Last Reflection on JUS494: Science, Technology & Inequality

     This has been my favorite class at ASU. It has opened my eyes, and given me confidence to write and say what I think.

 

      Technologies Transform. Technologies include Information, Exploration, Warfare, Industry, and Entertainment. Science & Technology should be biased toward eliminating Inequality. The process by which technologies are structured and decisions made positions people differently, giving them unequal degrees of power, access, and awareness. New technologies will always be weighted to benefit the powerful and wealthy. The powerful manipulate public opinion – acting on people’s ignorance, apathy, bigotry, or fear. That manipulation is overcome when the public participates, realizes the irrationality of its prejudices, and the false threats of fear-mongering.

 

          If the world wants peace, why are we not preparing for it? Why does the U.S. government give the U.S. Dept. of Defense the highest funding priority with all its human cruelty, torture, terror and violence. Because the military-industrial complex is such a money-making operation for some people. How can we transform public opinion towards nuclear disarmament? Who still remembers Hiroshima? With the apparent military build-up in the Middle East, the ignoring of pleas to be heard and believed against false media propaganda, (like what happened to the Japanese) it’s easy to see Iran is going to be the next nuclear target.

 

          Many people taking action can cause social transformation. Many people are concerned with the greed and corruption which perpetuates war, poverty and inequality. Technology based on positive principles of compassion and unselfishness will go a long way to ridding the world of pain, hopelessness, hunger, despair, grief and horror. The time is now. Let’s get involved.

 

 

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS OF VIET NAM

 

Viet Nam is the 2nd best investment destination among ASEAN countries. (The first is Singapore.) Cost of investment is not as cheap as China, but cheaper than other countries and quicker to development because of its smaller size. Vietnamese love the Capitalist system. (Singapore is Socialist) More money is now being spent on research & development – their government has assigned their science & technology innovators to quickly apply new findings to production and business for purposes of industrialization and modernization. They want new equipment, improvement in existing technologies, to modernize traditional technologies and adapt foreign new technologies. Viet Nam does not lack expertise for effective use of science and scientific results or particular technological know-how. Vietnam offers financing and tax incentives to lure businesses. They have a formula to discourage monopoly from emerging stronger than the corporation.

 

But they have other problems:

1. Lack of communication between ministries and institutions
2. Lack of appropriate funding
3. Lack of relevant research equipment have forced the R&D institutions to move into contract research, technical services, and consultancy arrangements with as broad a range of customers as possible; researchers are holding more than one job. The national R&D system is organized, financed, and managed in ways that make communication difficult and expensive between sectors.

The government says they have good policies, but lack of good attitude towards the implementation.

 

Their growth rate of 7-8% is one of the highest in the world. Poverty rate is going down from 51% to 38%. Viet Nam is open and honest, doesn’t manipulate their figures as they want to open up the country. Inequality gap between urban and rural is not too different. Corruption there is less rampant due to government control. The new trend in Asia is to be self-sufficient. If you can solve the big city problem, you can solve the country’s political and economic problems. Viet Nam is proud of their luxury developments. Their social problems are crime, their dependency on cars is worse than the U.S. because things are changing more rapidly there and the political/social infrastructure is not ready for it.

 

The Vietnamese give highest priority to getting foreign high technology, then applying and adapting to their firms and institutions. They consider investment for science and technology as an investment in development, yet their researchers had no well-defined or rational criteria to use in deciding what level of resources to assign to institutions at different levels – national, city-province, enterprise. Now the government has launched a program of rationalization: first priority is given to R&D that targets Aids prevention, the provision of clean water, and elimination of poverty; second priority is given to IT, biotechnology, new materials, and automation.

 

A suggestion for Viet Nam would be a new policy giving a limited number of large, multiyear S & T grants that would create national Centers of Excellence. The government would specify criteria and invite proposals examined by regional and international assessors. This approach was used by Korea and Singapore in building their S&T institutions.

 

One problem View Nam faces is that priority-setting for basic research is difficult and not transparent. Another is that scientists need to be well-qualified, working in a good environment with advanced equipment, and have access to advances made by other scientists in the world. Viet Nam also has an aging scientific community.

