Paul Thomas uses “Hamlet” and allegory to make the point that the myth of rugged individualism is over, that we are ruled by an oligarchy, and that we must redirect our belief system to recognize reality.
He writes:
“The U.S. is trapped in our false myths—the rugged individual, pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps—and as a result, we persist in blaming the poor for being poor, women for being the victims of sexism and rape, African Americans for being subject to racism. Our pervasive cultural ethos is that all failures lie within each person’s own moral frailties, and thus within each person’s ability to overcome. We misread the success of the privileged as effort and the struggles of the impoverished as sloth—and then shame those in poverty by demanding that they behave in ways that the privilege are never required to assume.
“We refuse to step away from the gaze on the conditions and actions of the individual in order to confront the failures of our society: the Social Darwinism of our capitalist commitments to competition and materialism.
“To place this in pop culture terms, the U.S. has too long been a Superman culture, the most rugged of rugged individuals, and it is time to replace that myth with a commitment to the X-Men (while not perfect, the X-Men mythology is grounded in community and a moral imperative about the sacred humanity in every person regardless of his/her status at birth, an imperative that rejects the tyranny of the norm).
“Once we recognize that community and solidarity are powerful, we will collectively change the paradigm, and like Hamlet, we will tear away false promises of the oligarchs, recognizing that the privileged ruling class in the U.S. (like kings in Hamlet’s Denmark) are substantially one level below excrement (“how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar”); and thus, the promise of a free people, the promise of democracy can be served only if we recognize our shared interests as workers, as humans, as the majority, and ultimately as the moral grounding too long ignored by the billionaire class we now serve.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Brilliant statement from Mr. Thomas!
But, without missing or disregarding his points, the blame has been shifted away from the disadvantaged and piled high and heavily onto schools, educators, and their systems. It has been placed sharply onto civil servants on all levels across the United States. That’s not to say that we can’t or should not run a tighter and more closely monitored ship on public tax dollar spending, our military included. And that’s not to imply that the current level of spending for domestic public infrastructure is acceptable as adequate either.
Blaming education as the main or sole focus is the wrong channeling of blame. Education is ONE of quite a few focuses that impact society.
But blame implies personalizing causes of strife and misery, and nothing gets solved in that mindset.
We need to look at the complexities and history of what lead up to our present moment and ask ourselves how we will change those components as they continue on into the future and as they continue to evolve.
And therein lies a beautiful secret, which Mr. Thomas points out, which is:
“The promise of democracy can be served only if we recognize our shared interests as workers, as humans, as the majority, and ultimately as the moral grounding too long ignored by the billionaire class we now serve.”
There is everything to be said for consensus reality.
Just ask the French in the later half of the 1800’s. . . .
“That’s not to say that we can’t or should not run a tighter and more closely monitored ship on public tax dollar spending, our military included.”
In what sector can one start at the age 17, work for 20 years and retire with benefits? In what sector does billions* of dollars go unaccounted for? What sector has never performed the annual yearly audits as mandated by law? In what sector has rape and intimidation been continually glossed over?
Do I need to go on?
It’s not the public school sector.
*In July 2008, the United States Department of Justice had to investigate around 900 cases of alleged fraud committed by military contractors.[1] Similarly, the Defence Contract Audit Agency has uncovered $10 billion in questionable Iraq contracts,[1] and a US audit found that the occupation authority had lost track of reconstruction funds of cash (in one hundred dollar bills) totalling nearly $9 billion.[2] (from wiki)
Duane,
There’s fraud and waste in every corner of public sector, but it rests on a spectrum, light to heavy.
One of our biggest flaws in government spending here in the states is that we do not spend and staff regulatory agenices and field inspectors to monitor accountability they way they do in Europe.
The “tax man” in Europe is not only responsiblr like our IRS to collects taxes. Rather, WELL TAKEN CARE OF AND WELL PAID monitors inspect public spending in all areas of life to prevent waste and fraud. These positions are great jobs because the European governments in general don’t want the people overseeing public spending to CORRUPT the oversight of public spending as well as the spending itself. Therefore, corruption up at that level is heavily and for the most part, effectively disincentivized, so much unlike here in the United States.
In my district, every molecule of every cent is scrutinized and transparents and subject to public questioning. But the rest of the United States is not like my district.
Our government starves regulatory agencies and then expects everyone to be honest.
That’s not human nature, especailly in as capitalist a society as ours.
A much greater and more comprehensive tax base and close oversight is what pays for a civilized society . . .
Uncovering the fraud is what we spend time and money on; preventing it int he first place using a robust system of oversight, which I think the USA is sorely lacking, is another . . . .
And Duane, for the record, I oppose the virtually the whole orientation of our military spending . . . It’s a colony of wild beasts who multiply and spread out, out of control. . . . the spending and motivations for war campaigns, that is . . . . not our men and women in uniform.
I always tell colleagues that I don’t think we should have spent over a billion dollars in Syria because I don’t have enough guided reading books in my room, and my budget needs to be five fold to really develop a guided reading library that is empowering. Instead, I spend whatever budget my district gives me (which is a miracle considering what’s up against the district. I am grateful for the district’s work and advocacy in securing the funds!).
My district is legally owed, as declared by a high court, between 36 and 44 million dollars by NY state government, and we would have it if more of our federal taxes could trickle back down to public schools rather than personnel in Iraq . . . . or if the state were to literally obey the law the court has declared.
Neither is happening . . . .
This is so well said and so true. Globally, we are demonizing the poor while we remove any chances for them to get ahead. We love the poor to fight our never-ending wars. Apple and others with their slave-labor camps like Foxconn in China, keep even the college-educated in suicidal conditions because of the horrendous condition of sweat shops producing their never-ending new models of I-Pads, etc.. The Plutocrats, neo-liberals, neo-cons, New Dems, all of them–care nothing about people–they’re/we’re expendable–and the more their income gap grows larger than ours–generally from stealing from the rest of us–the less they care about the rest of us.
You’re pointing to the blame myth’s most vulnerable element sharsand 2013, when you talk about the Plutocrat’s lack of caring. Paul points out that they wield a mythology of blame, that fear of blame impels our vulnerable people to to join in the attacking and blaming, to avoid being themselves lumped with the disgraced and abused poor. The human mind and heart are hard-wired for empathy and caring, though, and it can realign their allegiance.
We can fight back by militant, public caring. Don’t laugh. Yes, frail old ladies and mild-mannered clergymen should join hands and sing Kumbaya, and when they can did that in front of a truck that was setting out to shut off the water for Detroit’s 90, 000 “delinquent” low-income households, the world heard them. There’s video. Al Jazeera America picked it up:
“We didn’t come out here as a symbolic gesture. This is serious. This is direct action, and it’s only the beginning,” said Elena Herrada, a Detroit school board member and candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives who was arrested during the protest on Thursday. “Nobody is coming to save us. This is what we have to do.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/10/detroit-water-protests.html
And by the end of the day, the victim had become the victor. The residential water shutoff program was suspended last night, and the city will, finally, move against golf courses and businesses whose delinquent accounts have been carried on the backs of the poor.
The Detroit Water Department was forced to address its outrageous discrimination in detail. And now cold reason, and the fire of justice itself, are also brought to bear. Warmth, strength, coherent thought, truth, and power are in the hands of the people’s warriors, and their lawyers at the ACLU.
“Detroit water department now sending shut-off crews to just commercial customers”
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2014307090141
Excellent news! THIS is the kind of thing that people of conscience need to be doing all over the country. There are more of us than there are of them. I’m not saying to build barricades, but we need to speak out, and get our neighbors to speak out. Let’s take back our country.
Thanks, chemtchr – that’s some excellent news in the midst of a whole lot of really bad news.
The best way to help the poor is to allow them to produce things to sell. Some who post here would condemn the worlds poor to lives of misery by preventing them from having the capital to work with or preventing me from being able to buy things that the worlds poor make.
How do you propose they get that capital, TE? Remember, they’re *poor*. They can’t even get jobs, let alone capital.
How about microcredit because that hasn’t been abused or anything.
Diene,
I am the one in favor of getting capital to the worlds poor by allowing things produced in China and Vietnam and Kenya and Banglaesh to be sold around the world.
By the way, the poor around the world almost all have jobs of some sort. They are often low productivity dangerous jobs. People come to work at places like Foxconn because the alternatives, to which poster sharsand2013 would apparently condemn them, are far worse.
Microcredit loans are certainly useful, and help a variety of people. They are most helpful if the richer countries will allow their citizens to buy the things that are produced by citizens in the poorer countries.
You’re using the word “produce” a little loosely then. Produce has a connotation of ownership (the producers of a movie, for instance, are the ones who put up the funding). People who work for Foxconn, etc. don’t really “produce” things; they are employed in the manufacture of things. They exchange their labor for a bare pittance wage while the owners of Foxconn profit (handsomely) from that labor. The owners of Foxconn would more accurately be called the producers in this case.
If you were actually talking about poor people producing and selling things for themselves, I would fully agree. I have purchased quite a number of handcrafted items from Ghana, and my husband and I are in the (very long term) process of setting up an import business for such items, specifically to help poor craftsmen. But that’s a far cry from people being forced to work long hours for meager wages in a factory making cheap junk that undermines manufacturing in this country – that doesn’t really help anyone.
Dienne,
Artisanal production was not what was needed to reduce Chinese rural extreme poverty rates from 51% to 8%. What you don’t seem to understand is that the reason folks work hard for long hours and relatively low pay at Foxxcon is because that is the best option they have. There are 250 million people who have illegally moved to the cities in China in order to get that kind of work. Do you want to force them to move back? Even the Chinese government is not willing to do that.
OK. So, let’s think about this concretely. A tannery in Kanpur, India, hires children as young as 7 or 8 years old to stand in water heavily contaminated with various highly toxic chemicals such as chromium for 12-hour days, seven days a week. The families whose children work in these tanneries feel that they have no choice. If the children don’t work, they starve.
Thousands of miles away, Americans buy cheap wallets from Walmart.
Let me be sure that I am understanding you correctly, TE. You are saying that the only choice is between a) allowing these children to be poisoned and b) allowing them to starve, for regulating the tanneries is not an option. Is that right?
Robert,
There are certainly alternatives for eight year olds that would not involve them dying. If they are female, they might well be married off to an important person in the village or sold into the sex trade. A boy might well head to a local brick factory (you might want to look at the working conditions in those places http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396250/Bangladesh-brick-factories–Millions-workers-face-harsh-conditions.html. Of course, because bricks are not exported, we can say that it is not OUR fault that eight year olds are making bricks, but of course it IS OUR FAULT if we eliminate the alternative places that eight year old could work.
Not exactly answering the question, TE. You seem almost flippant with your answer about children working in deadly conditions. That’s just sick.
Threatened Out West,
Children will be working in deadly conditions if they produce for export or produce for the domestic market. They will just be doing it for longer if you do not allow them to produce for export. That is what is cruel, condemning generation after generation to the extreme poverty that comes with isolation from the rest of humanity.
TE,
You are an isolated, bubbled-up eccentric with no connection to reality but with every connection to ivory tower theory, 2-dimensional text, and internet citation. You mince everything into ersatz intellectual pulp while all the real juice flows by you without you absorbing any of it.
Seek professional help before it’s too late.
Robert,
I of course hoped that you would address my argument rather than making yet another ad hominem attack. Perhaps next time.
My argument is very simple. The folks producing in a country like China are interested in nothing but profits and if you eliminate the profits you will eliminate the production. The folks employed in Foxconn can go back to the rural villages and the rural poverty rate can go back up to 51%.
Please present your alternate prediction of how Chemtchr’s proposal will play out. Will the folks running the factories see the light and offer to pay their employees more than the revenue that the factories create? Perhaps teachers pension funds can cover the losses. I look forward to your explanation of how this all works.
Let’s look again at the truly filthy, mealy-mouthed assertions of fake-fact teachingeconomist just wrote:
“Children will be working in deadly conditions if they produce for export or produce for the domestic market.”
That’s some pre-Dickensian mythology for you, right there. No, by God, they will not.
“They will just be doing it for longer if you do not allow them to produce for export. That is what is cruel, condemning generation after generation to the extreme poverty that comes with isolation from the rest of humanity.”
