From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Thu Jan 16 2003 - 08:32:53 EST
Re: [OPE-L:8338] Re: Re: Education and ValueRe Paul A's [8344]: > The reading of Marx that I find most fruitful is one that indeed sees capitalism's development (in particular, of the forces of production) increasing the capacity of workers as full people, as social beings. < By my reading, Marx held that workers would only realize their capacity to become "full people, as social beings" after capitalism. Marx refers, after all, to all of history prior to socialism as representing the "pre-history" of humanity. > At the same time this tendency coexists with two other features of the evolutionary path that are the effect of the persistence of capitalist relations of production: * a minority of cases where quite the opposite happens (workers and even their productive capacity treated with utter disdain) < Is this a minority of cases? I would say that the "utter disdain" that capital has for workers persists despite the presence of a minority of more progressive managers. (I also think that enlightened management, while taught in the classroom, more often than not doesn't survive for long on the factory floor or in the office. Indeed, it is part of the 'on-the-job training' of managers by managers that such proclivities are submerged and subverted) > * a tendency to polarization -- the gap grows between the capabilities (and living conditions) of the many at the bottom and the few at the top of the distribution (note: polarization does not exclude those at the bottom improving their lot: it just means improvement is even faster at the top) < Polarization, I agree, does not exclude those at the bottom from improving their lot. However, neither does it mean _necessarily_ that their lot is improving. > 1. it is difficult to hold the two thoughts at the same time, that capitalism continues to deliver on its civilizing mission but that this is no justificiation for its persistence: it's much easier to adopt a purely negative, critical posture: the message is less complex. (But if it doesn't jive with workers experience of changes in the workplace, we lose credibility for our general account. We are seen as wonderfully sensitive to the plight of the minority of workers deskilled by capitalist progress, but insensitive to the advantages experienced by the bulk of them. This was precisely the situation created when the CFDT union confederation adopted a version of deskilling in the 1970s (with Braverman dutifully cited in the footnotes), and on that basis began organizing against the deskilling effects they expected from the computerization of insurance companies. The CFDT was very strong among the clerical workers in this industry. But with this position, it quickly lost credibilty with the workers, since it became apparent within a few years that computerization was having substantial and widespread upgrading effects, effects that workers in this industry welcomed.) I agree that a "purely negative, critical posture" is one-sided and that the message should be more complex. But -- now that you have narrowed the time period under consideration (you asked previously about the last 100-200 years) to the more recent period, I seriously doubt whether most occupations and workers have experienced 'upgrading' as a result of the microprocessor revolution. (NB: I said 'doubt', that's all.) And I hardly think that workers in the insurance industry represent a typical or average scenario. More detailed questionnaires and studies are needed to determine what the basis is for the belief that jobs have been upgraded in terms of skill requirements. The concept of skill upgrading as a consequence of computers also has an ideological component that is being pushed on many levels and represents a kind of 'technology-mythology', i.e. the computer-empowering idea is a story that it is also being spread by employers and the state. Since we have narrowed the time horizon, I also question whether the cognitive abilities of young people has indeed been increased. How is this measured? If, for instance, we look at trends in ' basic skills' (reading comprehension, writing ability, math ability, etc.) in primary and secondary schools, it is unclear that skill levels have increased after the introduction of computers in the classroom (and at home). E.g. -- going back to the 1970s -- hand-held inexpensive calculators became a way that millions of school children could come up with the right answers without understanding essential math skills. Despite "Sesame Street" and computers in the classroom and computers in the home which have word processors with spellcheckers and grammar checkers, it's unclear whether this has increased skills or is a _substitute_ for skill acquisition (and I seriously question whether computer games have the net effect of skill upgrading). Solidarity, Jerry
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