Bernie Sanders's Charming, Perfectly Awful Plan to Save Higher Education

[coloradoatheist]

Why even have a society that works? Just have everyone sipping cocktails, reading books and being taught what those books mean. Work is boring and a drain on the soul, and it would be great if nobody worked.

Work is good when workers are respected, when workers have a say and real power in the workplace.

Work is not so good under present day American capitalism.

Yeah, because work in the last 2 millennium was a lot of fun, and only got bad in the last 100 years or so.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Republicans like to talk about the Constitution a lot, that document that begins "We the People", but they have no concept of society or what is good or bad for a society as a whole. All they know is what is profitable for the individuals supporting them.

Providing people with a college education is an investment and a benefit to society. We should be trying to make it as easy as possible to afford one.

Civilized nations like Germany understand this.

Two years in the Peace Corp as prepayment for four years of federal/state paid college education may have the benefit of people appreciating service to humanity and diminish the compulsion to serve only oneself. This might strengthen society as a whole.
In fact, I would make it a prereq to attend any public university.

Most people don't need a college education.

That is only because the educational system is tied to an amoral destructive economic system.

We have completely forgotten the concept of education as a means to make people more capable citizens in a representative democracy that relies on the intelligence of voters. Education as a means to make people less vulnerable to the lies of politicians and the corporate media.

Right now higher education is just a system to make people more employable, more exploitable, and delay their entry into the workforce.

But capitalism pollutes everything eventually. People should know that already. It is clear.

You mean they have infected our institutions of higher learning? Have shaped curriculum to serve their evil and greedy ends?

 

[untermensche]

Work is good when workers are respected, when workers have a say and real power in the workplace.

Work is not so good under present day American capitalism.

Yeah, because work in the last 2 millennium was a lot of fun, and only got bad in the last 100 years or so.

Work got a little better in the early 20th Century with the rise of the power of the unions and it has slowly gotten worse since the illegal destruction of unions that began under Reagan.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yeah, because work in the last 2 millennium was a lot of fun, and only got bad in the last 100 years or so.

Work got a little better in the early 20th Century with the rise of the power of the unions and it has slowly gotten worse since the illegal destruction of unions that began under Reagan.

You are being a great comedian today. If you want the best job in the world, go run a hot dog stand in front of Home Depot. You get to be a respected worker and your own boss.

 

[untermensche]

Work got a little better in the early 20th Century with the rise of the power of the unions and it has slowly gotten worse since the illegal destruction of unions that began under Reagan.

You are being a great comedian today. If you want the best job in the world, go run a hot dog stand in front of Home Depot. You get to be a respected worker and your own boss.

This is about what I expected.

You have no reply but babble on anyway.

It is the unions that gave us the end of child labor, the eight hour day, the forty hour week, paid vacation days, maternity leave.

They, not capitalists, made conditions decent for working people. The capitalists are always happy to have workers slave for nothing.

 

[coloradoatheist]

You are being a great comedian today. If you want the best job in the world, go run a hot dog stand in front of Home Depot. You get to be a respected worker and your own boss.

This is about what I expected.

You have no reply but babble on anyway.

It is the unions that gave us the end of child labor, the eight hour day, the forty hour week, paid vacation days, maternity leave.

They, not capitalists, made conditions decent for working people. The capitalists are always happy to have workers slave for nothing.

No, you are the one making the absurd statement that work went to being great just because of unions.

People worked for thousands of years prior to modern capitalism. So was work great and fun and exhilarating in the middle ages when they had guilds which were equivalent to unions? And you are completely forgetting the role modern capitalism had in bringing the conditions that allowed modern unions to come about.

 

[untermensche]

This is about what I expected.

You have no reply but babble on anyway.

It is the unions that gave us the end of child labor, the eight hour day, the forty hour week, paid vacation days, maternity leave.

They, not capitalists, made conditions decent for working people. The capitalists are always happy to have workers slave for nothing.

No, you are the one making the absurd statement that work went to being great just because of unions.

Are you capable of reading?

I said it was improved by unions and is slowly getting worse because many of the unions have been destroyed.

The middle class rises and falls due to the power and extent of unionization. It is a tide that lifts all boats.

But if capitalists had their way we would still have children chained to work stations for 14 hours 7 days a week.

 

[bleubird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tUFTvww-lU
Never get the white house,but smartest man in the room.

 

[ksen]

But if capitalists had their way we would still have children chained to work stations for 14 hours 7 days a week.

Speaking of which . . . now that Wisconsin has busted the unions:

Wisconsin state legislators are preparing to vote on a budget, and a controversial package of modifications has already passed the finance committee and will soon be up for a vote by the legislature. This new package of provisions has already drawn criticism for its inclusion of measures that would decimate the state’s open records laws, protect state politicians from media scrutiny, and gut the Wisconsin definition of “living wage.” But one additional measure is worth gaping at, perhaps above all others: section 56, which would take away workers’ right to a weekend—even a one day weekend.

56. One Day of Rest in Seven. Include the provisions of 2015 AB 118 to permit an employee to state in writing that he or she voluntarily chooses to work without one day of rest in seven. Specify the provision first apply to union contracts on the day the collective bargaining agreement expires, or is extended, modified, or renewed, whichever comes first. [Currently every factory or mercantile employer must allow each employee 24 hours of rest in every consecutive seven days, except for certain emergency circumstances. The requirement does not apply to janitors, security staff, bakeries, restaurants, hotels and certain dairy or agricultural plants]

 

[untermensche]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tUFTvww-lU
Never get the white house,but smartest man in the room.

Why do you say that?

He is a Senator.

And he will probably be the only Democrat on the left running.

There is a lot of support for his positions nationwide.

Of course old white men in general are opposed to his positions.

But old white men have been a scourge to everyone else in this country since it's inception.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Work is good when workers are respected, when workers have a say and real power in the workplace.
.

I agree. It is about the difference in bargaining power. When the employer holds all the power, and the employee must take the job or starve to death (with no health care), the employer can treat the employee however they want. Unions are one response to that, but they can get out of hand themselves and take power away from the individual workers they "represent", be that by seniority rules, salting, unjustifiable union dues, locked up workplaces where you can't get a job if you are not in the union, etc.

I think the best answer is some limited union power, and more focus on social coverage as a society. Improved labour laws and standards were a start, but what I am really getting at is universal single payer health care and a basic living allowance available to everybody. Take away the threat of work or starve, and you'll have employers actually competing for employees. Then you may see some change and less abuse (by both employers and unions).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's a surprisingly popular position here, considering how unpopular other ontological arguments are. The idea that science is not useful and correct because it follows the rigours of the empirical method, but rather by the mere fact of it being science is an important trap not to fall into, and lies behind much of what we refer to as pseudoscience.

So yeah, a fair % of this board is about ontological empiricism.

Much easier to just tell the burger flippers what to think, right?

Ya, there's a lot of stuff that tries to glom onto the legitimacy of scientific inquiry while avoiding doing any of the things which make scientific inquiry legitimate.

For example: the selective use of carefully-gathered statistics to manufacture evidence for a previously-arrived-at conclusion. Also known as statistical analysis, "meta-studies," and whatever the hell this is supposed to be.

 

[RVonse]

This is about what I expected.

You have no reply but babble on anyway.

It is the unions that gave us the end of child labor, the eight hour day, the forty hour week, paid vacation days, maternity leave.

They, not capitalists, made conditions decent for working people. The capitalists are always happy to have workers slave for nothing.

No, you are the one making the absurd statement that work went to being great just because of unions.

People worked for thousands of years prior to modern capitalism. So was work great and fun and exhilarating in the middle ages when they had guilds which were equivalent to unions? And you are completely forgetting the role modern capitalism had in bringing the conditions that allowed modern unions to come about.

 

[ronburgundy]

The author of the quote in the OP has no clue what "tenure-track" means.

He/she claims that it means "tenure for everyone", which is absurdly false. Tenure-track merely means that the professor's are full time and that their job performance is rigorously evaluated each of their first 5 years, after which they essentially fired or given "tenure", which merely means that they cannot be fired just for saying something the offends the sensibilities of a couple of students or of politicians, but rather must be shown incompetent or doing harm to the mission of the University.

Sander's sensible requirement solves several problems. It will result in more full time positions and fewer part time adjunct positions in which faculty are paid less than $20 per hour to teach 1-2 courses and are hired and rehired on a semester to semester basis. This results in profs will low pay, no health care or retirement packages, low motivation, and that are never on campus, except the few hours per week they teach. Also, it is common for such profs with no ties to the University to suddenly quit right before or during a semester. In addition, those part timers have no facilities to do any research and cannot train graduate students.

As to not allowing the additional funds to go toward yet more administration, this is also very wise and would improve student education, in contradiction to the claim that it...

destroys student support services

Faculty per student ratios are near or below what they were 20 years ago. In contrast, administrator to student ratios are 10 times higher, and yet this has done nothing to improve the quality of education or provide tangible assistance to students that help them graduate. Most of what administration does is useless bullshit, forming committees to select committees to think about ways they can create more administrative work and time wasting forms and regulations for faculty to follow.

The potential major flaw with Sander's plan is that he doesn't seem to give enough recognition to the reality that R-1 Universities are the bedrock of basic science in the US, where tenure-track faculty do and should be spending time conducting research, advancing knowledge in their field, and training future scientists at the graduate level (most of which happens outside of "classes" and in the lab). But that is actually a minor amendment to his proposal. Overall, greater funding of full time faculty positions would benefit this research goal.