4 ms·

>It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it. It's plenty of people's fault and there is plenty we can do about it. Instead

by chez17 13y ago

>It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it. It's plenty of people's fault and there is plenty we can do about it. Instead of investing in education, infrastructure, the social safety net, and everything that helps the majority of people, we invest in the military industrial complex, farm subsidies, and rush to cut taxes to the richest people in the country. There is a massive wealth distribution going on right now, I predict history will show the biggest ever, and it's easy to see the repercussions. The rich are getting richer and the rate at which they are accumulating wealth is accelerating. There is plenty we could do, we, as a society, are just to lazy, comfortable, and scared to do it. Let's be honest about it. This is all our fault.

jlgreco 13y ago
The military industrial complex is a problem and all, but I don't think it has much to do with Creative Writing majors struggling to find jobs. The days of "college educated at all is the most important factor" are over, and I don't think anybody deserves blame for that. Or to take rayiner's example of lawyers, you can't pin that on a failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies... or anything else that "Occupiers" like to complain about.
- chez17 13y ago
  >The military industrial complex is a problem and all, but I don't think it has much to do with Creative Writing majors struggling to find jobs. It absolutely does. I have a friend who is a writer. He lives in NYC. When the economy collapsed, so did his audience. He is successful enough to keep working and is lucky enough to have a following in Europe. However, when the people start losing their money, suddenly going for a night out at the theatre is less important than paying rent. All the 'creative arts' people who had jobs could no longer support themselves. This is obvious to anyone who has actually researched what we're talking about. >Or to take rayiner's example of lawyers, you can't pin that on a failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies... or anything else that "Occupiers" like to complain about. Again, you are very wrong. Two of my best friends are lawyers, and they got out of law school just as the shit hit the fan. When our overall economy tanks, thanks to things like "failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies" and all those real things that contribute to the massive wealth distribution that is going on right now, jobs are effected. Law offices are not getting as much business, they aren't hiring as many interns (internships are usually essential to getting jobs at top firms), they're paying interns less and not hiring as many on. Again, this is basic stuff and it's sad that you have to write it off. Your "Occupiers" comment is telling.
tptacek 13y ago
How is any of this responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market? What does it have to do with colleges recognizing that lower-paid adjuncts can deliver comparable services to tenured professors? What does it say about the ability of smaller numbers of professors to teach larger numbers of students?
- calibraxis 13y ago
  "Responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market"? A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you can command them. As in any market, you have the incentive to pay less and get more; the other person has the opposite incentive. An area of antagonism. You seem not to prefer the frame of wealth distribution. Instead, your post reframes it into terms that school administrators prefer, as if we are supposed to care what bureaucrats think. A recent analysis of replacing people with lower-paid workers: "The second claim is that low-wage workers are easily replaceable and offer no benefit to society. This is the argument aimed at service workers, who are on strike because they make so little they cannot afford food or rent." (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/2013923101543956539.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/20139231015...) Perhaps professor Vojtko herself saw this as a larger struggle between bosses and workers: "Contrary to what the Duquesne administration would have the public believe, she sought out and strongly supported the new union." (http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts-class-and-fear/ http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts...) We still spend money — but on administration rather than teaching/research: "The last thirty years have seen a veritable explosion of the proportion of working hours spent on administrative tasks at the expense of pretty much everything else. In my own university, for instance, we have more administrators than faculty members, and the faculty members, too, are expected to spend at least as much time on administration as on teaching and research combined. The same is true, more or less, at universities worldwide." (http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) Hope some of these sources answers your questions, and puts them into the greater context?
  - _dps 13y ago
    > A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you command them. This seems like a one-sided and unproductively emotional framing. One could easily flip the emotional bias and say "A job market is where greedy people with skills stubbornly refuse to volunteer their help unless they get paid for it." In fact, I suspect that's exactly how some might characterize the "job market" for independent medical services where the employer is the patient. Here's my suggestion for a neutral take: a job market is a mechanism where people who are willing to take on responsibilities are paid money by people who would like to delegate responsibilities. The current dynamics of the academic job market (and many other markets for people with conventional liberal arts education) suggest that fewer people want to delegate those responsibilities, and more people are willing to take on those responsibilities. This is not a market-created problem, it is a social problem (i.e. we have somehow encouraged far too many people to invest in educations that don't line up with current and near-future demand for responsibility-delegation). As to your point about intrinsic antagonism: naturally, in any negotiation there is a zero-sum element on the margin, i.e. while we both benefit we can still argue over how the mutual gains are to be distributed. On the one hand, this is a valid point, and the asymmetry of leverage in this on-the-margin zero-sum negotiation between employers and employees is an excellent theoretical argument for labor regulations and labor unions. On the other hand, framing the labor negotiation as zero sum overall is, I believe, counter to even Marxist [0] analysis of labor relations. [0] My lay understanding of Marxist labor relation theory is that it argues capital obtains the lion's share of the mutual benefits (or "surplus value") arising from delegation, but it does not argue that the exchange is what we would nowadays call zero-sum on an overall basis.