We’re talking about India here, right? And Bangladesh? That extreme poverty did indeed come from “isolation from the rest of humanity”, and humanity is overdue for extending EVERY definition of human rights to such children, you scum.
We can pass an import regulation right now, that production of commodities elsewhere under contracts for import into the US must be certified for compliance with all US laws for worker protections, environmental regulations, and regulatory oversight. And if Walmart tries to land a cargo without such certification, we can turn the container ship around.
The maximization of profit was presented in Dickens’ own time as an inevitable law of nature. It isn’t. Teachingeconomist, I can’t and won’t hide the contempt and disgust with which i regard your assertions, but I answered them specifically.
My comment below deals with the fundamental struggle between the dignity of human labor and the “law” of maximum profit extraction. If you want to examine new ideas about that, read “Lean Production”
and comment there. Understand, though, if you recommend human trafficking or child labor for export, I will spit on you.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/09/lean-production-whats-really-hurting-public-education/
And if we pass those regulations you will force the vast majority of those people you think you are helping back into subsistence agriculture. There is no better way to guarantee the continued poverty for those you are claiming to help.
How dare you pretend to speak for them?! The workers who sewed your pants together for subsistence wages are speaking for themselves, and they disagree strongly with your false paternalism.
Unions in this country can follow the lead of Europe in siding with our brothers and sisters, who have asked us to negotiate and uphold such import accords. The work is ongoing, and there are upcoming fall events scrolling down the side of the industriALL European Trade Union’s web page.
http://www.industriall-europe.eu/news/list2.asp?stid=101
Chemtchr,
I am not the one dictating the working conditions and wages that you find acceptable from the comfort of the United States. That is your position. I trust that those workers have made the best choice available, and I argue that taking away that choice will in fact make them WORSE OFF. (and actually I am shouting this)
I understand that you mean well, but your position grantees the continued poverty of many in the world.
No actual economist anywhere is saying child labor promotes economic development or benefits any nations. You’re a fraud and a troll, and we are wasting time while you spew ignorance.
Chemtchr,
You need to read my posts with more care. I am not saying that child labor promotes economic development, I am saying that the top down policies you would impose on he exporting industries around the world WILL DO NOTHING to eliminate child labor in a country. They will simply change where the children work, most likely to the detriment of the very children you claim to be helping.
You need to think through your policy proposals. You want every good sold in the US to be produced according to US labor law (does that include US federal or state minimum wage?). That will increase the costs of producing goods around the world so less will be produced and fewer people will be hired in export industries. Those people who have now lost their jobs in the export industries still need to work, so they must find employment in import competing or non traded industries. That flow of workers into these other industries will either 1) force wages down in those industries or 2) result in widespread open unemployment. Your policy will end up making the poor even worse off.
Chemtchr,
You might what to look up some of the facts about child labor. These are from the ILO
1) child labor has declined by 1/3 since 2000
2) the vast majority of child laborers (98 million) work in agriculture. (Here is an article about child labor on US farms: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-agricultural-work-too-dangerous-for-children/)
3) a significant fraction of child laborers work in services (54 million)
4) about 12 million children work in industry, the vast majority of those children in the informal sector (that is small, low productivity workshops that produce for the domestic market).
Slowing the industrialization rate increases child labor.
The reason that child labor has been reduced by 1/3 in the last 15 years is the relative prosperity that globalization has brought to the world. In 1990, 43% of the world’s population consumed less than $1.25 worth of goods and services per day. By 2010 only 21% of the world’s population consumes less than $1.25 worth of goods and services a day. Globally infant mortality rates have declined from 63 per 1,000 live births to 35 per 1,000 live births over that time period. The world is becoming less poor and more healthy because we are all doing a better job of working together.
I don’t disagree with a word of this, but we also need something else more, and it’s been so buried it is almost impossible for us to frame it in out minds.
Our people can actually stop being victims. We can act, we can organize as producers and laborers, to elevate our work and our lives.
We need a new narrative mobilizing people to fight for their livelihoods. We must demonstrate that humanity isn’t helpless before the doom of technological dystopia the oligarchs have wished upon us. Their whole foundational myth is wrong wrong. The deterioration of our human conditions is not the inevitable outcome of all of human technological progress. Our victimization is the result of the obscene power of the 1% to warp production into a profit-extracting machine.
We don’t ave to be marginalized at all. We stand, outcast and starving, amid the wonders WE have made.
So we’ve gone from education-related issues to posting socialist screeds by actual Socialists. I must say, this blog is becoming less and less interesting by the day.
All we need to do to improve education is to change our system of government, our values, and if possible, history.
…not to mention human nature and the space-time continuum. Well, as long as we’re not talking about anything RADICAL…
Really?
The commies are coming, the commies are coming, the commies are coming. . . !!!!
Nuthin like letting your true stripes show there Jack!
The writer is a socialist (Google him) and this is a socialist screed. If stating facts shows my “true stripes,” I’ll wear them with pride. What is your excuse for refusing to accept anything other that euphemisms?
“. . . this is a socialist screed.”
Heaven forbid that one may try to move beyond 20th century social darwinistic capitalism and into the 21st century..
Wear em with pride, Jack!
“What is your excuse for refusing to accept anything other that euphemisms?”
What ‘euphemism’ did I accept??? Please explain.
Apparently, the word “socialism” offends you, even when it is used to describe actual socialism.
As for the rest… I find it amusing to hear talk of needing to move beyond the ideas of the 20th century when the entire economic platform of the left in recent years has been how we can restore the New Deal and the union-heavy 1950s economy. I didn’t even bother refuting any of Thomas’ straw man bluster about not blaming rape victims, etc., etc. because it is so beyond the realm of normal logic. It’s on the intellectual level of a pot-fueled dorm bull session or a gender studies class.
What is “actual socialism”? Is that any different than run of the mill socialism?
Actual socialism, as opposed to “socialism” used generally as a term of denigration.
Jack, I can’t help liking you because your tweets are funny and smart, but you used cliches to avoid engaging the ideas in front of you.
“Socialist screed” blocks you from actually using the word socialist in a meaningful way. Paul’s essay is socialist in general, but it doesn’t meet the definition of screed. You didn’t read it, did you? Because you then tossed out the ultimate empty cliche, “human nature”. Here’s how Paul addresses that in his “screed”
“Humans are equipped to be powerful causation machines: Touching a glowing red-hot coil on an old-school oven re-programs our brains to be wary of the color red, and although the color didn’t burn us, that mechanism is powerful in a dog-eat-dog world.
