From: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee)
Subject: Re: Hypothetically speaking
Reply-To: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 03:50:59 GMT

In article <DRW.92Nov12143557@banach.mit.edu>, drw@banach.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>Unfortunately, this article hasn't generated much commentary:

/* The familiar question "What would you do if you found yourself all of a */
/* sudden in the driver's seat of the nation?                              */

>Well, printing money is pretty hopeless, because it would generate
>enormous inflation, and money would become nearly worthless.  (See the
>part in the Hitchhiker's Guide when people decide to use leaves for
>money, because there are so many leaves that everybody will be rich.)

Yeah yeah yeah.  Need a gold standard so you'll have your Objective Values or
whatever.

>"Fuck 'em" is a workable solution, but it's pretty nasty and ugly.

Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that a system that doesn't work for everyone
will ultimately work for noone.  So that isn't a workable solution.  And if the
system fucks me, I want to do everything in my power to bring it down with me.

>"Give them bread and circuses" is much more pleasant in the short run,
>but tends to lead to social rot (chronic unemployment) over the long
>run.

The purpose of bread and circuses is to distract people from Power issues, not
to make them comfortable.  If anything, the authorities and the elites have a
vested interest in the economic _insecurity_ of the masses.

>Perhaps a better approach would be to train the unemployed to be as
>productive as you can make them be.  Certainly, some people have
>various disabilities that render them truly unemployable under any
>circumstances, but most of the chronically unemployed *could* be
>productive workers.

Many if not most of the chronically unemployed *have* been productive workers.

>  The U.S. has the problem that publically-funded
>training becomes pretty much unavailable once one gets beyond the
>usual school age.  Unfortunately, it's about age 25 when people start
>to realize that they have no job skills and better do something about
>it.

Yup. That's why I'm back in school.  But I'd much rather be in what you might
call a white collar "apprenticeship".  Or a blue-collar apprenticeship.

>  Also, the mechanisms for *forcing* people to get job skills in
>school are poor -- the more conformist cultures of Germany and Japan
>tend to enforce education much more than the individualist culture of
>the U.S.  So it's easier to drift through school learning nothing, or
>to drop out entirely.

I don't think the difference in vocational education here compared to there was
a matter of *forcing* people.  But I'm not very well travelled; I could be
wrong.

People drift through school learning nothing because that's precisely what the
curriculum consists of.  People drop out because they have nothing to lose by
doing so.

People fail to finish school prepared, not because the system fails to *force*
them to prepare, but because vocational education that is better than useless
is on-the-job training.  People fail to learn a trade for the simple reason
that the opportunity to learn a trade is not open to the public.  The more
formal programs (like in the building trades) are basically open to people with
union cards.  Getting entry-level office-type jobs is essentially a matter of
office politics.

>As far as I have read, job-training programs that address all of the
>interlocking problems of people without job skills (education, child
>care, medical insurance, social skill training, counseling) work
>rather well.  The two problems with such programs is that they are
>expensive (in the short run) and they run into resistance from people
>already employed in the fields for which training is being given.

If there isn't room for both the established workers and the new workers then
your solution isn't a solution, IMNSHO.

>Perhaps an improved way to do this would be to allow people to borrow
>money to finance training.  There is good evidence that this is
>economically advantageous for all concerned (because the rate of
>return on job skill investment is higher than on financial
>investment),

Why do you suppose this is true?  I would tell you it's because labor is
productive and financiering frankly isn't.  But I'm biased.

> and it could be used as a mechanism to allow the
>development of a rich industry of job-training programs.
>
>   I reserve my own answer until some future date.  Do you think it's
>   true that "a society is judged by how it treats its least well off
>   members."  (Paraphrased and source forgotten.)  Or should society just
>   be a handmaiden to the creation of wealth?

The business of this nation is business.  It is a "businessocracy".

>Well, if we judge a society only on how it treats its least well off,
>we are likely to become a "socialist paradise" where we are all poor
>together.

I judge a society not _only_ on how it treats its least well off. Let's just
say treating not-well-off people well is not a _sufficient_ condition for a
free society.  How about a "___ist paradise" (call it whatever you want) where
we are all in this together?  Or a non-paradise where smoothing out the rough
edges is everyone's problem to solve?

>  On the other hand, just supporting wealth creation is a
>little too heartless.  I *think* it's possible to support the poor at
>a humane level of existance without reducing incentives to the point
>that people don't work hard.

People have plenty of incentives to work hard.  What they need is the
opportunity to work hard, and _some_ assurance that they will have something to
show for it wouldn't hurt.

>Sociologically, people in the U.S. have a very low level of belief in
>the idea that a purpose of government is to promote equality of
>wealth.  This is also quite pronounced in immigrants -- the top reason
>for given by immigrants for immigrating is "opportunity", which when
>questioned they reveal means "opportunity to make a *lot* of money".

Yeah yeah the old line about "opportunity societies" vs. "security societies". 
Both species are characterized by paranoia (fear of everyone except maybe
oneself), one in the Darwinian form, the other in the Malthusian form.  I'd
rather have the opportunity to make a *lot* of friends.

Reminds me of a TV spot for some bank I remember from a few years ago...
"Americans want to succeed, not just survive."  By that standard I am frankly
Un-American.  My goal is to live freely, ie with minimum of financial strings
attached.  And to jump off the treadmill at the first opportunity.

I would summarize your comments (maybe unfairly) as a restatement of the
popular cliche "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he
eats for a lifetime."  The problem isn't that people don't know how to fish. 
The problem is that the market for fish is glutted.

If you want our nation's young people not to be eaten alive by "free"
enterprise, don't teach them to fish...teach them to sell ice cubes to Inuits.

You seem to be shooting for some kind of compromise between a "kinder and
gentler" society and a "leaner and meaner" society.  I reject the premise that
a leaner and meaner society is a necessary condition for a productive society.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Walter Lee    w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu

Don't blame me, I didn't vote!
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy