I have had many different jobs, each one seemingly more stupid than the one before it, even while my education and ability improves, and I note with despair, the systematic cleansing of the work place of its best workers.
In workplaces across this nation there used to be a guy, or gal, who knew more about the operations, the inventory, and the books, than anyone else, including the CEO. This fellow was typically a mere blue collar type, not even a foreman usually. Sadly this American original character has largely disappeared, only to be replaced by several uninteresting, but interchangeable workers. When did the American workplace start punishing the very qualities they always claimed were their proud heritage? When did they decide to purge workers who made decisions without supervision, and challenged management, because they were usually right, and in the end the company was better off for it. When did we become less competitive?
One day the elites decided they couldn't stand these self-educated native thinkers and doers. A writer friend of mine separates the world into doers, and talkers. I didn't mention him, however, that writers are talkers, who put it all on paper, but I think he has a point.
Microsoft is the prime example of what happens when competition through control and manipulation -- my code word for management -- overwhelms the desire to just do something better. Microsoft buys up smaller smarter companies to deny competing techonology a path to the market. Now Bill Gates sits on a mountain of cash, and no idea what to do with that money. He has effectively stifled all the competition.
The downside of all this for the workers is greater regimentation, less demanding jobs, and of course less pay. In a world where education matters less all the time, why not go through life fat and stupid? At least that stuff hanging off your belt belongs to you, and not your handlers, who fill your backpack with the technological tools of your own imprisonment, so when it is all finished you still cannot remember which button means supersize.
(Look Back in Anger was a really prophetic play wasn't it?)
Dave
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Dear Dave:
Right on, my friend.
I might also add that the system has not much use for college graduates if they are not of the right class and right university, you're still fucked. If you are a kid from a working family and graduate from a state college, you're not much better off. You'll still end up in the service industries etc. Since the Reagan years, 44% of college grads have already been "proletarianized," dumped back into the underclass. We never heard much about that. But we sure as hell see it from our vantage point in the laboring classes. I no longer wonder why there are so many people with college educations packing light bulbs on the shipping line at the local GE plant here in Winchester.
Yet, I somehow doubt that the workers of America will ever wise up. They have been so brainwashed that a full 19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% in America, according to the The Economic Policy Institute. Really! In fact, internal survey cross-check questions on income category showed many of these people are working at a little above minimum wage, and even the highest earned barely $44,000 a year. (The top 1% earns $320,000 year or more). As one poster on smirkingchimp.com pointed out, this is the kind of outright ignorance and self-delusion that makes them support Bush's tax cuts. If critics say the cuts help only the top 1% of Americans, they believe they will benefit! (Can I just go slit my wrists now, please?)
Solidarity,
Joe