Our aptitude for making snap causational judgments is problematic against our ability to reason, our scientific minds that form hypotheses, gather evidence, and then form in the cool and calm of deliberation theories of how the world works.
When those two capacities (the causation machine and the scientific reasoning machine) overlapp, however, something important is revealed: Humans have made some terrible causational decisions, historically, for example, about people being sick because they deserved to be sick—some moral flaw brought on the illness was the muddled reasoning of the earliest years of medicine.
Those tragic conclusions can be traced to a paradigm failure: The initial gaze focused on the individual and misreading the conditions found in the individual because the wider context is ignored.”
I disagree that “human nature” is an empty cliche. Definitionally, it’s not a cliche, but fuctionally, it has a useful meaning.
While Thomas may wax philosophical about human nature in one sense, he utterly ignores it in others. In Thomas’ world, good intentions are sufficient to overcome adverse incentives. When bad outcomes result from actions spurred by good intentions, blame must be affixed to external factors. And when designated “victims” of society behave badly, we must never, never conclude that they may be responsible for their own actions. No, it is we — or better yet, some predetermied oppressor — that must be blamed.
For people like Thomas, economics is a moral issue, not a study of incentives. Bad economic outcomes happen, not because of bad incentives, but because someone, somewhere is evil.
” And when designated “victims” of society behave badly, we must never, never conclude that they may be responsible for their own actions. No, it is we — or better yet, some predetermied oppressor — that must be blamed.”
Jack, I can agree that violent gang bangers have to be held responsible for their behavior (although it seems that those who are held responsible for their behavior depends on how much power they wield). This is not to say lesser offenses should be ignored, but I would contend that the conditions under which most young violent offenders were born and live has led to a predictable response that seems to hold true the world around. Poverty and despair are likely to result in violence in one form or another. Does anyone here really believe that it is entirely the fault of the perpetrators? So what should be the response of society? Logic would indicate that we do our damnedest to mitigate the effects of such degradation. Logic would indicate that the costs will be less than those generated by just blaming the “victims.” When those who hold an inordinate amount of power use it to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority of society, logic says that there will be a correction. Do we act while change can be relatively benign, or do we look for scapegoats and wait until despair and anger fuel the response?
2old2teach, I hear you, and I don’t pretend that these issues are always easy. But one certain thing is that when we infantilize people by removing from them moral responsibility for their actions, we guarantee that their bad behavior will not only continue, but will escalate.
I wasn’t just referring to crime, however, but to every aspect of life. We do people no favors by encouraging them to constantly think of themselves as victims of oppressive forces beyond their control.
JT, I picked an easy example to illustrate my point, but I understand your comment about not doing anyone a favor by encouraging victimhood. Sometimes the line between genuine need and hoping someone else will take care of things is blurred. On a very human level it is common. I can handle many tasks I choose to leave to my husband and vice versa. My aunts refused to learn how to milk cows, knowing it would increase their workload exponentially. Drive the tractor, yes. Throw the bales, no. I think you might find this article interesting and somewhat germaine to the discussion:
http://talkpoverty.org/2014/06/27/generational-poverty-exception-not-rule/
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. On second thought….
Jack, how are you defining “Socialist”?
Anything Obama says.
I’m always curious when I hear people use these political terms–Socialist, Libertarian, etc.–what it is that they think they mean by them other than simply generalized disdain. If “Socialism” means “worker ownership of the means of production,” then a school owned and run by its teachers would be Socialist, and that would make Joe Nathan a Socialist. I don’t think that he would call himself that.
Or, by that definition, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan would be a Socialist initiative.
Bob, I’m not referring to the textbook definition regarding state ownership of the means of production, but the more generalized form one could dub paternalistic Utopianism. That is, a quasi-Marxist view of the world which holds that people simply cannot be trusted to make their own decisions under the rule of law. Rather, society should be organized and regulated by an enlighted “thinking class” (people like Thomas, natch) such that all the problems of life are simply designed out of the system. Such a view turns basic economics into a morality play, divides people into “victim” and “oppressor” classes, and views property rights with suspicion, if not downright malice. The fact that Thomas seems to consider himself a socialist is kind of the cherry on top.
You mention a “textbook definition regarding state ownership of the means of production.” That is one definition. “Worker ownership of the means of production” is another, substantially different definition. I share, Jack, your antipathy for “paternalistic Utopianism,” but I hasten to draw your attention to your own use of “under the rule of law.” Law is going to be paternalistic. There is no avoiding that. The question is, what law is acceptable. I would also draw your attention to the fact that it is often possible to design various evils out of a system. Representative democracy was an attempt to design evils out of a system.
The fact is that these terms have come to be nothing more, in most usage, than purely connotative epithets that stop thought cold.
I have never seen socialism defined as “worker-owned means of production,” so I’m not sure where that came from.
Jack, most intellectuals I’ve met in the past few decades who describe themselves as Socialists claim that a) they are opposed to State Socialism, b) that State Socialism was a perversion of the Socialist ideal, and that c) that ideal was worker (as opposed to state) ownership of the means of production.
What are the “means of production” for the 80% of the economy that is services?
“The fact is that these terms have come to be nothing more, in most usage, than purely connotative epithets that stop thought cold.”
And as I said elsewhere, I specifically did not use the term in that manner.
“Law is going to be paternalistic.”
I disagree. Paternalism isn’t simply necessary restrictions on liberty in order to protect the rights of others. It is regulation intended to protect us from making “incorrect” choices. Some degree of paternalism is acceptable to most people (e.g., seat belt laws), but there are those who have no problem with the idea of government regulating almost every aspect of our daily lives in order to (supposedly) engineer a “just” (in their view) society. Problem is, 1) you have to trample people’s natural rights, and 2) nobody is that smart. Centralized control does not work.
“Representative democracy was an attempt to design evils out of a system.”
Not exactly. Rather, it was an attempt to channel and harness those evils, minimizing their poison through a system of checks and balances. The Founders were well aware of human shortcomings and had no illusions about the ability of tyranny to be held at bay by simply trusting the better angels of our rulers’ natures. In addition to its dismissive attitude toward natural rights, the key fallacy of Marxism is its dependence on people NOT acting in their own self-interest or according to their values.
