[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Chronon:
Back in the days of Father works, Mom stays home with the kids, and everyone lives comfortably in a one-family house (or at least this was the ideal anyway), the mainstay of the economy was large-scale manufacturing (steel, automobiles, capital equipment, etc.).

And that situation itself was the result of massive economic change. The "dad works outside the home, mom stays at home" model is itself an offshoot of the industrial revolution. Before that, *everybody* worked at home, either in agriculture or crafts, and there was more overlap between housekeeping and job-related labor.

The American economy produced over 40% of the Gross World Product because the rest of the world (Europe especially) was still recovering from WWII. Most American factories were running at close to maximum production in this time period. The unions were strong, CEO's only made about 12-15 times what the average worker made,

What happened to the Rockefellers and the Carnegies?

housing and education was cheap, and the amount of stuff necessary for "comfort" was less. A small three bedroom house, one car, a single TV (or not, depending on the decade), a radio, a stove, a refrigerator, and simple furnishings were all that were necessary.

Necessary? All that is necessary is a clean living space, access to clean water, and a place to cook and store food. Everything you list here is, from the standpoint of the condition of most humans in history, mind-boggling luxury. Even the "poor" here in America, for the most part, have it so good in comparison to the rest of the world. I think our perspectives in this matter are horrifically skewed.

Education (in the US) is no longer cheap, the unions are dying (mostly because the manufacting economy is dying), the average CEO is making over 40 times what the average worker is making (more at Enron and Worldcom...), and the amount of stuff that one needs for "comfort" is much greater. Now we need a large four-bedroom house, a mini-van and an SUV, about 4 TV's with cable programming, at least one computer, a modern kitchen (with stove, refrigerator, microwave, mixer, and dishwashing machine), a rack of home theater audio equipment (receiver, dvd player, vcr, and surround speakers), a snow-blower for the winter, a tractor-mower for the grass in the summer, plus a wide range of small appliances (Palm Pilot, cell phone, laptop, kitchen gadgets, etc.). It's no wonder that everyone is working longer hours.

Which again makes my point about how culturally relative all this is. The educational system is indeed a mess, but I will pass on commenting there as I am no expert in that field. But about that ratio of CEO-to-lineworker salary - again, let me state that culture has a lot to do with what the impact of that is. In America (ideally), competence, education, and effort can move you up the ladder. Plus, the difference between that CEO and the assembly line worker in social, real economic, and political terms is not nearly as much as the difference was between a Soviet assembly line worker and the apparatchik who ran the factory. There is less of a "great gulf fixed" between the two in our society than in societies that were more influenced by strict class systems.

And, for those not connected to the global economy, there are always minimum wage jobs at McDonalds. One has to work ridiculous hours just to get above the poverty level at minimum wage, and those are the jobs that are expanding the quickest.

I'll stick my rabbit's foot in my mouth and wildly speculate that, perhaps, the overloading of the educational system might have something to do with that. IOW, the glut of collegate education widens the gulf between basic labor and "skilled" labor. In my dad's day, a high-school diploma could at least get you a decent job in industry. Now, as you say, it just gets you "You want to super-size that?"

But I might be wrong.

So, I think the French have a good idea, but the real test is going to be how many people can be connected to the global economy (which requires a high leve of education), and how many people are going to be shunted into service jobs.

As I insinuated in my reply to Dogscoff, it's a beautiful idea, in theory. But when you try to apply that idea from the top-down without consideration of the forces that actually drive human behavior, politics, and economics, you get what the French have now, at best; and you get the wasteland of the ex-Soviet empire at worst.

If the current trend of separation between the upper classes (economically speaking) and the working classes continues, we're in for a lot more social unrest. Revolutions are made out of these kind of social disparities...

Unless the disparities are softened by other cultural and economic factors, as I have stated above.

Good grief, and I originally came here just to download shipsets... :-}