Persistent Unemployment, Automation, and the Transcendence of Capitalism

PERSISTENT UNEMPLOYMENT, AUTOMATION, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF CAPITALISM

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2015

6:30-9:30 PM

Westside Peace Center

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear)

Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building

Culver City (LA area)

SPEAKERS:

Sarah Mason, former Occupy LA activist

Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist activist and translator

Capitalism today is marked by persistent unemployment, particularly of youth, as well as low-wage labor.  This is not only a local but also a global problem. Although the displacement of human labor by machines is as old as industrial capitalism, it has accelerated and moved into new sectors in recent years.  These issues have been debated widely from Marx's time, to the Critical Theorists and Marxist-Humanists of the 1950s and 1960s, to today.  Is persistent unemployment due to technological change a further oppression of the working people, or does it offer possibilities for human liberation?  How can both of these issues be connected, in dialectical fashion?  We will explore these issues by examining some pages from Marx's GRUNDRISSE and CAPITAL, from Herbert Marcuse and Raya Dunayevskaya on automation, and from Paul Mason today.

Suggested readings:

Paul Mason, "The End of Capitalism Has Begun," GUARDIAN, July 17, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun

Raya Dunayevskaya, "The 'Automaton' and the Worker," PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION, pp. 68-77

Herbert Marcuse, on automation, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN, pp. 28-37 http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/64onedim/odm2.html

Karl Marx, Section 5: "The Struggle between Worker and Machine," in Ch. 15: "Machinery and Large-Scale Industry," in CAPITAL, Vol. I https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S5

Karl Marx, on machinery in GRUNDRISSE, Nicolaus translation, pp. 699-713, online here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm and here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm  

Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org and http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/     

Here is URL for meeting for Facebook, Twitter, etc.: http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/events/los-angeles-persistent-unemployment-automation-and-the-transcendence-of-capitalism

Join our Facebook page: "International Marxist-Humanist Organization" https://www.facebook.com/groups/imhorg/

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Never Work

NEVER WORK

Cardiff University Conference

Friday 10 July 2015

Call for Papers

“A corpse rules society – the corpse of labour.” – Manifesto Against Labour, Krisis-Group

Since the 1970s modern societies have been increasingly faced with social issues caused by a reliance on a form of life that technological development is making redundant: work. Competition drives companies to eject human beings from the labour process even while it relies on those people as consumers and producers of value. Equally, more human beings than ever before depend upon the capitalist production process for their survival, yet at this historical juncture it appears no longer to have need of them. It is this contradiction that some contemporary social critics have diagnosed as the basis of a crisis of civilisation through which we are currently living. The symptoms of this crisis are manifold and, one can argue, affect every aspect of society: privatisation, financialisation and economic crises, mass unemployment, the casualisation of labour and austerity programmes, regional conflict, the rise of political extremism, growing wealth inequality, individualisation, school shootings and the ever-growing number of people suffering from narcissistic personality disorders, to name but a few.

Despite the sheer scale of problems that society currently faces, the dominant social discourse has rarely considered that a crisis of the very categories of capitalist society could be the source of the problem. Work, in particular, is central to modern notions of individual and collective identity, of morality and even of human nature. It is the means through which individuals are expected to realise themselves and to gain access to social wealth. It is perhaps for this reason that, while work is often seen as central to resolving the current crisis – either through calls for higher wages and the right to work or through attacks on immigrants and the unemployed – it is rarely seen as the problem in itself. The aim of this conference is therefore to ask what might a critique of work usefully offer us in addressing contemporary social issues and, if one will allow it, the possibility of a greater crisis of modern civilisation.

Contributors might consider:

·         What kinds of critique of work are necessary, on the basis of what criteria and in the name of what alternatives?

·         What hampers such a critique and how can we remove, go around or through these barriers?

·         What critical theories can usefully contribute to a contemporary critique of work?

·         How can contemporary social movements benefit from a critique of work?

·         How might a theoretical critique of work manifest itself practically and how might critiques of work in practice inform theoretical critiques?

·         What lessons can we learn from historical and contemporary social movements against work?

·         What might a critique of work tell us about the political, economic and psychological forms and changes that society is currently experiencing?

