[Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G

Mon Dec 13 08:55:23 CST 2010

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.

DG

________________________________
From: Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>
To: David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Sun, December 12, 2010 11:10:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G

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 

On Dec 12, 2010, at 7:26 PM, David Green wrote:

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?
>
>
>
________________________________
From: Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>
>To: David Johnson <dlj725 at hughes.net>
>Cc: David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Sun, December 12, 2010 6:34:08 PM
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G
>
>Davids, 
>
>
>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. 
>
>
>--Mort
>
>
>On Dec 12, 2010, at 4:39 PM, David Johnson wrote:
>
>" Entrepreneurs had a fairly large contribution here, i.e., the capitalist 
>system."
>> 
>>Mort,
>> 
>>Three Physists ( Bardeen, Shockley, and Brattain ) who WORKED for Bell 
>>Laboratory ( ie. EMPLOYEES aka WORKERS ) invented the transistor in 1947.
>>The capitalist system had nothing to do with the invention except to enable Bell 
>>Labs reap the vast majority of the profits.
>> 
>>David J.
>> 
>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: Morton K. Brussel
>>>To: David Green
>>>Cc: Peace Discuss
>>>Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 4:02 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G
>>>
>>>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    invention of the 
>>>transistor and its subsequent technology. The question/argument than might 
>>>become who should get the benefits from the increased productivity.  
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Of course, without the workers, professional and other, the gains in 
>>>productivity would not have been realizable…. Take it from there…
>>>
>>>
>>>--mkb
>>>
>>>
>>>On Dec 12, 2010, at 1:07 PM, David Green wrote:
>>>
>>>Misguided critics of public schools ignore fundamental economic realities
>>>>David Green
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>The Pew Charitable Trusts’  “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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Peace-discuss mailing list
>>>>Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
________________________________

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