Bob, regarding the “worker-owned means of production,” this sounds to me like the sort of revisionism you hear from true-believers whose system has failed and are now looking for ways to salvage it by claiming that “TRUE [fill in the blank] has never been tried.”
I will only point out that in order to have a system of mandatory worker-owned means of production, there has to be some method of enforcing it, meaning a very strong government. Furthermore, you eliminate perhaps the greatest driver of economic dynamism and prosperity, which is entrepreneurialism. Why should Joe Blow risk his life savings starting a company if he is going to be forced to share ownership with the people he hires? And how, exactly, does one fire a co-owner? For that matter, there is no guarantee that the company founder would even be able to remain in charge since his co-owners might decide to demote him to janitor and use the company profits to send everyone to Hawaii. It’s just a mind-numbing ball of dysfunctionality.
“Worker owned means of production” is exactly what Marx was talking about. You might try actually reading his work before slamming it all the time.
Dienne, Well then that just demonstrates yet again the naevite of Marx.
But given your snide remark, I do have to wonder if you have actually read Free to Choose and Capitalism and Freedom, since you are so down on Milton Friedman.
**naiveté D’oh
Instead of political dialogue, what we have, typically, these days, in the United States is name-calling based on knee-jerk reactions to what are taken as indicators of the camp to which people belong. This sort of thing is accompanied, of course, by the inevitable straw-man versions of others’ positions. The result? Absurdities like right-wingers referring to Obama as a Socialist or left-wingers referring to Ronald Reagan as a Libertarian.
All it takes is one key word to set off the whole of the ridiculous assumption-making. This person supports increasing the minimum wage. Therefore, he or she is a Socialist.
These terms have become so meaningless that it would be a good thing if we banished them from out political discourse altogether.
And one of the reasons that we make NO PROGRESS in our political and economic discussions is that instead of actually having those, we indulge in these shouting matches.
SOCIALIST!!!!
FASCIST!!!!!
And each side argues against a straw-man caricature of the other’s position.
You are totally right, Bob. Labels are a quick way of ending any chance of productive discussion. The language we choose to use can be very powerful. We may not accomplish anything, but we can sure feel like we did!
Two very different definitions:
Noam Chomsky: “Mastery over production by the producers is the essence of socialism” (The Soviet Union Versus Socialism)
Vladimir Lenin: “socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people”
And no, Jack, the definition of Socialism as worker ownership of the means of production is not a new one. It dates to the early 19th century. There are many varieties of Socialism. State ownership in the name of the people is just one of many.
Americans tend to use these terms in unique ways. What the term Socialism meant to Owen or Fourier or Mill is not what it means to Ted Cruz or Sarah Palin.
The answer to that question, TE, depends upon the service, doesn’t it? Teaching, policing, waiting tables, preparing taxes, doing graphic design, editing–these are all services. They differ considerably in the means employed. These means include the bodies and brains of the workers, but they also include facilities and implements and infrastructure shared by other workers such as roads and the internet.
An excellent question, TE. What is your answer to it?
Robert,
I don’t think that the talking about the “means of production” is especially useful in a contemporary economy. As you say, given the huge variety of services done in our economy, does it make sense to talk about a universal like the “means of production”?
Lets take Chomskey’s definition and apply it to teaching. What does it mean for a teacher (the largest single occupation in the United States) to have “mastery” over production? What exactly is the teacher producing? What is the role for the other stakeholders like the students or parents or members of the community (non-producers all) in whatever you think we are producing in schools?
I think that what Chomsky is referring to is simply worker ownership and decision making, TE. And yes, it makes more sense to talk in those terms.
If we are talking about education, what role should consumers have? Should they be allowed to reject what the producer desires to produce or are consumers stuck with what they are assigned to consume?
If teachers are given a great deal of autonomy, then there will be enormous diversity in a PreK-16 education.
Teachers will never be given that freedom unless there is a corresponding freedom for parents and students to have the freedom to choose teachers. As long as students are assigned to schools and teachers, teachers will be regulated.
TE, a few short decades ago, we had a lot of site-managed schools in this country, and within those schools, there was a lot of diversity in approach among teachers. The degree of autonomy in such schools depended a great deal on their administrators. Some left curricular and pedagogical decisions to their teachers. Some were very authoritarian. A mixed bag.
We’ve seen over the past forty years a dramatic centralization of authority. First, independently managed schools were increasingly managed by their district offices. Then they came to be increasingly dictated to by state departments of education. And now we have the USDE attempting to do a lot of micromanagement and to establish a Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
Clearly, consumers should have choices. In the town that I was raised in, which had a population at the time of about 70,000, the public school system included a traditional high school, a highly academic university lab school, a small, teach-and-student-led alternative school, and a vocational-technical school. The offerings evolved to meet the needs of differing students.
I am glad to see you supporting the idea of student choice of schools. I don’t see how your goals for education can be achieved without allowing students to choose a school.
I have never argued against allowing students (and their parents and guardians) to choose their schools, TE.
Robert,
It is true that you have never argued against it, but you have also never argued in favor of it. I have always found that puzzling given that school choice by students is I think required for building autonomy.
Bob, I have a feeling that it is a mistake to start talking about education in business friendly terms. You lose too much of the narrative that is important in arguing for a public system of schools.
I think it extraordinarily important that there be flexibility and choice and experimentation and diversity in educational offerings. Kids differ, and important innovation occurs and people are more motivated when there are conditions of reasonable autonomy.
The wisest leader I’ve ever encountered in educational publishing once told his assembled staff, “I’ve been enormously successful for many decades. You might wonder what the secret to my success has been. Well, I’m going to tell you. I find people who are smarter than I am at what they do, and then I get the hell out of their way.”
Robert,
That would not seem to address the issue at hand. If producers are to be given full control of what is to be produced and how it is produced, must consumer simply take what they are given by the producers?
I would not, however, dismiss so lightly the concept of the means of production, even in a services economy like that of the United States. Consider, for example, graphic design or editorial work. This seems awfully far removed from manufacturing. But is it, really? Publishing, like every other industry, has become increasingly concentrated in a few hands. As this has happened, real wages for editors and designers has plummeted, while the earnings of executive-level managers has skyrocketed. The publishing houses typically do not own manufacturing facilities or distribution facilities, but it’s their capital on which these depend.
