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Raw labor used to be valuable. It was how the crops on fields and in orchards were harvested. Raw labor was the commercial fisherman casting and pulling the nets, the stevedore lugging stuff from a ship onto the dock, the loader of freight between trains and trucks or transportation and warehouses and between warehouses and stores. This was also the person who did the unskilled work of construction and maintenance of highways, railroads, and canals. This fit the classification of 'unskilled workers'.
Slightly more skilled work, the semi-skilled work, implied assembling objects on a production line, driving vehicles or operating other machinery, or running a cash register. Maybe cleaning, which could also be unskilled. But such work as a rule required little training. This was semi-skilled work.
These workers were the proletariat of Karl Marx, the class that Marx contended would eventually dominate political life as economic orders became more sophisticated in technology and richer in the accumulation of capital. But the worker had nothing to offer except his toil, and capitalists could be relied upon to exploit the helplessness of the worker in his weak position of negotiation as the political order allowed. Owners of the assets would thus debase the worker as completely as possible with the aid of bourgeois governments that the capitalists dominated. This would end in a socialist revolution... yada, yada, yada... and with astute guidance from vanguard leadership, workers would be in a position to see their world transform into the post-scarcity world of Communism, a world in which all human needs could be met easily, exploitation would be impossible, and people could develop their human qualities to the fullest. This Communism is not to be confused with the reality of Marxist-Leninist states such as the Soviet Union that called them selves 'socialist' states attempting to make the hard transition to Marx's ultimate Communist world of humanistic abundance.
Hey -- Marx established much of the language of social science, and we are stuck with it.
We all know that beginning in the 1950s in America that as unskilled labor became less important in the economy, high-school students got the admonition to not drop out of high school. Raw labor was becoming less reliable as a source of work. Even semi-skilled work was beginning to be deprecated as a career choice. Manufacturing had always been seasonal and cyclical in its demand for assembly-line workers. Skilled work was still sophisticated enough that one began to need a high-school diploma to enter an apprenticeship program. It still paid better than most white-collar work.
In recent years means have been found in which to greatly the number of people doing such tasks. Containers might be loaded at a factory so that they would never need to be opened (with a high possibility of pilferage) at a dock between an electronics plant in China and a retailer's warehouse in America. Even in retailing we find self-checkout that allows people to check out merchandise; no checker needs count cash, bag groceries or clothing items, weigh produce, or even approve a check or credit/debit/EBT purchase. We see ATMs supplanting bank tellers. Robots can now do the stereotyped work that assembly-line workers once did without the risk of someone getting carpal-tunnel syndrome or back pain.
So guess what happens? The demand for raw and even semi-skilled labor shrinks.
OK, so what about the lower-middle-class clerks who made a living pushing papers, inputting data, and filing? We need far less of that as computers do the work. Computers are even reducing the need for attorneys, mathematicians, and engineers!
Question: what happens if workers completely lose their value in an economic order, or find their value reduced to that of slaves or share-croppers? Do the remaining economic elites get to act with consummate arrogance, cruelty, and indulgence?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Even more -- is the beginning of the post-scarcity era itself a Crisis in itself? If assets are everything and labor is little more than paying off the elites for the privilege of living in the same world as those elites. then how do people adjust?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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There's still plenty of demand for low skilled and unskilled labor. It's just filled by illegal immigrants these days, while Americans who would have filled those jobs - at higher pay - languish on welfare instead.
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(11-01-2017, 07:53 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: There's still plenty of demand for low skilled and unskilled labor. It's just filled by illegal immigrants these days, while Americans who would have filled those jobs - at higher pay - languish on welfare instead.
This.
Which is why immigration restrictions and a wall are vital to America's national and economic security. For the record I support having a wall on our northern borders too. Since Canada has decided to openly and actively engage in cultural suicide it will become necessary especially if the US determines it is the last, best hope for the West.
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(11-05-2017, 01:11 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: (11-01-2017, 07:53 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: There's still plenty of demand for low skilled and unskilled labor. It's just filled by illegal immigrants these days, while Americans who would have filled those jobs - at higher pay - languish on welfare instead.
This.
Which is why immigration restrictions and a wall are vital to America's national and economic security. For the record I support having a wall on our northern borders too. Since Canada has decided to openly and actively engage in cultural suicide it will become necessary especially if the US determines it is the last, best hope for the West.
Cultural suicide? That has been said of ethnic groups from the Irish on. Pizza and Puccini are cultural suicide, too -- if one refers to a country 'free' of the cultural and culinary influence of a once-reviled ethnic group that has become an indelible part of the American mainstream.
Hispanic culture isn't all that exotic. I lived in California or Texas between 1972 and 1992... of course, MS-13 can go to Hell, but who said that I have any sympathy for violent crime?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Generally speaking culture has a genetic, and even racial component. Living in a multiracial household (myself being black along with my mother, and my husband and son being white) I know that persons of different races have different modes of being. Not all of this is cultural. Culturally speaking I'm often accused by other blacks (outside my family--my family is probably used to my way of being) of "acting white". Neither my son nor my husband have ever been accused of "acting black" (except both may have picked up a liking for collard greens and incorrect conjugation of the verb 'be' when in an emotional state).
Considering that the Irish and Italians (as my husband is of Italian extraction) are both white assimilation into the broader Anglo-Germanic culture of the US was far easier than it ever has been for blacks who have in many cases been in the territory occupied by the US far, far longer. My husband's family are relative new comers to this country, his great-great-great grandparents arriving in the 1870s. My forebears were here no later than 1808 and probably before then even!
I will agree that Latino cultures are not terribly different from US culture in that they have a Greco-Roman background and that the influences on Spain and Portugal are and were largely Roman in character, a trait shared with the Anglo part of the Anglo-Germanic backdrop of broader US culture. However, Latinos, like blacks have far greater difficulty in assimilating with white culture. Further, in many places where Latinos make up the majority of the population (South Florida for instance, also parts of Texas and Commiefornia) there is greater resistance to assimilation than the Irish or Italians ever provided.
If one goes to Miami for example they are really in a Caribbean city that has far more in common with Havana than it does with Jacksonville. As to the matter of cultural suicide the matter is simple. Not all cultures are equal, some are better than others--just as some humans are better than other humans. (Note that race is not a factor in that determination--race is largely but not purely cosmetic in humans.) It comes down to the support of the environment (that is civilizational as well as natural in humans) for the number of sub-species (which in humans is largely but not purely cultural). In the natural world we see that if an area has nothing but red squirrels and someone introduces a mating pair of gray squirrels the gray squirrels over time will dominate and then replace entirely the red squirrels.
As for MS-13 there are violent criminals in all ethnic groups. The existence of that organization is as indicative of the fitness or non-fitness of Salvadorian culture (MS-13 is an ethnic gang and not broadly Latino) than the Dead Rabbits were of the fitness or non-fitness of Irish-American culture or the Bloods and Crips of Black American culture. Meaning of course since I know you are often deliberately obtuse, not indicative at all.
The fitness or non-fitness of cultures must be determined by looking at the whole picture. Overall I'd say that the Anglo-Germanic mode of US culture is the most it. Nowhere else in history has a black faggot who loves white ass been so free or prosperous.
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(01-06-2018, 02:05 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Generally speaking culture has a genetic, and even racial component. Living in a multiracial household (myself being black along with my mother, and my husband and son being white) I know that persons of different races have different modes of being. Not all of this is cultural. Culturally speaking I'm often accused by other blacks (outside my family--my family is probably used to my way of being) of "acting white". Neither my son nor my husband have ever been accused of "acting black" (except both may have picked up a liking for collard greens and incorrect conjugation of the verb 'be' when in an emotional state).
Not quite. Caribbean blacks, descendants of enslaved Africans in America, and African-born blacks in England are very different.
In my case, I probably better fit norms of Japanese-Americans than many white groups in America. Coincidence.
Quote:Considering that the Irish and Italians (as my husband is of Italian extraction) are both white assimilation into the broader Anglo-Germanic culture of the US was far easier than it ever has been for blacks who have in many cases been in the territory occupied by the US far, far longer. My husband's family are relative new comers to this country, his great-great-great grandparents arriving in the 1870s. My forebears were here no later than 1808 and probably before then even!
Without question. Irish needed drop the brogue, and German-Americans needed to heed the advice "never wear Lederhosen in public". Blacks descended from slaves may have found assimilation difficult, but largely because white people refused to accept their attempts to assimilate. White womanhood was to be protected, and any wite man interested in a black woman was 'whoring'.
Kinser, you are as American as I am.
Quote:I will agree that Latino cultures are not terribly different from US culture in that they have a Greco-Roman background and that the influences on Spain and Portugal are and were largely Roman in character, a trait shared with the Anglo part of the Anglo-Germanic backdrop of broader US culture. However, Latinos, like blacks have far greater difficulty in assimilating with white culture. Further, in many places where Latinos make up the majority of the population (South Florida for instance, also parts of Texas and Commiefornia) there is greater resistance to assimilation than the Irish or Italians ever provided.
It is worth noting that Latino culture is adept at assimilating non-Latino peoples. That may be more common in Texas, Florida, and California than in Indiana...
Quote:If one goes to Miami for example they are really in a Caribbean city that has far more in common with Havana than it does with Jacksonville. As to the matter of cultural suicide the matter is simple. Not all cultures are equal, some are better than others--just as some humans are better than other humans. (Note that race is not a factor in that determination--race is largely but not purely cosmetic in humans.) It comes down to the support of the environment (that is civilizational as well as natural in humans) for the number of sub-species (which in humans is largely but not purely cultural). In the natural world we see that if an area has nothing but red squirrels and someone introduces a mating pair of gray squirrels the gray squirrels over time will dominate and then replace entirely the red squirrels.