 

The Government of Viet Nam might also consider establishing an endowed foundation for science and engineering – the Viet Nam Science and Engineering Foundation (VISEF) which could be structured for long-term support of basic research and human-resource development for Viet Nam. International financial support might be in order.

The activities of VISEF might be:

1. Evaluation of proposals for an award of support
2. Selection and awarding of fellowships
3. Evaluation and award of block grants to universities and research
4. institutions
5. Planning, selection, and establishment of Centers of Excellence
6. Evaluation and award of equipment for teaching and research laboratories
7. Administration of international cooperative research projects
8. Science and Engineering Awards for excellent research work
9. Improvement projects for science education
10. Assessment of new scientific breakthroughs

  

Inequality vs Economic Democracy by Dr. J. W. Smith of the Institute for Economic Democracy

Early corporations burned all the spice trees which they could not control in order to retain their high charge for spices. Modern corporations control America’s foreign policy the same way. They destroyed the farming industry of poor countries by selling highly-subsidized, low-priced grains to developed and undeveloped nations. Under their self-designed monopolization of the world’s food supply, those corporations doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their grain prices as food supplies grew scarcer. This monopoly structure is specifically designed to plunder the wealth out of nations, drawing them in so that extrication is almost impossible, and now hundreds of millions now face starvation. These people are helpless against the corporate controlled world structure, and they die. Hundreds of millions dollars of (mis)appropriated wealth becomes hundreds of billions of dollars, while innocent people entitled to a secure food supply die. Both of these crimes of inhumanity against humanity are the result of greed, called “the Plunder by Trade system” and the “property rights structure” that have been designed into our laws during the last more than 700 years.  

 

This was done under the name of “privatization” which the perception managers of the power brokers have taught us is a good thing. (It’s only good for them. They get away with these outright frauds because advancing technology is so efficient, they can distribute half the gains of technology, and retain the remaining gains in the form of massive capitalized unearned profits. Immense as those unearned profits are, they are only a fraction of the gains in living standards.Technology is monopolized.

 

How can a nation or region attain security so as to avoid starvation and poverty as faced by hundredds of millions today due to intentional destruction of the viability of local farmers and corporate control of world food supplies?

 

1) Establish local perma-culture and abandon corporate control of food supplies. Plants providing thread for cloth such as hemp are among the most prolific in the world. Perma-culture can be expanded to produce fiber for clothes and exotic threads made from oil or coal will not threaten the environment.

 

2) Houses built from rammed earth or rock with ceramic interiors that will last for centuries is also a local industry.

 

Within those two local industries, perma-culture and housing, are the essentials of a secure society, food, fiber, and shelter. When regional soils are used with attention to protection of nature’s wealth, these necessities of life are not intense consumers of resources.

 

If nobody get unearned wealth, money in a secure social structure represents real values. Taxes disappear and health care, retirement, governments, and more are all funded from those natural flows of money.

 

See ied.info to find out more about the Institute for Economic Development.

 

Notes from Susan E. Cozzens’s article: Distributive Justice in S & T Policy

 

Last year, 2007, I was first taught the widespread view (misbelief?) that economic growth benefits everyone through “Trickle Down” dynamics and “the Rising Tide that Lifts All Boats,” cited by Fields (2001). I was skeptical, actually more of a total disbeliever. But it was taught by someone whose credentials were much greater than mine, and I was tested on the “Knowledge” I had learned. Recently I’ve heard Barack Obama say the “Trickle Down” method hasn’t worked. My feelings have been validated that the theory is used, knowingly by some, perhaps unknowingly by others (though I doubt it), as a political trick.

 

In some countries, those with strong safety nets like Europe and Australia, a few rich get richer, but then are taxed to provide resources to help the poor. Yet there is no sure case like this in the United States where there is no national health-care system, minimum wages are so low, unemployment insurance is minimal, …  Even in Europe, the argument is wearing thin as some countries run out of resources and begin taking apart the welfare state by such things a moving up the retirement ages. What’s more, many developing countries are required by international lending organizations such as World Bank to dismantle those safety nets. World Bank’s strictures against subsidies for water supply is one example. Unbelievable! Water – the most basic necessity to support life after air.