Publishing is not more concentrated. How many read this blog for example? You have access to a far greater variety of “published” work today than ever in history. If you want more editors, make Dr. Ravitch produce the blog in a physical publication.
I think we are entering an age where it is workers who hire capital, not capital hiring workers. What means of production does Apple own? How about Microsoft? A few things, but Apple is primarily a group of workers that hires capital when needed. Amazon makes a great deal of money offering to rent capital to anyone who needs it.
TE, the education publishing industry has never been more concentrated than it is today. Once there were dozens of competing publishers of textbooks and texts books. A decade ago, after the big ones gobbled up the little ones or little ones folded, there were only four. Today, there are two, possibly three: Pearson, McGraw-Hill.
Publishing on paper has never been more irrelevant that today.
TE, that may be true for you, but I am very proud of the books I have written. They will survive long after this blog is forgotten.
Maybe what you meant is that what you publish on paper is meaningless. Give us your name and we will judge you by your works.
Your books will survive, but they will be printed just in time (if they are printed at all. Why warm the planet and cut down trees to drive information around?) and preserved as digital files.
You might be interested in this: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/14/self-publishing-mainstream-genre-fiction
Give us your name, TE, so we can understand why you think your written works are meaningless.
Mine are not. They have far greater power than social media because there is room in 300 pages to develop arguments.
Dr. Ravitch you clearly need to read my posts again. Nowhere did I say written words were meaningless. What I said is that the written word has been democratized. No longer must you own a newspaper or convince a publisher that your work has merit.
There are no kindle editions of your books? Perhaps Lloyd would like to join in and defend his self published book My Splendid Concubine as having meaning despite it being self published.
This is what you wrote:
“Publishing on paper has never been more irrelevant that today.”
I say nonsense.
My books are available on Kindle.
I don’t read books on Kindle.
I like to hold them, touch them, underline them. When I lose my place in a Kindle, I never find it again.
Give us your name. I want to see why you feel your written works are meaningless. I am sorry for you. Mine are not.
I was talking about the PRINTED word, not the WRITTEN word.
A blog is not a textbook or a K-12 program.
No, but this is part of a K-12 curriculum:http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/
TE, in educational publishing, in trade publishing, in print journalism, and in broadcast journalism, there are now far fewer owners. These are highly concentrated. Let’s consider K-12 educational publishing, which is the industry that I know best. When I started in that industry, the market was highly fragmented among many, many companies. Now, there are basically four that control it. Previously separate companies–McDougal, Holt, Scott Foresman, Allyn and Bacon, etc., are now IMPRINTS of the big four. One of these big four controls the lion’s share of the market. Yes, there are digital alternatives, but if it’s revenue-generating, the chances are good, these days, that its controlled by some monopolistic entity.
Bob, why can’t socialism be on a spectrum?
If the definition being used is worker ownership of the means of production, then it could indeed be on a spectrum. But again, there have been hundreds of leaders and theorists of various political groups who have called themselves Socialists while espousing very different systems, and in general, when people use the term, they haven’t a clue what they are talking about. In the United States it is typically used by the right as a general term of denigration that is well-nigh meaningless.
Bravo. It’s so much easier to see the world through rose-colored glasses. I hope that there are still people who can think on their own. With all the reform being shoved down my throat I feel as if real, independent thinking isn’t valued any more. I also hope that we as a nation don’t hit the point that the general population realizes what’s going on after we’re all cooked frogs and can’t change anything.
Francis Bellamy , Norman Thomas and Upton Sinclair were socialists and they were patriotic, good and freedom loving Americans who were or would have been appalled at the socialism practiced in the USSR, China or Cuba. Democratic socialism is not against free enterprise and capitalism; it is against the kind of capitalism in the US today which practically controls the government and dictates the laws being enacted. Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist and is in favor of the kind of socialism practiced in Norway, Denmark or Finland, not Cuba, North Korea or the former USSR. I guess people forget that when Social Security was being proposed the usual suspects said that it would lead to socialism, loss of freedom and tyranny. Just the kind of things Jack Talbot would have said if he were alive in the early 1930s.
The myths about the inferiority of the poor and the superiority of the rich are all tied in with myths about wisdom, knowledge, and enlightenment of the few graduates, while those who haven’t endured the ritual twelve year processing through the formal education machine and submitted themselves to getting their heads filled up with the stuff that the educational gurus dispense are presumed to be ignorant and somehow pathetically lacking. The mission is to save them from their ignorance. Likewise, doing one’s time in the “educational” system is just one aspect of becoming worthy of the status of citizen and one of the rugged inddividualists. Students may hate their lives and feel like prisoners, and they WILL be blamed if they fail to “learn” and take advantage of the god-inspired curriculum, but as with the “Stockholm Syndrome”, they finally come to love their persecutors and masters.
However, ignorance is on the rise and it affects more graduates than those who have opted out by whatever means available or necessary. Ignorance on the part of some is perfectly understandable. Some people have simply not had the opportunity to become informed, aware, educated, or experienced. But willful ignorance when knowledge is readily available is quite inexcusable. When I grew up ignorance was still something to be ashamed of and one was expected to do one’s best to rectify the lack of knowledge and information, with only the exception of a few backward, uber-religious, or anti-intellectual types.
Now, however, people all around are proud of their abject ignorance. They are like sheep following the shepard, blindly. The shepards are charismatic but guileless people on the talking box and in various places, such as the comedians and entertainers on the Fox Nusiance Channel and on talk radio. They are often actually proud of their ignorance, even though it is proof of cowardice and intentional disengagement from the world around them, unless learning some new misinformation, rumor, or conspiracy theory can reinforce the fears and myths to which they cling so desperately. The fear-mongers and xenophobic haters that scream from bully pulpits on talk radio and TV know exactly how to incite their paranoid fears and their latent anger.