As for MS-13 there are violent criminals in all ethnic groups. The existence of that organization is as indicative of the fitness or non-fitness of Salvadorian culture (MS-13 is an ethnic gang and not broadly Latino) than the Dead Rabbits were of the fitness or non-fitness of Irish-American culture or the Bloods and Crips of Black American culture. Meaning of course since I know you are often deliberately obtuse, not indicative at all.
There are superior and inferior persons, but there are no superior or inferior peoples. It is hard to determine what constitutes a 'better' or 'worse' culture if one speaks of ethnicity. Yes, there are some horrid subcultures, especially criminal subcultures.
[/quote]
The fitness or non-fitness of cultures must be determined by looking at the whole picture. Overall I'd say that the Anglo-Germanic mode of US culture is the most it. Nowhere else in history has a black faggot who loves white ass been so free or prosperous.[/quote]
When it comes to music -- the Czechs and Finns have it over us Americans. Popular music? Poland is best!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-09-2018, 12:12 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-06-2018, 02:05 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Generally speaking culture has a genetic, and even racial component. Living in a multiracial household (myself being black along with my mother, and my husband and son being white) I know that persons of different races have different modes of being. Not all of this is cultural. Culturally speaking I'm often accused by other blacks (outside my family--my family is probably used to my way of being) of "acting white". Neither my son nor my husband have ever been accused of "acting black" (except both may have picked up a liking for collard greens and incorrect conjugation of the verb 'be' when in an emotional state).
Not quite. Caribbean blacks, descendants of enslaved Africans in America, and African-born blacks in England are very different.
Having been to the Caribbean (and meeting the population there--which not surprisingly has a large number of blacks) and having been to England (which has a large West Indian population--their term for blacks not from Africa itself but from other former colonies) I can tell you that all three groups have a distinct state of being that is related to being part of the Sub-Saharan African Diaspora. Cultural differences are mostly on the surface as all three groups experienced enslavement for about the same period of time and relatively recently.
Quote:In my case, I probably better fit norms of Japanese-Americans than many white groups in America. Coincidence.
Occasionally eating sushi at a restaurant does not make you Nisei.
Quote:Quote:Considering that the Irish and Italians (as my husband is of Italian extraction) are both white assimilation into the broader Anglo-Germanic culture of the US was far easier than it ever has been for blacks who have in many cases been in the territory occupied by the US far, far longer. My husband's family are relative new comers to this country, his great-great-great grandparents arriving in the 1870s. My forebears were here no later than 1808 and probably before then even!
Without question. Irish needed drop the brogue, and German-Americans needed to heed the advice "never wear Lederhosen in public". Blacks descended from slaves may have found assimilation difficult, but largely because white people refused to accept their attempts to assimilate. White womanhood was to be protected, and any wite man interested in a black woman was 'whoring'.
Kinser, you are as American as I am.
I don't see where our argument is here, other than the fact that the racial component prevented larger assimilation into the white society and resulted in the formation of a black proto-nation within the US. It would be a nation, but it lacks a specific territory and a territory is vital for any social group to be considered a nation.
See Marxism and the National Question by J.V. Stalin. Which is still the best work I've ever found defining what constitutes a nation.
Quote:Quote:I will agree that Latino cultures are not terribly different from US culture in that they have a Greco-Roman background and that the influences on Spain and Portugal are and were largely Roman in character, a trait shared with the Anglo part of the Anglo-Germanic backdrop of broader US culture. However, Latinos, like blacks have far greater difficulty in assimilating with white culture. Further, in many places where Latinos make up the majority of the population (South Florida for instance, also parts of Texas and Commiefornia) there is greater resistance to assimilation than the Irish or Italians ever provided.
It is worth noting that Latino culture is adept at assimilating non-Latino peoples. That may be more common in Texas, Florida, and California than in Indiana...
In places where Latinos make up the majority in Texas, Florida and California their culture has completely replaced the American one. One sees billboards in Miami for example advertising lawyers where they put the phrase "we speak English" in the parentheses, and I've even used an ATM there where I had to press 2 for English (my preferred language) though I am equally adept at banking in Spanish.
Quote:When it comes to music -- the Czechs and Finns have it over us Americans. Popular music? Poland is best!
If you mean Popular Music as in what many call "Classical" (never mind that was a relatively brief period in Western Music) the I would agree with the caviat that the Germans are a close second. As for Pop music it is almost universally terrible but I have a strong liking for Reggaeton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton
I don't have much love for polka music though. It simply does nothing for me, while it isn't objectively terrible.
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