, and workers. About no sector of the workforce can it be said that its employees, from “top” to “bottom,” have not significantly contributed to these increases by the quality of their minds or the sweat of their brows. Similarly, it is inconceivable that the quality of our schools has been an impediment rather than an asset to these increases, ongoing, which are typical for all countries in the industrialized world.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">From 1945 to the mid-1970s, the median (adjusted for inflation) wage for the American worker increased commensurate with productivity—that is, doubling during that period. Between 1974 and 2004, while productivity increased by 80%, the median wage increased by 20%. From 2000 to 2005, productivity increased by 15%, while the median wage fell 2%; obviously that trend continues to this day, and worsens.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">All of these facts clearly indicate that while the country gets richer, the median, “middle class” worker becomes stagnant or gets poorer; all of the increases in wealth that are generated by the labor of all workers accrue to the benefit of the upper quintile of the population; the largest share going to the upper 1%. Again, none of this, in any critic’s wildest imagination, can be attributed to the failures of schools to educate our children, whatever the debatable extent of such alleged failures.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">This well-documented appropriation of wealth has nothing fundamentally to do with computer technology per se, but with policies promoted by elites during the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy. These policies determined that private-sector unions would be effectively destroyed, and that non-“professional” workers (that is, those not protected by their credentials from foreign competition) would be placed into competition with low-wage foreign (and immigrant) workers. These efforts, most identified with the Reagan era but supported by all administrations since Carter, were well under way before the digital transformation, although they have subsequently been abetted by this phenomenon.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">While American workers have adapted to technological change, their organizational and political capacities to materially benefit from their labor have not adapted to the onslaught of neoliberal, “free market” (referred to locally as “capitalism and limited government”) ideology and practice among those who rule our country for their own benefit—especially those in financial, speculative sectors. This leaves workers vulnerable not only to the chronic appropriation of their wealth, but to the acute misery caused by speculative bubbles generated by financiers that result in the massive disappearance of housing wealth, increased unemployment, Wall Street bailouts and profits, huge federal deficits, and cynical attacks on the social safety net.</font></p><p style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;" class="yiv1854209885MsoNormal"><font face="Calibri">In this light, it is perverse for public school critics to focus on the “accountability” of teachers and the “personal responsibility” of students. Many parents and children are rightly aware of the dire nature of their economic circumstances and future prospects—whatever their efforts and skills—in an economy with high unemployment and the most extreme inequality among the developed nations. In relation to the poorest among us, such criticism borders on cruelty on the part of the comfortable.</font></p>
<div style="MARGIN:0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Calibri"></font><br class="yiv1854209885webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Peace-discuss mailing list<br><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss">http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss</a><br></div></span></blockquote></div><br></div>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br class="yiv1854209885webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<hr>
<div style="MARGIN:0px;"><br class="yiv1854209885webkit-block-placeholder"></div>_______________________________________________<br>Peace-discuss mailing list<br><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss">http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss</a><br></blockquote></div></span></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Peace-discuss mailing list<br><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss">http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss</a><br></div></span></blockquote></div><br></div>
</div></div></div><br>
</div><br>-----Inline Attachment Follows-----<br><br><div class="plainMail">_______________________________________________<br>Peace-discuss mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" href="x-msg://2083/mc/compose?to=Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br><a href="http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss" target="_blank">http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss</a><br></div></blockquote></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br>
_______________________________________________<br>Peace-discuss mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br>http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss<br></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>