tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post714737642045519466..comments2024-02-24T19:49:45.687-05:00Comments on Schools Matter: Wanted: Computer of Apple Quality Not Made in Poisonous Factory by Slave LaborJames Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-35555439219809446882012-01-26T15:46:39.757-05:002012-01-26T15:46:39.757-05:00All the while the right (including the right that ...All the while the right (including the right that masquerades as left) continues to insist that our "knowledge economy" and increased reliance on technology have removed all the reasons for industrial unionism. They say (and we hear this from the corporate ed-deformers too) that in this new age the rift between management and workers doesn't exist, that they work harmoniously together, and that we live in a post-classist as well as post-racial society. Unions, they say, are an anachronism today. Dana Goldstein can shill all she wants about "meritocratic innovation," but the German philosopher nailed the real social relations in our society when he wrote: "in a word, oppressor and oppressed."<br /><br />Hence the working conditions at high tech manufacturing plants are akin to those of the apex of the gilded age, and they exist at the very heart of what is claimed to have transformed class society into a technological utopia. Where are our Upton Sinclairs and John Reeds today?<br /><br />What's clear is that the drive for profit still produces abject conditions wherever it nestles, settles, and establishes connections. Exploitation, as brutal as ever, is still the heart of this economic system, and always will be.Robert D. Skeels * rdsathenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07920561332154131328noreply@blogger.com