·         What are particularly unexamined aspects of the critique of work that need addressing?

·         How widespread and persistent are critiques of work in contemporary social movements and what kinds of critique of work have they developed?

·         What useful relationship might the critique of work have with critiques of the state, patriarchy, politics and other social forms?

·         What alternatives to work still exist, have existed and might exist?

Confirmed keynote speakers will be: Anselm Jappe (author of Guy Debord, Les Aventures de la marchandise, Crédit à mort) and Norbert Trenkle (author of Die Große Entwertung, Dead Men Working). Both of our keynotes are members of the wertkritik, or “critique of value”, school of Marxian critique.

Abstracts of 350 words, with a small bio, should be sent to Dr Alastair Hemmens (hemmensa@cardiff.ac.uk) by 20 February 2015.

The conference itself will take place at Cardiff University, Wales, on 10 July 2015.

This research is funded by the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship: Dr Alastair Hemmens, “‘Ne travaillez jamais’: The Critique of Work in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Thought, from Charles Fourier to Guy Debord.”

Website: http://www.marblepunk.com/2015/01/never-work-cardiff-university.html

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com  

Labor Process / Valorization

LABOR PROCESS / VALORIZATION

40 years after Labor and Monopoly Capital, by Harry Braverman

Deadline for submission of articles: January 31, 2014
(Articles in Portuguese and English)

Guest Editor
Elcemir Paço Cunha
Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF)

“The distinctive capacity of human labor power is, therefore, not its ability to produce a surplus, but rather its intelligent and purposive character, which gives it infinite adaptability and which produces the social and cultural conditions for enlarging its own productivity, so that its surplus product may be continuously enlarged. From the point of view of the capitalist, this many-sided potentiality of humans in society is the basis upon which is built the enlargement of his capital” (BRAVERMAN, 1998, p. 38).

The purpose of this call is fostering discussions on the labor process in the capitalist mode of production, having in mind the 40th anniversary of the publication of Labor and Monopoly Capital: the degradation of work in the twentieth century, by Harry Braverman. As is generally known, this book resumed the discussions of Sociology of Work worldwide by evoking the links between the labor process and the monopoly phase of capital. From this copious influence, remained the so-called Labor Process Theory, which engenders discussions and events abroad (http://www.ilpc.org.uk/). The discussions from Braverman’s book, under the critical guidance of Micheal Burawoy, also, prompted considerations that, right or wrong, staked out the conditions for setting what came to be the Critical Management Studies (KNIGHTS and WILLMOTT, 1990).

Additionally, all movement in the different chains that put on hold the category work discussing its validity for a social criticism or its centrality to social life (Jürgen Habermas, Claus Offe, and Andre Gorz, and resonances in the recognition theory as it appears in Axel Honneth, in addition to authors having even postmodernist attitudes, such as Zygmunt Bauman), also served to greatly deviate research on the work problem (compare, notwithstanding, to different movements which do not claim such centrality under the terms of criticism, as György Lukács, Ernest Mandel, István Mészáros, etc.). Not by chance, the so-called Organizational Studies, which partly reflect on the issues of social and economic sciences, manifest the tendency to pass off the problems of the labor process as valorization process of capital by preferring other themes also important that, however, keep away from the key determinations of this sociability observed, whose guiding core is still (against the most varied prognoses) the logic of value.

Therefore, celebrating this work by Braverman means opening the possibility for discussions which bring up the issues directly associated to work and labor process in the capitalist production, addressing, by way of example, these possible points:

· Issues concerning the centrality of work;
· New expressions of work degradation;
· Work, work division, and command technique (administration) at work;
· Work, State, and social policies;
· Work and new expressions of the “social question”;
· Work and feminism;
· Others.

We would like to invite authors to prepare theoretical and empirical papers.
Cadernos EBAPE.BR is an online journal on Administration published in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by EBAPE/FGV (Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation) and it is an open access journal - http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/cadernosebape/index. All approved papers will be published in the original language. The Cadernos EBAPE.BR is classified by the CAPES Qualis system as B1.

The authors should follow the guidelines for submitting articles to Cadernos EBAPE.BR in:

http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/cadernosebape/pages/view/normas.

