Summer Job

This past summer was my third year to work as a lifeguard at a local pool close to my house. I've been with three different pool companies each summer, the most recent being Greater Nashville Pool Management Company. Having worked at this pool longer than any other guard that applied this summer, I was appointed the position of Head Lifeguard, that is, the lifeguard in charge of all the others. I had to do many other extra tasks that the other lifeguards weren't responsible for, yet I did get paid more than the others.
In Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman, the author discusses the concept of division of labor. This involves the separation of the conception of tasks from the execution of the actual tasks. I would say that my job as head lifeguard followed Braverman's outline of the workplace fairly well. I was in charge of making sure tasks were carried out. In doing so, I assigned various jobs to the other lifeguards daily yet I myself did not always participate. I would be considered Braverman's "professional" and the other lifeguards "nonprofessionals." For example, we had to check chlorine levels hourly. I usually kept tabs on what the level was at so that it could be adjusted accordingly. If I observed the level was too high, I would send another lifeguard to turn down the chlorinator. If I observed the level was too low, I would send another lifeguard to add shock to the deep end. This agrees with the first Taylorist principle "dissociation of the labor process from the skills of the workers" in the reading. Also, our labor was divided in that I assigned different tasks to different guards based on my knowledge of what they were able to do. This agrees with Braverman's description of "division of labor in detail." It is interesting how my summer job parallels Braverman's take on jobs.

Prejudiced Schweickart Stuff

Schweickart's article does serve to make several good points about capitalism, namely showing the numerous people laying in the wake of capitalist idealists, but his arguments seem to stretch numbers and ignore some of human tendencies that make capitalism the best option in my views. The main metaphor that Schweickart uses is the idea of what a carnival would look like if everyone's size was determined relative to their income. This did serve to illustrate how very top heavy America's economy is in today's modern world, but this doesn't always have to be a negative factor for capitalism. Sure, as a small 2-3 foot member in this parade it wouldn't really seem fair that any one person could amass the miles high status that Bill Gates enjoys, but is it really such a problem that the capitalist system allows someone to do well providing that they have the skills to do so. As prejudice or "White man's Burden-esque" it may sound, I believe that if you possess the means to make money you really shouldn't be penalized or carry a guilty conscience for making the most of it. The tax system in the United States is harsh enough in my opion with the 35% at its highest reaches. I'm sure I'm sounding bigoted now, but I believe that if you're making that much money either you or your ancestors were skilled enough to deserve it, and it is your duty to give charitably enough to help out the lower classes. While not all of the lower classes deserve their poverty in any way shape or form, I'm a firm believer that anyone who tries hard enough can get ahead in life. Everyone in my family has at some point lived at or near the poverty line and through the virtue of hard work we've made ourselves to the position that they are at now.

The Ethics

Ethics is a theory that connects with proposes of action and argument that means for our thinking. I think ethics is not associate with the facts or human physical but ethics is one of moral philosophy which relate to the action and human think. According to the Gordon Hull, the foundation of ethics is related to two main aspects which are consequences and deontology. The consideration in ethics, individuals not just analysis on their actions is correct or wrong but they should analysis in their characters which can be wrong or right. For example, one person attempted to safe a woman from stealing by the robbers. He was fought against the robbers without thinking about his safety. Finally, he was killed by the robbers but the woman ran away from the incident place.

The action that had taken by that man should be proud because he sacrificed his life for other person's life. It is difficult to believe that he wishes to sacrifice himself because he can think that he might die if he just only one person fighting with many robber. Fortunately, we can understand that he has some self-interest characteristic to help another people although he did not gain any benefit from sacrifice his life. As we were learned in class before, he may have some 'ethical utilitarianism' characteristic that he felt very proud about himself to do some happiness in general. What can you imagine if everyone in the world has egoism? Of course, there is not happiness in our lives and lead the unethical behavior widespread in the world.

What is the important thing that leads a life of virtual and ethical? I think that the person who has wisdom because he or she know that what visions or goal that his or her can achieve. A person who has wisdom will control his or her emotion very well while show the suitable balance in reasoning, feeling, and desire. The wisdom behavior is very important to relate with the freedom and right of mankind. The ability to make sensible decisions and judgments based on the personal knowledge and experience will preserve every human right and freedom if everyone has this character.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a documentary that explores the EV1 electric car created by General Motors in the early 90s. The clip we watched in class about this film angered me very much. Why would perfectly well-working cars be destroyed? The EV1 car was introduced in the 1990s and was made available to lease in Southern California. It worked great and everyone who used it was very satisfied. Soon after its production, all of the EV1 cars were taken and destroyed. The film makers tracked down camps where these cars were being destroyed. The people who worked at the different car lots where the cars were destroyed were very vague about why the cars were destroyed in the first place. Capitalists believe that useful things are not necessarily produced if they do not produce capital. Though this holds true for those interested in earning money, what about the people of the world concerned with saving fossil fuels and being smart about their spendings? What a waste it is to destroy these electric cars! Capitalism makes production all about the profit and not about the quality. Apparently General Motors was concerned about the oil and car industries decrease if the electric car was manufactured and produced. General Motors also argued that there was not a high demand for the electric car, though the film shows that GM never responded to EV1 drivers' offers to pay the 1.9 million release value for the car. It seems unfair that large businesses have so much impact and control over simple things such as why we drive the cars we drive.

