[PEN-L:4775] Futurework
I'd like to invite anyone who hasn't done so to sample our list, Futurework (see below). I also want to ask for opinions on the idea of re-distributing the fruits of technology (the "new wealth of nations") in the form of a universal, adequate *basic income* (citizen's income, social wage), acknowledging that needed goods and services can increasingly be produced and provided with almost no human input. There is much good work to be done in society. With a shift from education to be an "employee" for someone else's purposes (or to suffer unemployment because the jobs aren't there) to education for family and community service, environmental stewardship, and self-development, we could seize this opportunity to build a better, more humane society. More prisons are not the path to that end. Think about the basic income idea (which would, of course, be coupled with plentiful, affordable food and housing, as well as accessible education and universally available health care), and help us at Futurework to develop the idea. Reply to me, this list, or the Futurework list Sally Lerner New FUTUREWORK List December 19, 1994 FUTUREWORK: RE-DESIGNING WORK,INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION This is the launch of a new listserv, FUTUREWORK, an international e-mail forum for discussion of how to deal with the new realities created by economic globalization and technological change. Basic changes are occurring in the nature of work in all industrialized countries. Information technology has hastened the advent of the global economic village. Jobs that workers at all skills levels in developed countries once held are now filled by smart machines and/or in low-wage countries. Contemporary rhetoric proclaims the need for ever-escalating competition, leaner and meaner ways of doing business, a totally *flexible* workforce, jobless growth. What would a large permanent reduction in the number of secure, adequately-waged jobs mean for communities, families and individuals? This is not being adequately discussed, nor are the implications for income distribution and education. Even less adequately addressed are questions of how to take back control of these events, how to turn technological change into the opportunity for a richer life rather than the recipe for a bladerunner society. Our objective in creating this listserv is to involve as many people as possible in re-designing for the new realities. We hope that this list will help to move these issues to a prominent place on public and political agendas worldwide. The FUTUREWORK listserv is hosted by Communications for a Sustainable Future (CSF) located at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As the coordinator of FUTUREWORK, I invite you become part of our effort. FUTUREWORK is an unmoderated and open list, so all messages posted to the list will be redistributed around the world. *Futurework (FW) Announcement* FW-L: A Second, Moderated List After much discussion about how best to keep a quality Futurework list thriving, we are going to try out something. The Futurework (FW) list will continue to function very much as it presently does and there will be a second, moderated list named FW-L which will serve as a "quiet room" for working groups--think of a small chaired meeting--as well as a 'bulletin-board' to post notices about recommended books, articles, other documents, other Net sites, conferences, even job openings, etc. relevant to the future of work and to the roles of education, community and other factors in that future. Thus FW will continue to be an open discussion and debate forum which we will post to and keep track of, but not moderate. FW-L will serve subscribers as a calmer place to post and browse. Sally Lerner and Arthur Cordell will serve a co-moderators for FW-L. Normally, posts to FW-L should be limited to one screen. We value all the good energy, ideas and enthusiasm that Futurework has brought forth in the past five weeks. We hope that having two lists, together with setting FW mail on Digest if they wish, will allow busy people to stay subscribed and continue the valuable conversation. To subscribe to the moderated list, FW-L, send the following message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] sub FW-L yourfirstname yourlastname To subscribe to the FUTUREWORK (FW) list, send the following message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] sub FUTUREWORK yourfirstname yourlastname To unsub, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] saying unsub FUTUREWORKor unsub FW-L To post a message, send it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] To receive messages in digest form, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] saying set FUTUREWORK mail digestor set FW-L mail digest To access the archives for both lists, gopher or ftp to csf.colorado.edu find psn (Progressive Sociology), then Futurework under psn. Archives are also available via the FW WWW Home Page (under construction) at the
[PEN-L:4776] Re: min wage
There will be an article on the minimum wage in the July/August issue of Dollars and Sense. Marc Breslow, Editor.
[PEN-L:4777] RE: New work on discrimination in credit mkts
Patrick, you've set-up a "straw-person" in your musings about the shortcomings of urban activists. Through their redlining studies, fights with landlords, and battles with state and local governments, community-based organizations have built a method of analysis and a practice that helps people relate their own experiences to the urban process and the underlying logic of capital. That's a tough job, but there are thousands of organizers who are busy with it every day. You recognize that organizing has to start where people are. Admitedly, lots of community organizations stop with the "American Dream," but others have continued to connect their local struggles with structural processes. Intellectuals like yourself have to play a role in helping us all improve our urban politics, not just criticizing them for being short-sighted. Here are some questions for you: Name the second-largest corporation ($270 billion in assets) in the U.S. and the fastest- growing financial institution. Name the two institutions that have in one way or another financed over 50 percent of single- family homes in the U.S. Guess the percent in 1993 of their mortgages were for African Americans: 2 percent. Allen Fishbein from the Center for Community Change and I just finished a brief article for Shelterforce Magazine about HUD s proposed new performance goals [sic] for Fannie and Freddie. (Some excerpts below) HUD s analysis of the past performance of the GSEs contains some interesting statistics that directly support your statement that: a rising financial-speculative circuit of capital accentuates uneven spatial development, because of the growing capacity of financiers to `annihilate space by time' as Marx put it. (We welcome any guidance on ways to improve our analysis of these institutions.) It turns out Fannie and Freddie are extremely opportunistic in their activities in the international capital markets. They buy mortgages aggressively when the spread between mortgages they purchased and their cost of funds increases. That spread normally increases as the supply of mortgage debt hitting the secondary market explodes. But despite their criminally large profits these institutions have had a dismal record in serving low-income people and their communities. The market dominance enjoyed by these two government supported entities in large part dictates the underwriting terms and conditions used by loan originators. These underwriting guidelines have been criticized, especially in the past, for being biased against older urban neighborhoods, and thus reinforcing patterns of redlining and disinvestment. To develop the goals, HUD conducted considerable research into the size of the potential market and the GSEs past performance, and we found the proposed rule to contain many useful references to recent research on ongoing inequities in mortgage finance. I can e-mail the proposed rule to any one who wants it. It's available over the Net in the GPO Federal Register gopher sites. The proposed rule was published on February 16th, 1995. Despite their general success in lowering interest rates and expanding mortgage credit availability for moderate income households, most observers would agree that the GSEs have been much less successful in serving the needs of modest income families, minorities, and the residents of underserved areas. In an effort to redress this imbalance, in 1992 Congress enacted legislation directing HUD, as the GSEs regulator, to establish specific performance goals for affordable housing. Organizations, such as the National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Peoples' Action, ACORN, Center for Community Change, LISC, and the Enterprise Foundation, strongly supported passage of this legislation. The interesting thing about HUD's analysis is how the GSEs have failed to "lead the market" in the production of affordable housing and housing in underserved areas (which is the basis of their governmental charter). HUD estimates that the already underperforming private financial market is originating half of its mortgages on housing affordable to low and moderate income families, yet the 1996 share of purchases for the GSEs is only 40 percent. In 1993, the GSEs purchased 70 percent of all single-family mortgages, yet they have underperformed even the market in serving minority households. In that same year, just 2.9 percent of all mortgages originated nationally went to African-Americans. According to HUD Secretary Cisneros, In 1993, mortgages to African Americans accounted for only 2.3 percent of Fannie Mae s purchases and 1.7 percent of Freddie Mac s. Similarly, 3.4% of all loans went to Hispanics in 1993, but Fannie Mae's purchases amounted to 2.7% and Freddie Mac's 2.9%. Based on 1993 mortgage market data, the GSEs purchased 55 percent of the loans originated by the primary market for borrowers with incomes above 120 percent of area median income, but only 41 percent of the
[PEN-L:4778] U.S. income inequality
U.S. INCOME INEQUALITY HIGHEST AMONG INDUSTRIAL NATIONS WASHINGTON -- New studies on the growing concentration of U.S. wealth and income challenge a cherished part of the country's self-image: They show that rather than being an egalitarian society, the U.S. has become the most economically stratified of industrial nations. Even class societies like Britain, which inherited large differences in income and wealth over centuries going back to their feudal pasts, now have greater economic equality than the United States, according to the latest economic and statistical research, much of which is to be published soon. Economic inequality has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s. Since 1992, when Bill Clinton charged that Republican tax cuts in the 1980s had broadened the gap between the rich and the middle class, it has become more sharply focused as a political issue. Many of the new studies are based on the data available then, but provide new analyses that coincide with a vigorous debate in Congress over provisions in the Republican Contract with America. Indeed, the drive by Republicans to reduce federal welfare programs and cut taxes is expected, at least in the short term, to widen disparities between rich and poor. Federal Reserve figures from 1989, the most recent available, show that the wealthiest 1 per cent of U.S. households -- with net worth of at least $2.3 million each -- owns nearly 40 per cent of the nation's wealth. By contrast, the wealthiest 1 per cent of the British population owns about 18 per cent of the wealth there -- down from 59 per cent in the early 1920s. Further down the scale, the top 20 per cent of Americans -- households worth $180,000 or more -- have more than 80 per cent of the country's wealth, a higher figure than in other industrial nations. Income statistics are similarly skewed. At the bottom end of the scale, the lowest-earning 20 per cent of Americans earn only 5.7 per cent of all the after-tax income paid to individuals in the United States each year. In Finland, a nation with an exceptionally even distribution of income, the lowest-earning 20 per cent receive 10.8 per cent of such income. The top 20 per cent of American households in terms of income -- $55,000 or more -- have 55 per cent of all after-tax income. "We are the most unequal industrialized country in terms of income and wealth, and we're growing more unequal faster than the other industrialized countries," said Edward N. Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. He will publish two papers in coming months that compare wealth patterns in Western countries. Liberal social scientists worry about poor people's shrinking share of the nation's resources, and the consequences in terms of economic performance and social tension. Margaret Weir, a senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution, called the higher concentration of incomes and wealth "quite divisive," especially in a country where the political system requires so much campaign money. "It tilts the political system toward those who have more resources," she said, adding that financial extremes also undermined the "sense of community and commonality of purpose." Conservatives have tended to pay less attention to rising inequality, and some express skepticism about the statistics or their significance. Marvin H. Kosters, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said he thought the gap, as measured, was being used as a false villain. "I think we have important sociological problems," he said, "but I don't think this gets at it all that well." There is no agreement as to why inequality is rising faster in the United States than elsewhere. Explanations include falling wages for unskilled workers as automation spreads, low tax rates on the rich during the 1980s and relatively low minimum wages. -- New York Times Service Globe and Mail, April 17, 1995 Sid Shniad
[PEN-L:4780] Worker?
20 April 1995 "What is worker" has drawn a lot of comments and clarifications. Gil Skillman said, "a worker is someone who expends socially productive labor in a commodity-producing enterprise." Robert Peter Burns said, "anyone who has to rely on paid employment." Peter Dorman said, "a worker in a capitalist economy is an employee of an enterprise." Jim Divine said, "a worker . . . [is] 'direct producer' and might not be a proletarian but a slave or serf or whatever" Carl Dassbach said, "A worker is the antithesis of an owner." It seems to me the last one is the clearest and the shortest definition. A worker who sells his (her) labor power for living. Anyone who sweats for living, sell labor power for wage. Both productive and unproductive laborer is a worker. The only qualification is that worker only exists in capitalism, because labor power is commodity only in capitalism and nowhere else (slavery, feudalism, and communist utopia included). Therefore we cannot define worker in other systems where work for living is not imposed on the person. "work for living" in exchange for wage is imposed in capitalism, because worker is not owner and therefore has to work. And owner who owns the jobs has the power to impose work on worker. The definition is very clear here from the Great Plains. Here we see no hills and valleys for hundreds of miles, no smoke or fog. The air is pristine clear, and nothing like in East or West Coasts or elsewhere. Fikret Ceyhun Dept. of Economics Univ. of North Dakota e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4779] Re: U.S. income inequality
Oddly enough, I think that in a class-based society, where frank admission was made of the fact, government would generally tend to play a more prominent redistributive role and income would be less stratified. It is revealing, I think, that the only prominent American politician (at least to my knowledge) to admit to the existence of social class as a real phenomenon is New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Take away the recognition of class as a phenomenon, and you have the dominance of raw bucks. Jon Peirce Memorial U. of Nfld. (sojourning in To. at present)