The articles should be submitted through the link: http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/cadernosebape/login  

You must register as an author, if you have not done it previously.

The deadline for article submission is January 31, 2014.

Note: please indicate in the field "AUTHOR’S COMMENTS” (bottom of the page – 1st stage of the procedure) that your article is for the special issue: “Labor process/appreciation 40 years after Labor and Monopoly Capital, by Harry Braverman”.

Specific questions about the special issue should be directly addressed to the guest editor: Elcemir Paço Cunha (elcemirpacocunha@gmail.com).

Guest Editor
Elcemir Paço Cunha
Associate Professor of the Post-Graduation Programs in Social Service and Law at the Universidade Federal de Juiz de For a

**END**

'Cheerful Sin' – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The New Left Book Club: http://rikowski.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/the-new-left-book-club-call-for-papers/  

Precariat

PRECARIAT

Call for Papers: ‘Precariat’
Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought
Volume 3: Issue 3: January/February 2014

In his recent work, Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with, he argues, the revolutionary potential to change the world: the precariat. This is ‘a class-in-the-making, internally divided into angry and bitter factions’ consisting of ‘a multitude of insecure people, living bits-and-pieces lives, in and out of short-term jobs, without a narrative of occupational development, including millions of frustrated educated youth who do not like what they see before them, millions of women abused in oppressive labour, growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life, millions being categorised as “disabled” and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social, cultural, political and economic rights than citizens around them’.

In this issue, we wish to explore the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and applications of the concept. Among others, we welcome submissions examining the following topics in relation to precariat:

-          changes in the sociology of social classes

-          the relationship between precariat and multitude

-          means by which precariat might become a ‘class for itself’

-          cultural diversity and conflict (including through engagement with Samuel Huntington and Dieter Senghaas)

-          place, migration and globalization

-          forms of resistance

-          intergenerational transmission of poverty and the making of the precariat

-          Universal Basic Income

-          democracy, participation and representation

Building upon previous symposia with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Andrew Linklater and Cynthia Weber, the issue will contain review symposium with Guy Standing, who will respond to reviews of his recent The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, and Mark Purcell, who will respond to reviews of his The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy.

Submission deadlines

Abstracts: May 20th 2013

Full articles of around 8,000 words (solicited on the basis of review of abstracts): August 18th 2013

Publication: January/February 2014

UK REF Considerations: Papers can appear online as soon as they are accepted and processed. However, we will be able to accommodate the wishes of authors to delay publication until the beginning of 2014 because they wish their papers to be included in the 2014- REF.

Instructions for authors:

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rgld20&page=instructions#.UX-WG8qSJHo

Further details: http://www.tandfonline.com/rgld (previous website: http://global-discourse.com)

Editor contact details: matthew.johnson@york.ac.uk

Journal Aims and Scope

Global Discourse is an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented journal of applied contemporary thought operating at the intersection of politics, international relations, sociology and social policy. The journal’s scope is broad, encouraging interrogation of current affairs with regard to core questions of distributive justice, wellbeing, cultural diversity, autonomy, sovereignty, security and recognition. Rejecting the notion that publication is the final stage in the research process, Global Discourse seeks to foster discussion and debate between often artificially isolated disciplines and paradigms, with responses to articles encouraged and conversations continued across issues. The journal features a mix of full-length articles, each accompanied by one or more replies, shorter essays, rapid replies, discussion pieces and book review symposia, typically consisting of three reviews and a reply by the author/s. With an international advisory editorial board consisting of experienced, highly-cited academics, Global Discourse welcomes submissions from and on any region. Authors are encouraged to explore the international dimensions and implications of their work. With a mix of themed and general issues, symposia are periodically deployed to examine topics as they emerge.

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

'Cheerful Sin' – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Networked Labour

NETWORKED LABOUR

Networked Labour: Rethinking labour in an age of networks and movements

See: http://www.networkedlabour.net

The upcoming international seminar, titled Networked Labour is initially supported by Networked Politics, Transform! Europe, Transnational Institute and IGOPNET (Institut de Govern the Polítiques
Públiques) and it will be held in Amsterdam between 7-9 May 2013.