Schweickart and Inequality

Schweickart’s take on capitalism begins with a look at the “facts.” He uses the clever analogy of a parade where each person’s height is related to his or her income. He notes that the distribution of wealth is much more unequal than the distribution of income, but his point is striking nonetheless. His analogy really highlights the problem with inequality. He shows that millions of households are below the average income level with many of those even under the poverty line. These people are very short, and they make up the bulk of the parade. In order to stress the inequality of income in America, he then speaks about the super wealthy. These people are very few in number, but they tower over the majority in height. Some of these people are earning $50,000-$100,000 per hour, five to ten more than others earn in a full year. Bill Gates stands 90 miles high, making it hard to argue that there isn’t a huge income gap between the wealthy and the poor who stand only a foot off the ground. Schweickart’s message is hard-hitting because he doesn’t call for a radical answer. He doesn’t suggest that inequality should be completely erased. His point makes sense because he says that inequality is not a problem in itself, it is only a problem because it is so extreme in nature. I tend to agree with him in that something should be done to decrease the income and wealth gap if possible, but on the other hand my conservative nature forces me to consider the alternative. The people at the end of the parade not only fuel our economy [insert jab about raising capital gains taxes], but they are also some of our nations great philanthropists. Bill Gates has donated billions to charity, and while he may be something of an exception, it might be in the best interest of our capitalist economy to not seek a way to redistribute wealth in any radical form.

Consumer Fettishism

I found today’s discussion on capitalism very interesting. I have always accepted capitalism as the norm and had not really considered other alternatives, however, the idea that people serve capitalism instead of capitalism serving people is definitely worth thinking about. We discussed the negative effects of capitalism and profit-seeking on consumers, workers, the environment, animals, health, equality, and unemployment and via the Pollan readings and class discussions, it does seem that capitalism certainly influences all of the above. However, what is the most disturbing is what we talked about today, specifically what lies behind the products that we desire to fulfill our “needs.” This brings back an idea from Wheen’s discussion on Marxism and what Marx called “consumer fetishism.” The idea is that pure capitalism fails because it does not account for people’s extreme desire for commodities like the iPhone or iPod. When we consider the amount of labor, exploitation, and suffering that goes into making these products, do we really need these luxuries? Is it worth it? At first glance, the answer may be yes, they’re a lot of fun. I know that I personally own tons of things that I certainly don’t need. But when we consider the implicit cost of such items, especially of something like diamonds, the answer clearly should be “no.” At the risk of sounding cliché, our society has simply trained and convinced us to believe that we do need these things. The scary thing is that, while we may not know the human costs to items like clothing and corn, the horrors of the diamond trade have been public knowledge for years, yet we continue to desire them. The companies that exploit low wage workers argue that they do it to compete with their competitors, but the truth is that we as consumers control the fates of those workers.

Klein on the Discarded Factory

Today, many of the multinational companies are competing together to in their business to do 'profit- marking'. Brand is basically refers to the famous products that usually manufacture by the multinational company. John Ermatinger, president of Levi Strauss Americans division explain that " Our strategy plan in North America is to focus intensely on brand management, marketing, and product design as meet the casual clothing wants and need of consumers". This explain why their company's decision to shut down twenty-two plants and lay off 13, 000 North American workers between November 1997 and February 1999. This is one of example of big company just focus on the needs of their brands, as opposed the need of their workers. They signify their plants to research the new places in the world to expand their company. The profit-making that that put out by the capitalism encourages the owner to make the 'M-C-M' which is surplus- value in gain more money from the commodity. Where they right for workers to get some income for their daily life? Why only the some class of person refer to the rich people like the owner of the company gain all the profit but the worker just only fulfill their necessary needs? I am not thinking that the profit is not necessary for the industrial and business but these will diminish other person right. The companies have a power to control and interfere with the liberty of workers because the political economy regard to the capitalism philosophy state that the government should have minimum function in the economy field. The ' free-market' concept is used to build competition between human to develop their business with a little government regulation. According to Hospers on the concept of libertarian freedom, government just acts as protector of the citizen against aggression by other individual. Then, what about the monopoly of company to their workers? Is the government not having a power to protect other person's freedom to work? I do not agree with the concept of political economy by capitalism because the natural rights are more important than political rights. Refer back to the Klein, more factory closure each week and 45000 U.S apparel workers lost their jobs in 1997 alone.

The modern technology also influent in reduce the right of people especially the workers. Brand-name multinational company like Nike, Champion, IBM and Levi's not interested in budgeting for labor but focus on the innovation and marketing the huge number of their product in the worldwide. We can see many of factory use almost machines and tools to create and assemble the products. The products will become "surplus and low prices" affected the uses of technology in industrial. Of course, logically the manufactures and people both gain benefits from this condition. So, what about the workers who will lose their job because the companies want to open the new factory in the other countries which the rate of wage for workers is very low? Absolutely, people will not have their right to buy the stuffs which are very necessary in their lives. The modern technology is seemed to reduce the natural right of people to carry out activities. I become worry if the lower classes of people in the world will not have any job because almost the manufacture factory use these modern machines and tools to assemble their product.

Refer to the journey by Klein to the Rosario in Philippines, there have a place called Cavite Export Processing Zone which one of the free-trade zone in the world. At there, all the multinational companies build their factory which cause will cause Rasario, the town's busy. By the way, the Rosario has all the problems of industrial such as air pollution and the river sewage. So, how about the responsibility of people toward the preserve of environment? It is unethical for company to development their industrials while at the same time destroy and pollute the environment. Human should think and study about the ecological logic before do any actions that connect to the non-living thing.