 

There is no global welfare state, and the countries of the global North are not even living up to their very modest pledges of assistance to developing countries. There are even those in the U.S. who demand why this country is obligated to foreign aid at all. They speak of ‘Us’ vs. ‘They’. As if ‘Us’ had never been guilty of any atrocities upon ‘They’ and might need to compensate for it. And what assistance is provided, is filtered through the same elites who benefit from open market policies.

 

Science and Technology Policy consists of four sub-areas:

1. Research policies
2. Innovation policies
3. Human Resource policies
4. Regulatory policies

 

Globally – different countries make different choices from Science & Technology policy instruments.

 

There are four traditions in the political philosophy in Principles of Distributive Justice:

1. Libertarian engine: In libertarian thought, collecting taxes to pay for any other function is an unjust violation of rights and liberties, so tax-supported funding for research and development is out, and with it, most of what contemporary science and technology policies involve.
2. Utilitarian accelerator: As social cohesion declines, the re-distributive mechanisms that utilitarians think are operating ‘over there somewhere’ can no longer be counted on: S&T policy must consider its own intrinsic contributions to distributive dynamics.
3. Contractarian distributor: John Rawls in his “Theory of Justice (1971) states under contract theory, a fair system of distribution is one that rational individuals would agree to after deliberation. However if your starting point at negotiation is affluent – one set of rules will look good, and if you are poor, another set will look good. So he adds to the hypothetical moment of negotiating: the moral system is one that individuals would agree to behind a “veil of ignorance,” – they would not know what their starting position is. On this basis, nobody would agree to utilitarian moral principles because it’s possible that while total well-being increases, someone’s well-being might decrease. But behind the veil of ignorance, the rational individual would also not know whether he or she was male or female, black or white, Tutsi or Hutu, Chinese or Thai. So they would never agree to a set of distributive principles that distributed rewards unequally based on ascriptive characteristics that are outside individual control. So justice as fairness holds no tolerance for ‘culture’-based patterns of unequal distribution. This is in complete contrast with utilitarianism which is quiet on such differences. The empirical evidence showing growth pays off for the poor, does not demonstrate that growth pays off for all ethnic groups, nor that it pays off equally for women and men, girls and boys. Income inequality is growing in most U.S. states, and this is fairness under this justice principle. These first three approaches do nothing to improve a world with growing inequality. Neither Libertarian, Utilitarian, or Contractarian principles of Distributive Justice expect it to do otherwise. Does this matter to you? Example: China. In the past decade, they have raised hundreds of millions above the U.S. $1/day poverty level, but is not straining with fast-growing gaps between rich and poor, urban and rural. Paul Farmer’s work on health in poor communities demonstrates inequality makes poverty more dangerous. Like the polarized world Marx predicted, such a society does not appear to be sustainable. (Reminds me of a scary movie I saw as a young girl painting a situation like this where women were considered to be “furniture” because of the huge inequality gap.) (James Galbraith 1999: … A high degree of inequality causes the comfortable to disavow the needy. It increases the social and the psychological distance separating the have from the have-nots, transforming the U.S. from a middle-class democracy … into something that more closely resembles an authoritarian quasi-democracy with an over-class, and an under-class, and a hidden politics driven by money.” He describes our current nation perfectly – bailout and all.

For those who use religion to sanction their motives:

The moral codes of most societies caution against polarization in wealth (Bellah et al 1988): Both Old and New testaments make it clear that societies sharply divided between rich and poor are not in accord with the will of God. Classic republican theory from Aristotle to the American founders rested on the assumption that free institutions could survive in a society only if there were a rough equality of condition, that extremes of wealth and poverty are incompatible with a republic.

Asian societies have combined economic growth, technological innovation and broadly-shared prosperity under strongly communitarian political philosophies (Bell 2000). European commitment to ‘social cohesion’ is seen in its social policies and also its innovation strategies.