Networked Politics have been an open project promoted by Transform! Italia, Transnational Institute – New Politics and IGOP, and developed in co-operation with Euromovements.  To provide a space for
exchange between activists, researchers and activist-researchers there were several seminars and debates held between 2006 and 2009.  Most of the encounters organised in parallel to the important movement-network gatherings like European and World Social Forums and preparatory meetings that were linked to the Forum processes. Several printed and on-line books, an on-line library, and an on-line  ’New Politics Dictionary’ were among the concrete outcomes of the Network Politics debate; along side the founding of initiatives like the annually held Free Culture Forums.

Our current work will be focusing on the changing worlds of labour and production, and emerging new movements, political actors and their politics. We will mainly be discussing these topics in relation to the accelerating developments in the ICTs. Our hope is to create new synergies by bringing together many contributors and observers of the recent changes, movements, protests, and mobilisations. We hope this will enable us to increase our collective understanding of the new possibilities emerging in front of us for a radical social change.

If you are interested in joining or following this open discussion and exchange simply register to the networked labour weblog. We are looking forward to explore the change together!

Örsan Şenalp, Marco Berlinguer, Mayo Fuster Morell, Hilary Wainwright

First published in: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/networked-labour-seminar-7-9-may-2013-amsterdam

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

'Cheerful Sin' – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Learning Outcomes: The Absurd Becomes Logical

LEARNING OUTCOMES: THE ABSURD BECOMES LOGICAL

This is the title of a topical and important new paper by John J. Crocitti, Professor of History, San Diego Mesa College which is now available at The Flow of Ideas web site.

As Professor Crocitti notes:

“Ultimately, the drive towards SLO [Student Learning Outcomes] constitutes an effort by politicians, business people, opportunist professors and bureaucrats to deskill and control academic labor in the manner that management applied Taylorism to industrial labor during the early twentieth century”

The article can be viewed at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=contributions&sub=Learning%20Outcomes

Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Centre for the Study of Work and Education - Update 6th July 2009

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WORK AND EDUCATION – UPDATE 6th JULY 2009

OUR MANDATE: The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people.

We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

To change your subscriptions settings, visit: http://listserv.oise.utoronto.ca/mailman/listinfo/csewbroadcast

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• NEW! FROM FERNWOOD PUBLISHING – FIGHT BACK: WORKPLACE JUSTICE FOR IMMIGRANTS
• REPORT – ENTRY-LEVEL AND NEXT-STEP JOBS IN THE LOW-SKILL JOB MARKET
• JULY 15 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE CALL – SETTING UP & RUNNING A CBPR DEPARTMENT IN A COMMUNITY AGENCY: THE ACCESS ALLIANCE EXPERIENCE
• ARTICLE – PRACTICALLY SPEAKING: IMPROVING THE FABRIC OF WORKPLACE LEARNING
• COMMEMORATIVE BOOK “A CENTURY OF CO-OPERATION” NOW AVAILABLE
• ARTICLE – LESSONS FROM THE HUMBLING OF GENERAL MOTORS
• A FAREWELL TO ATKINSON COLLEGE (TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2009)
• ONLINE PUBLICATIONS

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NEW! FROM FERNWOOD PUBLISHING – FIGHT BACK: WORKPLACE JUSTICE FOR IMMIGRANTS
By Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley, Steve Jordan, Eric Shragge & Martha Stiegman

Displacement of people, migration, immigration and the demand for labour are connected to the fundamental restructuring of capitalism and to the reduction of working-class power through legislation to free the market from “state interference.” The result is that a large number of immigrant and temporary foreign workers face relentless competition and little in the way of protection in the labour market. Globally and in Canada, immigrant workers are not passive in the face of these conditions: they survive and fight back. This book documents their struggles and analyzes those struggles within the context of neoliberal globalization and international and national labour markets. Fight Back grew out of collaboration between a group of university-affiliated researchers/activists and the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal. The book shares with us the experiences of immigrant workers in a variety of workplaces.

It is based on the belief that the best kind of research comes from people’s lived experiences and consequently tells it “how it really is”.

