General

VIEW: Inequality hurts BC’s economy and democracy | The Hook

~ Roger JG Albert

John Peters from Laurentian University is in Vancouver on Thursday, March 14 (today) at 7 p.m. for  a presentation at the Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway of the book he edited called: Boom, Bust and Crisis: Labour, Corporate Power and Politics in Canada.  If you’re in Vancouver and interested you should check it out.  The article you can access by clicking on the link below outlines some interesting scenarios for our economic futures…

via VIEW: Inequality hurts BC’s economy and democracy | The Hook.

More from me soon on this topic.

The Tyee – Canada’s Reckless Banks Inflate House Price Bubble

~ Roger JG Albert

The Tyee – Canada’s Reckless Banks Inflate House Price Bubble.

I’m back after having a nasty flu for the past 2+ weeks.  This article by Murray Dobbin lays out a scenario for a future crash in the ‘Canadian’ housing market.  The banks (finance capital) are in charge with the government following along like a loyal puppy dog.

Corporations  are sitting on a lot of cash right now.  That’s probably a good strategy for us as individuals: get liquid.  Not so easy to get done.  We are the unwitting dupes of  finance capital content with the sense that we are in control of our lives and every decision we make is self-generated and independent of larger social, economic issues.

You don’t have an RRSP – Shame on You!

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 4 Comments

The Daily — Registered retirement savings plan contributions, 2011.

Click on the link above to see Statistics Canada’s latest accounting of RRSP contributions.  Turns out the median contribution in 2011 was $2,830.  This is not a huge median contribution but up from the previous year by a bit.  Twenty four percent of tax filers contributed to an RRSP in 2011.  That’s not what I would consider a big percentage. So what else are people doing to prepare for retirement?  Of course a certain percentage of taxpayers contributed to registered pension plans.  Just over 6 million contributed to pension plans, public and private sector (other than the CPP).  That means that a quarter of Canadians have a pension plan or RRSPs to help them survive in their retirement years.  That’s it!  We know that Canadians are also saving less and around 50% of Canadian households would be in significant financial trouble if they missed just one paycheque.  Doesn’t look good for us.

I write this because the TV ads for RRSPs this time of year make it seem as though everybody contributes to RRSPs and what’s wrong with you that you don’t.  Their aim is to use the old tried and true strategies of shame and guilt to increase RRSP business.  First we get urged to spend because if we don’t the economy will go for a crap.  If we haven’t got the money to spend, we need to borrow and the Bank of Canada has made it easy to do that so we dutifully borrow more and more money to buy things, things that we depend on to give our lives meaning.  Now we get berated for not saving enough and we hear on the radio that Canadians are further in debt than ever before.  Shame on us!  We don’t spend enough and we don’t save enough!  We borrow too much and we’re not productive enough.  We must be completely responsible for the poor performance of the economy.  We’re so fickle and untrustworthy.  Poor government, just trying to do what it can to help us out even though we’re hardly worth the effort.

The banks and the government along with their very well paid public relations firms have been playing us like a violin.  Maybe it’s time for all of us to really try to figure out what’s going on out there and to stop taking on the load of shame and guilt they want us to carry so that we blame ourselves for the problems in the Canadian economy and don’t look elsewhere, like at the banks and the government themselves.

A Short Essay on Idle No More

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 1 Comment

 

 

When Idle No More (INM) hit the front pages of the newspapers and the internet on Facebook and elsewhere I felt a certain amount of hope but also trepidation.  Having taught sociology and Canadian History for decades and thinking about social movements I wondered how long Idle No More would stick to its original program especially because there were mixed messages coming from various quarters in and around the movement.  There is no question that the early impetus for the movement came from aboriginal women in Saskatchewan.  Idle No More, from my perspective, had as a prime objective an ‘awakening’ of aboriginal people and their mobilization to protest their continuing colonial relationship with the federal government partly expressed in the very structure of reserve politics.  Since the beginning in our area, the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, INM events have been very First Nations focused and recently have been held exclusively on reserve.  There was an initial demonstration at John Duncan’s office in December then a week later or so another much larger demonstration at Simms Park leading to a march to Duncan’s office.  The next event was held in front of Duncan’s office in downtown Courtenay.  Since then, events have been held on the Komoux reserve along the Dyke Road between Courtenay and Comox.  In all cases, aboriginal and First Nations leaders were the featured speakers at these events, rightly so, in my estimation.  As I noted earlier, INM was in its inception an aboriginally led movement for and by aboriginal people.  In my mind, as a movement, this is its raison d’ètre.  That being the case, the First Nations people who arose to lead the INM demonstrations made it clear that they welcomed the support of non-aboriginal people.  In fact, many people recognized that the movement could not be successful without broad support from ordinary Canadians.

