We say competition is good. We are told to cheer survival of the fittest, the fastest, the best endowed. If that is the truth then why are there so few who engage in competition? And why is it who do engage in competition so very quick to find a way to cheat for an advantage in a cut-throat world?
At this time in 2014, a few days past the third anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, those questions are still begging for answers. Moreover, as pointed out during NatGat2014 (Occupy National Gathering 2014), even Occupiers have failed to reinvent the way we relate to one another. We still compete against one another for time, resources, and prestige. Even Occupy, the proponents of the 99% (the rest of us who do not have wealth and power), "strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same (google definition)." In the end cooperation is flushed down the collective drain, along with those who seen as political liabilities. Even Occupy throws people away if they are no longer useful.
We've still allot to learn!
Cliff Potts
September 21, 2014
At this time in 2014, a few days past the third anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, those questions are still begging for answers. Moreover, as pointed out during NatGat2014 (Occupy National Gathering 2014), even Occupiers have failed to reinvent the way we relate to one another. We still compete against one another for time, resources, and prestige. Even Occupy, the proponents of the 99% (the rest of us who do not have wealth and power), "strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same (google definition)." In the end cooperation is flushed down the collective drain, along with those who seen as political liabilities. Even Occupy throws people away if they are no longer useful.
We've still allot to learn!
Cliff Potts
September 21, 2014
While it is arguable that there is competition in the
U.S. Market Place, that competition seems to be only at the level of employment
of those who need to trade their skills and services for a wage from the corporations.
There is no argument that that the citizens of the United States
are competing for jobs on a global basis for ever diminishing wages and
benefits. They are told if they are “good enough” they will win in the globalization
game. However, there seems to be a rather fluid definition of “good enough.”
The definition depends on who is defining the term.
There are people who brag about their lack of
education and their substantial incomes.
The United
States seems to have borrowed strategies
from the underdeveloped nations where connections mean far more than
qualifications.
At the top end of the economy there is little
competition. Effectively speaking, there is one phone company. That is AT&T.
We have one computer software company. That is Microsoft. We have two, weak,
automobile companies. They are Ford and General Motors. We have one data
communications hardware company. That is Cisco. We have two major retail
outlets. They are Target and Wal-Mart.
That is not the only illustration of the lack of
competition. As recently as 2004, the owner of an HP pavilion who wished to use
Linux rather than Microsoft’s XP as an
operating system, would violate the hardware’s warranty if the owner requested that
Linux be installed. No one in the technical field seems to find this a
ridiculous notion. It is the equivalent of purchasing an automobile and using
Shell gasoline rather than Exxon.
The real danger of the lack of competition due to
unchecked growth of the gargantuan corporations is two fold: One, the corporations become the primary
source of employment. They become dictators of life quality for many people.
They even dictate the most private aspects of the employee’s life (this is
covered in some detail in Radicals,
Religion, and Revelation).[1]
Two, without adequate competition the quality of good and services diminishes. This
is a sort of creeping planned obsolesce. High priced items have to be replaced
annually. This planned obsolesce was rejected in the 1950s and 1960s is now
part of the globalized status-quo.
The television which costs $150.00 today, is not a
real value if, unlike its $800.00 counterpart of the 1970s, it has to be
replaced in 18 to 24 months because it is shoddy merchandise.
Gigantic corporations, manipulating the market and
regulations in their favor, fail to serve the over all consumer and employment
needs in the local community.
There is little incentive to pull in the reins of
these corporations when they feed funds into the coffers of elected officials
because the election process is expensive. The election process is so costly
because the air-time for television and radio even at the lowest rate as
prescribed by law are prohibitively expensive. There is no public forum which
is not owned by, or beholden to, corporations. While it is arguable that NPR,
PRI, and PBS are independent, their draw
is limited at best. The corporations fund the candidates who will best serve
their needs, and then collect the funds donated through the media outlets which
they own.
The media is fully supportive of the corporations,
since they are owned by the corporations. The current pundits of the globalized
economy tell us that if a person is “good enough” they will find rewarding
employment, and through shrewd investments in the corporations be able to
accumulate wealth.
Once again, the corporations are paying money to
those whom they find acceptable, in the form of wages, and collecting the
excess, after the bills are paid to the corporations, in the form of
“investments.” This allows the individual to think they have a vested interest
in the corporations. One might consider this a rather incestuous monetary
scheme. If those investments were put together for the collective good of the
community, it may have some ethical viability, however, the investments are
going into the rather large paychecks and rewards of the corporations, and
reinvested into what might be called colonial expansion at the expense of the
local community.
In the corporation, the hiring decision is not based
on skills, and qualification, but on one’s ability to socially engineer oneself
into the position. Furthermore, the decision to promote an individual is based
on social skills not on technical skills. This is nothing new, this is how the
internal working of the corporation, left to their own devices, work. In and of
itself it is an amoral practice at best, but when the job market is limited in
opportunity this system diminishes the
utilization of qualified talent in favor of keeping the gains within the grasp
of the corporate leaders.
As to the spokesmen of the free market in the Media,
it is interesting to note how many of them do not have degrees, how many came
into the media through relatives, and are in places of position by the grace to
the corporations. Yet they feel that their ability to turn on a computer, and
use a word processor, spreadsheet, and web browser, qualifies them as being
“good enough,” and entitles them to pass judgment on others.
The key to being “good enough” is neither based on
academic qualification, nor on work history. It is based on social dynamics and
the ability to socially engineer oneself to fit the particular social
requirements within a given corporation in a given region.
The phrase, “It is not what you know, it is who you
know” defines much of today’s economic opportunity in the United States . Those with
“connections” see nothing wrong with this situation and pride themselves on
being “good enough” to hold their positions. Moreover, they know (not believe or feel) they are entitled to hold the position based on the
predominant social criteria.
An interview in today’s environment, furthermore, is
not about specific skills, it is a brag session where the candidate repeats a
mantra of some form of self aggrandizement. Such people are accepted into the
corporate ranks, the rest are left to fend for themselves in positions which
lack future or have increasingly high turnover rates or a caustic work
environment.
The trend towards familiarity and closed social
stratification did not occur in a vacuum. This was not a planned conspiracy to
eliminate opportunity from the wider community. It came about in response to
the perceived psychosis among employees in the United States in the late 1990s.[2]
This began in 1990 with the GMAC massacre, when James Pough killed 9 people in
a shooting incident in Jacksonville ,
Florida Ridgwood , New
Jersey Royal Oak , Michigan Palatine , Illinois Dearborn , Michigan
The perception of the work place gone mad became so
fixed that in late 1997, Chicago’s NPR Station, WBEZ 91.5, reported that a person was more likely to be
involved in a violent attack at work than any place else. However, based on
homicide rates per 100,000 people, being a Taxi driver has the highest risk at roughly 32 per 100,000 workers.[4]
While office environments were stressful, they did not come close to even 2.1
homicides per 100,000 workers, which is the statistic for retail. The
perception of violence, in part, brought about a desire to only bring in known
individuals into the corporate fold. The
At one time in the late 1990s, one of the large food
processing agri-industry would not even interview a candidate for a position as
a Personal Computer Technician or IT Network support unless the candidate also
possessed welding skills! The PCs were relegated to the control of the
maintenance department. As such the PC technician, usually with a AS or BS in
Computer Science had to have mechanical skills. This acted as a buffer to cover
the preference towards hiring local “farm kids” rather than hiring IT professionals.
This only became viable because Microsoft
assisted in diminishing the IT professional base through the issuance of
its various Certifications (MCP, MCSE etc.). Rather than supporting higher
education and advancing computer science in the United States , Microsoft catered to
the colloquial stratification and undermined attempts to advance the field
through higher education. Through these certifications, without also requiring
higher education, Information Technology went from being a profession to being
a trade. It also greatly reduced the pay scale.
It is interesting that Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, et
al, did much to strip Information Technology of its professional status, and
higher pay levels. In 2007, Mr. Bill Gates, the gifted founder of Microsoft corporation
sat before Congress discussing that fewer U.S. citizens are pursuing higher
education in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. He seemed to be
inferring that there was something amiss in the lack of interest in IT, CIS,
and other disciplines along these lines.
The IT field has been increasing unstable since the
late 1980s. The demand for more and more complex systems has created the PC of
today which is more of an “infotainment” device. This is due in part to what
may be called a technological hang-over that has lead to the economic slump of
the industry; some of the best and the brightest IT professionals are simply
burned out.
The question, therefore, unanswered is: why should
anyone choose to get a higher education in Information Technology or Computer
Science?
The limited status, the lower stability, and benefits
level, in conjunction with the perpetuated myopic focus of the certified
professionals has made Information Technology extremely unattractive. Added to
that, the industry’s propensity towards age discrimination, there is no
motivation to stay in the Information Technology field.
An AARP study found that two-thirds of
respondents, aged 45 to 74 years of age, experienced or witnessed age
discrimination on the job. Another study examining hundreds of job applications
found that those applications purportedly sent by "younger" people
were 40 percent more likely to result in an interview request than those sent
by "older" ones. While the average length of unemployment in 2005 was
17.8 weeks for those under 55, workers 55 and over took 24.1 weeks to find a
new job.
"And that
doesn't take into account the number of 55-plus men and women who drop out of
the labor force altogether after displacement [layoffs]," Rix adds.
"That's whoppingly high."[5]
Even companies
considered to be open-minded see older workers in a less-than-flattering light.
"They know older people are experienced, loyal, dependable, good with
customers and use good judgment," Rix says. "But they also say they
lack technical competence, and they worry they can't learn new things. Studies
show that's not true." Many employers also worry that older workers will
drive up healthcare costs and wonder how long older hires will stay on the job.[6]
Mr. Gates now goes before Congress to beg for more
foreign nationals to be allowed into the United States to solve the problem
which his corporation had a very large part in creating.
Mr. Gates is not a bad man, and he is not the enemy.
This situation is due to a very large corporation making decisions which, at
the time, seemed in the best interest of the corporation and the industry which
they represented. It turned out to utterly damage that same industry. Due to
the size of the corporations those decisions have far reaching effects.
[2]
List of massacres. (2007, April 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 12:06, April 27, 2007, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_massacres&oldid=126367800
[3]
Going postal. (2007, April 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 12:08, April 27, 2007, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Going_postal&oldid=124448633
[4]
Workplace violence. (2007, April 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 12:07, April 27, 2007, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Workplace_violence&oldid=125072227
[5]
Woog, Dan. "How Old Is Too Old?." Monster Career Advice.
spherion. 22 Jan. 2008
<http://career-advice.monster.com/job-search-essentials/older-workers/How-Old-Is-Too-Old/home.aspx>.
[6]
Woog, Dan. "How Old Is Too Old?." Monster Career Advice.
spherion. 22 Jan. 2008
<http://career-advice.monster.com/job-search-essentials/older-workers/How-Old-Is-Too-Old/home.aspx>.
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