Available at your local independent bookstore or order online from
http://www.fernwoodpublishing.ca

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REPORT – ENTRY-LEVEL AND NEXT-STEP JOBS IN THE LOW-SKILL JOB MARKET

Low-skill jobs are not “no skill” jobs, and the labor market for non-college jobs—jobs that do not require a college degree— is vast and diverse. This brief uses data from the 2007 Survey of Employers in the Low-Skill Labor Market to explore differences between non-college jobs that have few if any requirements and those for which either a high school degree, prior experience, or previous skills training is extremely important.

The report aims to broaden and deepen our understanding of the diversity of this labor market.

To read more: http://www.urban.org/publications/411801.html

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JULY 15 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE CALL – SETTING UP & RUNNING A CBPR DEPARTMENT IN A COMMUNITY AGENCY: THE ACCESS ALLIANCE EXPERIENCE

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is pleased to announce the second call in our 2009-2010 Educational Conference Call Series. In the midst of the numerous recovery act funding announcements from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we've been noticing a dramatic rise in inquiries to CCPH from community-based organizations that are either applying directly for research grants or as partners of academic institutions that are the lead applicants. We've decided to focus the call series on answering the most frequently asked questions, as part of the over-arching theme of "Building Community Capacity for Research." Each call includes speakers who provide answers and insights from their direct experience, helpful handouts, and links to relevant resources.

The audiofile, agenda, and handouts for the first call, which took place on June 3 and addressed the "how and why" of obtaining a federally negotiated indirect rate and federal wide assurance, are now posted on the CCPH website at:
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pastpresentations.html

The next call, scheduled for July 15 from 3:30 - 5 pm eastern time, addresses the question of what organizational systems and supports need to be in place to do community-based participatory research (CBPR) in a community agency setting. The call is titled "Setting Up & Running a CBPR Department in a Community Agency: The Access Alliance Experience.”

To register for the call, go to: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/ccphuw/78916.

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ARTICLE – PRACTICALLY SPEAKING: IMPROVING THE FABRIC OF WORKPLACE LEARNING

The rising dollar. An aging workforce. Competition from overseas. These are just a few of the challenges facing Canadian businesses. Increasingly, companies are investing in skills training as a way of gaining a much-needed edge—and Canada’s textile industry has been on the forefront of this shift, spending millions of dollars on an innovative—and inventive—workplace learning initiative.

To read more: http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/PracticallySpeaking/20090616MWTextiles.htm?Language=EN

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COMMEMORATIVE BOOK “A CENTURY OF CO-OPERATION” NOW AVAILABLE

One of the highlights of the Canadian Co-operative Association's National Congress in Ottawa was the launch of A Century of Co-operation, a commemorative book by Canada's pre-eminent co-op historian, Ian MacPherson. The 234-page book chronicles the history of Canada's co-operative movement through text and images from the movement's beginnings to the present day.

The book can be ordered from CCA's website at: http://www.coopscanada.coop/en/about_cca/100th/Commemorative-book . Cost is $50 plus GST.

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ARTICLE – LESSONS FROM THE HUMBLING OF GENERAL MOTORS
By Sam Gindin

Of all 20th century industries, it was the auto sector that best captured the sway of capitalism and the rise of American dominance. The assembly line showed off capitalism’s remarkable productive potential and the automobile flaunted capitalism’s consumerist possibilities … In the growth years after the war, the proudest achievement of the UAW and then the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), even to the point of trading off workplace rights, was winning what was essentially a ‘private welfare state’ – a set of gains that brought workers not just wages, but the security of a range of benefits, of which health care and pensions were the most significant…

To read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet229.html

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A FAREWELL TO ATKINSON COLLEGE (TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2009)
By James Laxer

A great experiment in part-time, adult education is coming to an end tomorrow.

Atkinson was on the cutting edge of the drive to democratize what had been a rather hide bound system in the past. Greater accessibility was the watchword of the time … From the very start Atkinson was about much more than upgrading professionals who needed a university degree. Without being fully conscious of what this implied at the outset, Atkinson was learning through experience how to educate people who combined work and study in their lives.

To read more: http://www.jameslaxer.com/2009/06/farewell-to-atkinson-college.html

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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
Wavering on Ether: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski