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.

Hopsers on Libertarian Freedom

Hospers had some interesting ideas on libertarianism. He says that everyone has the right to act as they want as long as they don't hinder others from acting as they want. This sounded fair enough to me as I read his article, and made me want to read more. Next he goes on to state that the only proper role of the government in our nation is as "protector of the citizen against aggression by other individuals." A minimal "watchman" government sounded great to me. I can think of times that I've seen on the news when the government seems to have crossed this borderline. The idea that the government should only protect people from harm and not interfere in their lives in any way seemed catchy at first thought. Another interesting point that Hospers brings up is the question of why some are taxed to provide for others. If an individual works hard and makes a good living as a result of his work, why should he have to provide for another person? Hospers supports an economic "free-market" system, with little or no government regulation. These ideas, though simple, seemed to make perfect sense.
After discussion in class, a new outlook on these ideas entered my mind. What would things be like in Hospers' world? Right now, the government regulates many different aspects of our lives. Could we possibly survive without all of this regulation? The government regulates roads, water treatment, schools, hospitals, law, and infrastructure, just to name a few things. Without these regulations, I don't think we could possibly be a civil and functioning nation. Having everything privately owned by separate businesses would call for competition and in turn corruption. The government regulates from an unbiased point of view, and if everything were to be privately owned, different intentions of big businesses would be inevitable. The quality of the now government-regulated entities would in turn decrease in an unregulated, capitalistic world.

X MarX the spot

Our recent discussion of Marxism and the general analysis of capitalism have really opened my eyes to some of the less talked about and negative aspects of capitalism. While I do agree with the majority of Marx's analysis of modern society, it seems that some of his logical progressions can not quite go forward in our current state of affairs. However, his view of the violent capitalist cycle hit pretty close to home. I had always seen my dad come in after work, constantly tired from working his ass off in a constant battle to sell the most ads, develop the newest gimmick to get the most page views, or cut the unneeded workers all in the strive to make his newspaper the most profitable possible. No matter how well the paper was doing, he would always push for more profit. Marx's analysis of our money driven economy seems to be incredibly accurate. In our modern world, everything seems to boil down to how to make the most profit, how to get the biggest market share or how to get ahead of the curve. Until now I never saw the need to put out this much effort to revise an already profitable newspaper, but without constant upgrading and growth a company simply can't exist for long in today's market.


All this said and done, Marx did seem to hit the nail right on the head in his analysis but his ideas regarding revision seem a little idealistic. To do anything but capitalism in today's society would require an incredible overhaul of both government and social hierarchy. This is where the communist association seems to taint his ideas, as it is almost impossible to think of governmental overhaul and Marxism without thinking of the U.S.S.R. 's attempts on the subject. While the goal might be good in attempting to move our economy in a C-M-C style, doing so would be incredibly difficult without power somehow sliding into the wrong hands. No matter how corrupt capitalism seems to be at times, the alternative could land us in a lot more trouble. As negative as the constant dog eat dog profit search may seem, it does provide a clear goal, and goals tend to make my life easier. I could live with a constant profit search as my life goal, it is better than a goal of survival.

Intersting Points on Marxism

After today’s class discussion I decided to go back and re-listen to the radio interview on Marx and write about some of the things I found interesting. I didn’t know much about Marx beyond the Communist Manifesto, so I found a lot of his points worth writing down. First, I liked Wheen’s description of Marxism as a way of trying to understand the world through questioning everything, not as a set way of doing things. He described it as a descriptive idea rather than a prescriptive idea and even though communism as a prescriptive idea failed, Marx’s ideas are still very applicable and can be used to question any system. I also liked Marx’s descriptions of capitalism. After thinking about it for a while, describing capitalism as a system of “creative destruction” seems surprisingly fitting. The need for competition to constantly increase production and efficiency within organizations while at the same time seeking to destroy competition to increase market share is a very interesting view on the inherent instability of a capitalist society. Finally, I wanted to comment on the capitalism as Frankenstein idea. I thought it was a very interesting, albeit simplified and abstract, concept. Wheen described Marx’s view on capitalism as a monster created by humans that has come to life through the form of commodities. In the process, the humans are reduced to the level of simple machines of production and the objects become more “human” than the workers. The thought that capitalism was created by humans and is now out of our control and destructive seems especially significant now, given the current state of our market. Greed and the constant drive for profit led to subprime loaning and subsequently the debt crisis that is responsible for the mess that our economy is in.

Corn

I found it interesting that in all his discussion of corn, corn as actual fuel is never mentioned. My dad used to work for BP and Amaco. It always amazed him that people thought they were helping the environment by buying fuel made from corn. Looking at the overall inputs, it is more energy intensive and expensive to make fuel from corn that it is from refinement of oil. It strips the soil of natural resources and produces less energy. I wonder if this is the same grade corn (2) discussed in the paper or if it is even a lower grade. While the sugar cane derivative fuel is very stable and efficient, over 90% of the ethanol fuel in this country is made of corn. There are the same government incintives for this use of corn making the same destructive cycle of: corn floods market, drop in prices, government covers costs, yeilding more corn. You cannot blame the farmers. If someone would pay me to make something whether or not it was ever put to good use (or any use at all) and I needed the money, I would make all of it I could.

As Pallon states, this problem is creating new health risks. The overuse of antibiotics is a huge concern currently, and the beef market is only making it worse by the continual use of antibiotics in feed. Pathogenic bacteria like E. Coli 0157:H7 and MRSA were unheard of 30 years ago, yet I know two people that are currently being treated for one of these. The scary part is that this is just the beginning. It will only get worse.

However destructive the corn industry is, there is a true need for cheap food in this country at this time. Buying organic and local is nice in theory, but when cucumbers are 2 for $7.00 (go to the Franklin Farmers Market and see for yourself), it is impractical. Side Note: The Nashville Farmers Market is organic but not local, some of that food is shipped from 5,000 miles away, while all the food from the Franklin's farmers market is from 150 miles away or less. Until there are more incentives to buy local and organic, it is only for the relatively wealthy that this is even an option. Once again, the poor are delegated to the worst available yeilding more health problems, yeilding more costs, resulting in people caught in a cycle of poverty. Diabetes and obesity in this country are at an all time high. Ironically, people are working more hours in the work week than ever before. It is a vicious cycle and corn is barely the tip of the iceburg.

Intrinsic Good

The more I thought about intrinsic good, the more it seemed like an axiom in math. An axiom is a statement that cannot be proved but which all other mathematical laws/proofs are based upon like -1*x = -x. It is essentially a made up concept that we accept to be true. Other things are then true that we can prove using rational logical arguments that are based on this singular pillar of thought. I tend to view intrinsic good with a deontilogical (?) perspective. Humans have rights as humans. They are entitled to certain things because people have a basic self-worth. I work for the Vanderbilt Campus Chapter for Habitat for Humanity and our mission statement says "We believe that everyone has the right to simple, decent, and affordable housing." That's it the end. There are no buts. As a person with this belief, I realize all my arguments against other philosophical theories are based in this and therefore biased by it. As I read Foner's writings on freedom, it led me to question if this would be my belief if I grew up somewhere else. Founding fathers, Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance... How could these thoughts of personal rights and responsibilities not have affected me? I would like to say I would believe this no matter where I was from, but that is a dim view of reality. Who is to say if I was from Japan and had stronger ties to honor? Who is to say what we beleive is not just constructs of where we were raised and what we experienced?