by chez17 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago

The military industrial complex is a problem and all, but I don't think it has much to do with Creative Writing majors struggling to find jobs. The days of "college educated at all is the most important factor" are over, and I don't think anybody deserves blame for that. Or to take rayiner's example of lawyers, you can't pin that on a failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies... or anything else that "Occupiers" like to complain about.

chez17 13y ago
>The military industrial complex is a problem and all, but I don't think it has much to do with Creative Writing majors struggling to find jobs. It absolutely does. I have a friend who is a writer. He lives in NYC. When the economy collapsed, so did his audience. He is successful enough to keep working and is lucky enough to have a following in Europe. However, when the people start losing their money, suddenly going for a night out at the theatre is less important than paying rent. All the 'creative arts' people who had jobs could no longer support themselves. This is obvious to anyone who has actually researched what we're talking about. >Or to take rayiner's example of lawyers, you can't pin that on a failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies... or anything else that "Occupiers" like to complain about. Again, you are very wrong. Two of my best friends are lawyers, and they got out of law school just as the shit hit the fan. When our overall economy tanks, thanks to things like "failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies" and all those real things that contribute to the massive wealth distribution that is going on right now, jobs are effected. Law offices are not getting as much business, they aren't hiring as many interns (internships are usually essential to getting jobs at top firms), they're paying interns less and not hiring as many on. Again, this is basic stuff and it's sad that you have to write it off. Your "Occupiers" comment is telling.

tptacek 13y ago

How is any of this responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market? What does it have to do with colleges recognizing that lower-paid adjuncts can deliver comparable services to tenured professors? What does it say about the ability of smaller numbers of professors to teach larger numbers of students?

calibraxis 13y ago
"Responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market"? A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you can command them. As in any market, you have the incentive to pay less and get more; the other person has the opposite incentive. An area of antagonism. You seem not to prefer the frame of wealth distribution. Instead, your post reframes it into terms that school administrators prefer, as if we are supposed to care what bureaucrats think. A recent analysis of replacing people with lower-paid workers: "The second claim is that low-wage workers are easily replaceable and offer no benefit to society. This is the argument aimed at service workers, who are on strike because they make so little they cannot afford food or rent." (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/2013923101543956539.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/20139231015...) Perhaps professor Vojtko herself saw this as a larger struggle between bosses and workers: "Contrary to what the Duquesne administration would have the public believe, she sought out and strongly supported the new union." (http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts-class-and-fear/ http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts...) We still spend money — but on administration rather than teaching/research: "The last thirty years have seen a veritable explosion of the proportion of working hours spent on administrative tasks at the expense of pretty much everything else. In my own university, for instance, we have more administrators than faculty members, and the faculty members, too, are expected to spend at least as much time on administration as on teaching and research combined. The same is true, more or less, at universities worldwide." (http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) Hope some of these sources answers your questions, and puts them into the greater context?
- _dps 13y ago
  > A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you command them. This seems like a one-sided and unproductively emotional framing. One could easily flip the emotional bias and say "A job market is where greedy people with skills stubbornly refuse to volunteer their help unless they get paid for it." In fact, I suspect that's exactly how some might characterize the "job market" for independent medical services where the employer is the patient. Here's my suggestion for a neutral take: a job market is a mechanism where people who are willing to take on responsibilities are paid money by people who would like to delegate responsibilities. The current dynamics of the academic job market (and many other markets for people with conventional liberal arts education) suggest that fewer people want to delegate those responsibilities, and more people are willing to take on those responsibilities. This is not a market-created problem, it is a social problem (i.e. we have somehow encouraged far too many people to invest in educations that don't line up with current and near-future demand for responsibility-delegation). As to your point about intrinsic antagonism: naturally, in any negotiation there is a zero-sum element on the margin, i.e. while we both benefit we can still argue over how the mutual gains are to be distributed. On the one hand, this is a valid point, and the asymmetry of leverage in this on-the-margin zero-sum negotiation between employers and employees is an excellent theoretical argument for labor regulations and labor unions. On the other hand, framing the labor negotiation as zero sum overall is, I believe, counter to even Marxist [0] analysis of labor relations. [0] My lay understanding of Marxist labor relation theory is that it argues capital obtains the lion's share of the mutual benefits (or "surplus value") arising from delegation, but it does not argue that the exchange is what we would nowadays call zero-sum on an overall basis.