 

To repeat, Idle No More very early on asked all of us to support its objectives of the emancipation and empowerment of ordinary aboriginal people and to help in the struggle against Bills C-38 and C-45.  They asked us to support Idle No More. Many of us, non-aboriginals, attended and still attend the INM events as supporters of the movement.  But there was also talk that this movement was not just an aboriginal movement.  According to the proponents of this view, the movement must involve all of us because we are all threatened by environmental degradation.  We were (and still are) urged to come together in a common cause, one that includes all Canadians.  I don’t want to be misunderstood here.  I very much support the environmental movement and I deplore the Harper government’s erosion of democracy although it’s been clear to me for a long time that ‘democracy’ as it’s practiced in most places, including Canada, is a slight diversion for politicians who are clearly the servants of business corporations and not of the people.

 

It’s important for us all to support Idle No More while understanding the special legal and moral status that aboriginal people have in Canada.  We must support aboriginal people in their struggle for unity when the government has had a clear agenda to divide them, marginalize and dehumanize them while sowing disunity as much as possible in aboriginal communities and on reserve.  Make no mistake.  Idle No More is about First Nations.

 

It just so happens that many First Nations and individual aboriginal people, not all, are also very concerned about the state of the planet, environmental degradation, pipelines crossing pristine wilderness and oil tankers in our coastal waters.  We, as human beings with families, children and grandchildren, must be concerned about our planet, our home, and its future.  We cannot continue to foul our air and water.

So we do have a common worry and need to act collectively, First Nations and otherwise, on the issues we have of common concern.  But we also need to act respectfully toward First Nations as they rise to their challenge of finding ways to communicate with each other, organize at the grassroots and unite the over 600 bands in this country into a powerful force the Canadian government cannot ignore.  I support Idle No More.

We’ve got this all wrong. (Part 1)

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 4 Comments

We’ve got this all wrong. (Part 1) OR: What criteria would you use to determine whether your society is ok or not?

 

One of the most popular perspectives in sociology from the 1930s until the late 60s was structural-functionalism.  Some people are still functionalists but they’re usually pretty quiet about it these days.  Functionalism has a long history in Western thought but structural-functionalism is of more recent American vintage.  Functionalism was an early European anthropological perspective that was adopted enthusiastically by the American sociologists Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton.  Functionalism or structural-functionalism are often uses interchangeably but it’s not my aim here to discuss the distinction or the similarity between these terms.  I have ulterior motives.

 

I start this with a reference to sociology and functionalism and that’s because I’m a sociologist, at least according to the document hanging on my wall in my office.  But functionalism has counterparts in all scientific disciplines.  Some disciplines seem to still embrace the concepts at least at an elementary level and use the perspective in teaching.  As far as I know in human biology classes there is still talk of anatomy and physiology, that is, of the structure of human organs, cells, systems, etc., and their functions.  I know that in anthropology there is still reference to the various aspects or institutions of cultures and their function or role in the lives of those cultures.  In fact, in sociology, that is also true.  Most introductory texts break up society into parts, education, religion, family, economy, polity, art, etc., and the role they play together to keep a society functioning properly or in equilibrium, which is the ideal social state according to sociological functionalists and other scientists too for that matter.

 

There is some validity to the structural-functionalist perspective, but it’s limited.  The perspective has been overwhelmed by much more relativistic perspectives such as the so-called interactionist perspectives but I’ll explore that some other day.  It’s certainly true that human bodies have organs and they function more or less well.  Emile Durkheim (1858 to 1917) actually referred to sociology as social pathology or the study of what goes wrong with societies or how they get out of kilter.  He also referred to sociology as the study of morality but I’ll also leave that for another day.  The point here is that in sociology a major perspective sees society as being composed of parts, which serve a function more or less effectively.   The family is supposed to serve the function of socializing children and providing a warm, emotionally supportive environment in which children grow up.  Religion is supposed to look after our spiritual needs.  Education has the task of preparing each generation of people to undertake their adult roles.  The economy is supposed to take care of our biological needs for food and other material things we need to live in a particular society at a particular time.  If all the parts of society are doing their job, everything is cool and society is working as it should.  Of course, I wrote earlier that this perspective has limitations and it does.  One of the main limitations is that it treats society as an organism that stands by itself and is, in a sense, sui generis (self generated).  I’m being somewhat unfair to functionalism, but not essentially.  But that’s not the only problem with functionalism.  It wants society to be balanced, but it often isn’t and some institutions or parts of society don’t always do what they’re supposed to do in the way that they’re supposed to.  Robert K. Merton understood that and came up with the idea that some things like families are sometimes dysfunctional and the task of the sociologist is to show how things can be put right again.  Well, today I want to look at dysfunction in ‘the economy.’