 

 

Some Americans are injudicious about re-distributive mechanisms. But the safety they value is threatened by growing inequality. Communitarians find fault with the welfare state for bureaucratizes distribution of benefits, shifts power away from communities and loosens family social ties. They are also critical of the political right under which Unregulated Free-Market Capitalism undermines families, local communities and the political process. Look at what just happened in the U.S. There could not be much more extreme example of this than the current bailout (Paulson Plunder). There was a higher sense of civil obligations among university scientists before the emergence of market-oriented policies – before “the valorization of greed in the Thatcher/Reagan era…” The example given is the shock the biomedical research community expressed that parts of the human genome could be patented. The previous value was that scientific knowledge was public. The new value was that it could be made private. Are you shocked? I am.

 

PROPAGANDA FOLLOWS TECHNOLOGY

Topic

U.S. Government Propaganda in Foreign & Domestic Affairs

Thesis

• How political propaganda has adapted to new media technology

Introduction

This paper will contrast forms of U.S. propaganda in foreign/domestic political affairs since the advent of television and the Internet

Body

U.S. government propaganda as a concept, history, and reality in media technology

• Technology determines outcomes
• Technological strategy as rational and planned
• Technology as a political tool of control (Marx)
• Technology as capitalist control, fits with capitalist consumerism of new things
• Change occurs through power struggles
• Technology causes unintended consequences: intended results come quicker, unintended results show up over time

Literature Review

Concept, Origin, & Theories of Propaganda in Domestic & Foreign Affairs

Historical Review

Propaganda in the ICA

Examples  

Reality of Media News Technology since 1960

Case Studies 

Analyzing the Conclusion

Political propaganda has always been around. However, since 1960, the use of TV/Internet has provided more channels and outlets for manipulation and deception, but also new ways of verifying information, an unintended secondary effect.

Thesis Reworded

Concluding statement

 

Possible References

 

Abrams, Joseph. Critics Demand Resignation of U.N. Official Who Wants Probe of 9/11 ‘Inside Job’ Theories.  Fox News Online. June 19, 2008

 

Agence France-Presse. Timeline of Russia-Georgia tensions over separatists. 8/8/2008

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20080808-153525/Timeline-of-Russia-Georgia-tensions-over-separatists

 

Barstow, David. “Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” NYTimes.com. 20 April 2008. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E7DF103CF933A15757C0A96E9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

 

Billion, Beaurenaut & Yves, The Epic of Black Gold, (2004)

http://www.zarafa-films.com/  History of oil, corruption, violence, unimaginable profits and human suffering in the 20th century.

 

Corbin, Jane. Daylight Robbery: What Happened to the $23 billion? (2008)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7438372.stm

The U.S. Justice Dept. has imposed gag orders which prevent public knowledge of the real problem.

Cowell, Alan. “Iran Won’t Relent on Nuclear Program” NYTimes.com. 24 July 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/world/middleeast/24iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

 

Garrison, William Lloyd. Declaration of Sentiments. Boston Peace Conference, 1838

 

Gelken, Chris. “US lawyer seeks to sue US over Iran threats” Press TV, Tehran. 22 Jul 2008.

http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=64435&sectionid=3510302

 

Gonn, Adam. 2 US aircraft carriers headed for Gulf. Media Line News Agency , THE JERUSALEM POST. 8/7/2008.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104233164&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Haaretz service. Jewish Georgian minister: Thanks to Israeli training, we’re fending off Russia.. Haaretz.com. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010187.html 8/11/2008.

 

Hodge, Nathan. Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia? Wired.com.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/did-us-military.html 8/8/2008

 

Information Clearing House. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

 

Inside Iraq: Oil Law. http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_files/iraqi_oil-law.jpg

Aljazeera. June 2008.        

http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_iraqwar.htm

 

Jarecki, Eugene. Why We Fight. Sony Pictures Classics, Charlotte Street film in association with BBC Storyville/Arte/CBC. SonyPictures.com/SonyClassics.com

 

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine

 

Moyers, Bill. Big Oil and Iraq. Bill Moyers Journal. PBS http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06272008/watch3.html

 

Parry, Robert, Commercial Media Let McCain Get Away with Claims that the “Surge” has Worked, Consortium News, 10 September 2008

 

Posen, Barry R. The Security Dilemma and the Ethnic Conflict. Essential Readings of World Politics, 3rd edition. WW Norton & Company: New York 2008.

Press TV. Israel ‘has a hand in S. Ossetia war’ http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66203&sectionid=351020202. 8/10/2008

 

Real Reason Why USA & Israel Will Attack Iran http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEpp9E6aJGw&eurl=http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20210.htm

 

Skarbo, Svetlana & Jonathan Petre. The Pipeline War: Russian bear goes for West’s jugular
Daily Mail. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20476.htm. 8/10/2008

 

Snow, Jon, Jon Snow’s Hidden Iraq (2008) http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/jon+snows+hidden+iraq/1753147

 

The Dossier.  http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_iraqwar.htm

 

Efficient vs. Entrenched Technology

What does the Dvorak keyboard, the American standard measuring system and oil including all of its byproducts have in common?

 

Persons committed to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard have held most of the world’s records for speed typing. In the 1940’s, U.S. Navy experiments demonstrated increased efficiency with DSK that would amortize the cost of retraining a group of typists within the first ten days of employment. If you want to switch, it is easy. Randy Cassingham speed went from 50 wpm on the QWERTY keyboard to over 100 on the Dvorak Keyboard. Why continue to teach kids the inefficient way (just because it became entrenched in society’s tradition) when they could learn Dvorak in 2-3 weeks and move on to writing, programming, and creating which are so much more important. Just about the time the switch was to be made, World War II broke out, and the War Department ordered all typewriter keyboards be set to the common standard. The Dvorak has the most-used consonants on the right side of the home row and vowels on the left side of the home row which helps creates back and forth movement between the right and left hand. It is less likely to result in carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive motion injuries. If DSK lets you type 20 40% faster, why don’t we use start using it now?

 

Perhaps for the same reason we have never fully implemented the metric system.

 

It makes sense that we use technology which is most efficient, and resist the social or politically-motivated entrenchment that holds less efficiency or value for us all.

 

So tell me, where does this place our dependence on oil?

Science, Technology & Inequality

Who or what is responsible for the recent increases in income inequality?

 

Some possible answers are new technologies, including robotics and advances in communication technology. Eli Whitney, inventor of interchangeable parts, said that technology substituted machinery operation for the skill of artists. Now our most skill-biased technological advance, the microchip, can be used in scanners to aid unskilled workers, as well as in personal computers to aid skilled workers. The supply of skilled workers increased more rapidly since 1970 than in the 30 years previous. Yet the U.S. labor market experienced a large increase of within-group inequality. This inequality between workers with similar education indicates some new and powerful forces.

 

One theory is that it was caused by the technological revolution. But technology arises from within, in the decisions of companies and workers the same way employment and wages are decided. So perhaps the increase in skill-bias was due to changes in profit opportunities made possible by the increased supply of skilled workers. Technological change will always be directed towards profit. If developing skill-biased techniques is more profitable, then new technology will be skill-biased. Technologies that are used more in the production of expensive goods will be more in demand, and the invention and improvement of these technologies will be more profitable. The first item that determines the profitability of a technology is its market size. Machines used by a larger number of workers will increase profits. It is through this effect that the increase in the skills supply induces technology to become more skills-biased. The production of skill-complementary machines and technology make the skill premium higher, which causes more returns to education. Trade affects which technologies are profitable, and causes an increase in the price of skill-intensive products. This affect the LDCs (least-developed countries) that are also using this technology.

 

The organization of production, jobs, and how employers are recruiting, are influenced by this large supply of skilled labor. Jobs are designed specifically for them, and exclude low and middle-skilled workers. Organizational change shifts resources away from low-skilled workers. The decline in the real value of minimum wage, globalization, and loss of unions may be potential causes of inequality. Since the late 80s, there has been an explosion in CEO pay which suggests changes in social norms regarding inequality and fairness. There may be a link from changes in technology to changes in labor market institutions and social norms. Inequality might also increase due to well-paid individuals who may decide to reduce support for the welfare state or redistribution programs. This would mean that technological change can affect inequality, especially if it affects social norms to where it is acceptable for CEOs to be paid much more than workers. Interesting to note is that inequality increased in English-speaking economies, though to a much lesser in continental Europe. So far, there is no consensus as to why, but perhaps it has to do with wage compression making low-skilled workers more expensive to employ. Aiding unskilled workers with new technology has potential to raise the value of their productivity.