The one common denominator for all of these nervous and often neurotic people is the schooling process. The schooling process in the US is inherently anti-intellectual and knowledge-limiting. The institution MUST always be primarily focused on its own perpetuation and preservation. The expansion of knowledge and the liberty that it is associated with are inevitably threats to the established order, to convention, tradition, and authority. Indeed, the system in place is thoroughly authoritarian, since it relies on compulsory attendance laws for its for its existence and captive audience, which laws are fully enforceable and nearly all-powerful.
There are many great teachers, of course. But inept and hostile teachers have a haven there where discipline is god, obedience is foremost, rigid rule-following, memorization, and approved dogma and doctrine are the things that drive the system. Student initiative, autonomy, and exploration are threats, and intellectual inquiry and authentic debate are anathema. It HAS to be a closed system and knowledge has to be dispensed in a completely controlled manner. Those adults in the field who think of children as uncivilized young savages in need of their strict control and “guidance” will always have a strong influence and cling to their paternalistic (or punitive) philosophy, regardless of the stated philosophy of the administrators.
One hears endless claims that the primary mission of the school is to teach critical thinking, but the contradiction is in the words. Critical thinking cannot be taught in the traditional sense, if in any sense. Critical thinking inexorably leads to critical actions and attitudes and a determined push back against arbitrary authority. A school hierarchy that derives its very structure from laws that compel attendance and from a slew of derivative laws necessary to support the attendance requirement and the state’s role cannot possibly allow that sort of push back once it is taken seriously by any student, or by any teacher or parent, for that mater. In reality, true intellectual growth and development are therefore foreign and forbidden.
OK. New here. Don’t bother calling me names. Frankly, I don’t care. There has always been, and will always be hardship and heartbreaking conditions for people. We seem to be ignoring fate. If I am born into one family, life is sweet…. another….. I’m standing in toxic water tanning hides. If I waived a magic wand and made all living conditions equal for all people, it would last about an hour. There would then be theft, violence, war and slavery. We are human, therefore, we are greedy. Is this blog about education? Because, honestly, we aren’t doing our kids one bit of good, name calling and whining about who is a victim and who is not. Get real folks. You know the answer our kids get in public schools? Run a football and shoot a basketball, and you can get a scholarship! Can we please address the reality of crappy public education before we try to create a new economic philosophy? This all sounds like classic intellectualized bull. And for the writer that is marketing product made in a developing country as a way to “help” them…. I am laughing out loud! You’re selling those at a profit, aren’t you? And if they were made by more expensive labor, you would not be half as successsful…. so theoretically, aren’t you helping them just enough to keep them from starving….. so they can keep supply you? I mean, this is all comical to me. Okay… let the name calling begin!
” . . . crappy public education . . . . “?
Are you sure?
On what basis, Eric?
Eric… Can you define ‘crappy public education’ in comparison to anything better? I went through the ‘really crappy’ public school system. I worked in both ‘crappy public’ schools and private school for rich kids. You know what? My teaching colleagues that were involved in ‘crappy public education’ were at least as bright, motivated, well prepared and effective as those in the private schools for rich kids.
Still, I felt more productive (effective) in Independent schools. Why? a CLASS SIZE that ranged from eight to eighteen (in High School). It was heaven for a teacher (assuming one had the backing of a strong headmaster and had earned respect from a number of influential parents, thus giving de facto tenure).
But, getting back to your comment about ‘crappy public education’, exactly what is your evidence for your assessment? I think you are buying into a myth and selling yourself short (assuming you are a public school teacher, of course.. If not, then you are casting aspersions without any personal experience). There is NO evidence to date that American public education is any crappier than any other system. In fact, there is some evidence that our public education is the best system in the world (consider our economic and cultural influence in the world as a result of the middle-class graduates from our public education system).
PS … I agree with most of your points, but not all (‘We are human, therefore we are greedy’ for example, invites reams of discussion of what you mean by ‘human’, what you mean by ‘greedy’ [are the concepts independent?], and whether you feel that the degree of ‘greediness’ is the same for all ‘humans’. Are those who are less greedy less human?) Please don’t feel compelled to write those reams in response, however they might make a good paper.
Hi Eric and welcome aboard!
I am proud of my crappy public school background. I am a graduate of a public university as well. I teach in a public elementary school and a public community college.
I have always thought that public education was America’s greatest gift. My grandparents arrived here a little more than one hundred years ago. Some of my grandparents were more literate than others. Their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have pursued many diverse education and career paths. While some have been privileged to attend private institutions, the first generation learned English and became Americans due to the efforts of public educators in New York and Vermont. I am heartbroken to consider that in the future Americans may be deprived of its greatest democratic institution.
@ Barry Eliot:
“But inept and hostile teachers have a haven there where discipline is god, obedience is foremost, rigid rule-following, memorization, and approved dogma and doctrine are the things that drive the system. Student initiative, autonomy, and exploration are threats, and intellectual inquiry and authentic debate are anathema.”
Was this your personal experience of school, Barry? Did you go to a public school? Where?
Bob,
I went to a consolidated school in upstate NY which was regarded as top-notch. Graduated with Regent’s diploma in 1959. I had some great teachers, and some that I remember with great affection. But, then, as today, there were also those teachers who had disdain for students if they did not look up to them as gods or wizards and for whom discipline, rule-following, “order”, quiet, and subservience on the part of students was the primary focus. Even the teachers who were less rigid and authoritarian risked real trouble if they didn’t send a message that attention was to be directed front-and-center at all times. My point is that these things are built into the framework under which all schools operate, except for certain temporary or highly restricted “experimental” schools that are tokens of liberty and autonomy. The way they get built-in is via the compulsory attendance laws, which necessitate an authoritarian hierarchy and bureaucracy. People who see knowledge as material to be dished out by technocratic or academic experts and those who do not see children as real people deserving of dignity and respect are attracted to institutions where the law stands to back up their hostile and cynical philosophy. It has been ever thus. DR and others can speak in glowing terms about the wonders of public schooling and reminisce about how much they learned from great scholars whom they loved, and we can all be grateful that we don’t live in a thrid-world country, but millions of kids have found their classes uninspiring and even oppressive and many have failed in myriad ways thanks to conditions that would be so much better without the laws that deny the freedom of choice. The Commor Core is just the regular curriculum on steroids. A curriculum that isn’t organically grown by the teacher defeats the purpose. Teaching is in fact a defective concept. If you start out with the idea that you are going to teach someone, you have already shot yourself in the foot. But, there is no time here for a refresher course in neuroscience, or for that matter, for a course in basic educational theory ala Dewey, Tolstoy, Hotl, Goodman, etc., etc.
