'The Book' - Blog 11

Chapter three continued...

The authors move onto breaking down where inequality exists within the capitalist society. Their findings are quite shocking. In 1971 there were 12.5 million businesses. Over 3/4 of these were small and individually owned. (farms / stores / restaurants)

Less than 2 million were corporations. The largest 200,000 businesses (1.6%) captured 3/4 of all sales. The largest 1/10 of 1% of all of the corporations, owned 43% of manufacturing assets and 49% of the manufacturing profits in the manufacturing sector. In 1971 the largest 500 manufacturing corporations employed 3/4 of all the workers in the manufacturing sector.

The corporate sector as a whole, less than 1/10 of all firms employed nearly 1/2 of the paid labour force. Individuals are increasingly joining the corporate sector. This is a situation where a large majority of individuals have a decreasing amount of control over decision making and their working activities. How did this happen? The beginning of the 1880's saw the birth of the manufacturing sector. The first phase of the corporate merger saw the control of the basic commodities: oil, sugar, rubber and whole sale grains fall into the hands of corporate giants. This shift to corporations gaining control was mirrored in the education reform / theory to the progressive era (as was mentioned before to the egalitarian theory, that it is all up to the individual to make it in life and these issues you may be struggling with are not due to the way the economic system is set up.)

The next section of chapter three looks at what the authors call uneven development. They are referring to how the capitalist system has developed. There is rapid growth in some economic sectors, such as consumer goods and private services. Whereas social welfare tends to stagnate or even decrease along with the quality of the environment and social justice. Urban areas tend to develop faster than rural, and there is an ever widening gap between rich and poor nations. The authors focus on the uneven development in regards to the corporate sectors versus the independent / household sectors. The authors feel that this is directly related to the unequal distribution of ownership of capital and the fact that there is an inequality in political power and access to economically relevant information. (A great example of power being in the hands of the few is illustrated in the movie called Charlie Wilson's War. I have seen it a few times, it is very eye opening. )

Some of this power does trickle down, yet direct access is denied to the general public. (This makes me think of Reganomics and the trickle down effect, which didn't work.) So it looks like we have this uneven development of the corporate sector. Next we look at the uneven development of the labour force.

Groups with distinct social / ethic classes have historically been drawn into the wage - labour system. I think the authors are referring to blue collar work. Each group is branded as inferior and exploited until another wave of individuals replace them. (This is most likely referring to the wave of immigrants that come into the U.S., or groups of individuals who have historically been 'put down' such as women and blacks.) This then leads to an uneven development of the labour force. An example from the book was that women have been oppressed in the work force, this is due to the fact that they are in and out of the wage - labour system while maintaining their place in the house hold sector. (This could be due to the fact that they are in and out of the 'work world' because they were raising children.)This lead to highly qualified females limited to low level jobs. ( Again Mad Men the T.V. series is a great example of this.)

This uneven development of the economy lends itself to segmentation of workers into distinct groups. This segmentation is based on historical experiences (slavery on the part of blacks / outright oppression of women ect.)

The authors then go onto speak of what they mean when they refer to classes, and how this class system is essential to understanding the connection between economics and education.

To be continued...