I am interested in your comment that
“Teaching is in fact a defective concept. If you start out with the idea that you are going to teach someone, you have already shot yourself in the foot.”
One thing that I try to communicate to my students, explicitly and in the organization of the work that we do, is that learning is not something that they undergo but something that they undertake, that it is something that they choose to do, not something that is done to them. It’s extremely important to recognize and reward intrinsic motivation and to make it clear that one is doing so.
Spoken as a true Marxist.
Government is the problem, and cronyism, starting with the Federal Reserve.
Jack, look at reality. We are told we need more stem graduates, yet over half of our engineers are jobless. We are told that if we work hard and are honest we will prosper, yet jobs are outsourced and people loose there homes while the company profits go up. The current model is not working. We can keep doing the same things over and over, but why? It is time to look at other ideas. I admire my son. His small town has started an employee owned supermarket. The local farmers sell their produce without a middleman, the prices are competitive, and everyone shares the profits. Management invests what is needed into the business to help maintain solvency for the future. Yes, this is a bit socialistic, but for the Christian right wing, I would remind them, Christ was a bit of a socialist too. I consider myself, a former member of the hard right wing, socialistically inclined. No one succeeds completely on their own. We can do better if we share. To those that do not care, I would point out that one day you will be unable to work, you will be old, and you may be sick. What do you want your future to be? I want to be part of a society that values people and strives to maintain their dignity regardless of their wealth. My faith demands as much of me.
You raise several points…
First of all, I don’t see anything at all socialistic about an employee-owned supermarket. That’s a great idea and one that was available as an option in our free-market economy. There are lots of employee-owned companies, and as long as they are set up so that they can be managed effectively, they are often successful.
Second, I agree with you that many things we take for granted are breaking down, but this does not imply the need for a whole new system. What we in America think of as “normal” has actually been a very short (in historical terms) and unprecedented period of technological and economic growth that has disproportionately benefitted the countries with political systems liberalized enough to take advantage of it. Looked at objectively, there is no reason to believe that such a condition could be maintained forever.
There is a recurring theme in history and literature that goes something like this: New thing is discovered that makes life wonderful; new thing then destroys everyone. Whether it’s the evil children of a great king, or a mogwai, same story.
The technology that made our lives better is now taking our jobs. The communications and transportation systems which brought us closer together now allow enormous concentrations of wealth, power, and control in the hands of government and business. For those who are more cut out for or simply prefer to work with their hands rather than their minds, there are fewer jobs to be had. Yes, these are huge problems.
But the “solution” offered by those who say we need a “new way” generally involves putting EVEN MORE power in the hands of government, particularly unaccountable regulators and bureaucrats. And this, in turn, is leading to rent-seeking and crony capitalism on a massive scale. Government isn’t regulating business — the two are joining together into a grotesque Hydra.
I don’t know what the “solution” is. But what I can say is this: I stand with the Enlightenment thinkers in the belief that we are endowed by our Creator with natural, inalienable rights. I believe in the consent of the governed. And I believe that free people acting (lawfully) in their own best economic interests will always beat a planned, micromanaged economy. I do not believe that there is any person or any group of people so smart that they can run the lives of 300 million people. So I will stand on those principles and will oppose any plan that tramples them.
“First of all, I don’t see anything at all socialistic about an employee-owned supermarket.”
Then once again you show that you really don’t understand socialism. It’s really not about the big, bad, gubmint. You really should try reading it sometime.
As for Friedman, I haven’t read his books, but I’ve read a few of his essays. His error seems to be mistaking freedom for being left alone. Leaving things to their own devices is not, of course, freedom because the powerful will inevitably dominate the weak. True freedom is attaining one’s fullest potential, which can really only be done by working cooperatively with others. Capitalism inspires an “I’m in it for myself” mentality which makes collaboration and cooperation very difficult.
I don’t think that Friedman thought that freedom was simply just being left alone. He was an early advocate of a universal minimum income, for example.
Left alone in terms of government regulations. As if, unregulated, capitalism would just regulate itself to the benefit of all.
I do not believe that there is any person or any group of people so smart that they can run the lives of 300 million people.
I emphatically agree.
Anyway, nice chatting with you. Have to go get the kids now.
This sounds very like a co-op model that seems to be more prevalent in rural areas. The difference might be in the amount of management the members are able to employ and the amount they take on among the membership.
As the saying goes, “We are too soon old, and too late smart”. Faith or no Faith, people are social animals. The Gospels present Jesus as a VERY much a socialist (if you define ‘socialist’ as someone who promotes the welfare of everyone in a society using a somewhat top-down organization). Isn’t is odd that so many people who call themselves “Christian” totally ignore the Sermon on the Mount?
If I wanted to call myself a ‘Buddahist”, I would try to emulate the life of Siddhartha and follow his teachings (instruction). If I called myself a ‘Marxist”, I would certainly have read some of his works, taken them to heart and agreed with their logic. But “Christians” (at least here, in my red State) seem to be almost ignorant of the instructions that were purportedly given by Jesus. They certainly see no need to follow them.
The essence of modern Christianity seems to be: Believe Jesus is some God (the same as a singular God, but different, for a time) and you will be “saved” (i.e., you can do anything, and still enter the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’). I’m not sure that’s the message I get from the Gospels.
As the brother of Jesus said, “Faith without works is dead”.
Anyway, I wish we could sit down over a cup of coffee. I’m a STEM product, but chose to continue an academic career (much more rewarding, not monetarily, of course).
@ Barry Eliot:
“But inept and hostile teachers have a haven there where discipline is god, obedience is foremost, rigid rule-following, memorization, and approved dogma and doctrine are the things that drive the system. Student initiative, autonomy, and exploration are threats, and intellectual inquiry and authentic debate are anathema.”
Was this your experience of school, Barry? Did you go to a public school? Where?
Paul Thomas, thank you for this wonderful and refreshing way to look at what’s happening in American education. Thank you Diane for sharing with all of us. I absolutely love the references to our Superman culture and how we should become more an Xmen culture. I was always a Marvel Comics fan.