 

First, I want to be clear that I’m not a functionalist in the least but that doesn’t prevent me from writing about ‘society’ from that perspective.  It’s a simplistic perspective because it’s basically ahistorical, but for the moment just pretend that you’ve gone into your doctor’s office and she’s trying to figure out what’s ‘wrong’ with you.  Pretend that you’re a doctor of society trying to figure out what’s ‘wrong’ with your society.  What criteria would you use to determine whether your society is ok or not?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I’m interested in your answer.  Write a comment.

Films For Action: Watch the Best Social Change Documentaries, Read Independent News, Take Action

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 1 Comment

Films For Action: Watch the Best Social Change Documentaries, Read Independent News, Take Action.

This is one of my favourite online resources.  There is a huge selection of films that provoke, incite and prepare us for action.  The time has come not for new programs but new minds!

 

 

Why is Kevin O’Leary so smug about being on the right?

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 2 Comments

I’ve long been interested in the way language embodies class and power relations.  Obviously, our language embodies much of our culture, so it’s not surprising that it would embody class relations.  The word ‘poor’ is used to describe many conditions of inadequacy.  ‘Rich’ can describe a chocolate cake or a wealthy person, both desirable components of a valuable life.  ‘Right’ does not only indicate a direction in it’s most obvious sense, but also correctness.  To be correct is to be right, as in right-handed.  In contrast, to be left-handed is to be sinister.  The ‘proper’ adjective used to point to my left-handedness is ‘sinistral.’  Left-handers are sinister.  Of course ‘left’ indicates nothing good.  The sun is bright and right, the moon dark and left . Both these terms in turn are symbols for men and women respectively.  The moon is the domain of women, the sun belongs to men.  After all, who is at the right hand of God, and who at the left?  It’s fairly clear that Jesus sits to the right of God, but there’s a great deal of uncertainty among Christians about who sits on His left. Probably better not to go there.  Where are women in heaven? Not particularly evident, at least not in the heaven I learned about as a young Catholic boy.

Turning this discussion to politics it’s clear what we can expect.  Any conservative political party is on the right of the political spectrum and the socialists, liberals and communists occupy the sinistral left.  Now, isn’t that convenient?  Right is correct, left is just plain wrong, isn’t it?  Our language pre-conditions us to think about conservative (Republican in the US) parties as being right, as in better than those on the left.  Kevin O’Leary, that obnoxious and rude commentator on the CBC about business and finance has no doubt that he is right because he’s on the right.  After all, he represents the interests of business and finance, the natural elements of conservative thinking and of what C.B. Macpherson called possessive individualism.  After all, who can be against business success?  Our prosperity depends on it, or so the argument goes.  The poor are immobile, the walking dead, the wealthy have money to allow them mobility.  The poor are what’s ‘left,’ and they get what’s left when we’ve finished eating.   The wealthy always eat first and are always on the right path…don’t you know?

The new globalized assault on labour

~ Roger JG Albert

The first link below is to a CBC news article about the influx of Chinese miners in Canada and the second is about ‘right to work’ legislation in Michigan, but in other American states too.   Both stories are from yesterday’s National.  These stories may not seem to be linked at first glance, but they are.  They point to the internationalization of labour and the degradation of its value.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/12/10/chinese-miner-investigation.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/10/f-rfa-macdonald-right-to-work.html

I’ve written about this in previous posts, but it’s worth repeating Thorstein Veblen’s observation that countries are subservient institutions to private capital accumulation, which is currently our dominant mode of production along with it’s modus operandi, business entreprise and the factory system.  The concept of private property is the legal expression of power over commodity production and accumulation.  I repeat: countries are now and have always been subservient to the capitalist mode of production.  Initially, they were created in Europe as a way of opening up markets for commodities and to ‘free up’ labour to move around beyond the confines of their feudal estates.  Countries are just another step in the historical trend towards the global consolidation of political power.   Still, countries have often been a focus of group loyalty, nationalism or patriotism.  This is not always pro-capitalism.  The problem for capitalism is that once countries are created they become more than what was first intended.  People soon consider them home.  They fall in love with them.  They aren’t entirely sure why, but they do.  Well, we’ve been told forever that countries are the way the world is organized.  Our citizenship defines us.  We are proud to be Canadians, Americans, Australians, Indians, etc… We don’t question this, it’s just the way the world is.  So we get upset when we find out that our governments seem to be doing things that we perceive as harmful to us and to our country.  We can’t figure out why our politicians would do such things.  Why, when the unemployment rate in Canada is fairly high, it would encourage the importation of labour?  Why would the state of Michigan attack collective bargaining, guaranteeing a reduction of average wages there, like it has done in other states?  It’s not that surprising, really.  Some governments, not all, are more business oriented than others.  The Canadian government, for example, is extremely pro-business.  As pro-business, it buys into the argument that lower wages are generally good for business.  The cost of labour is a large part of what it means to do business, so any way of reducing the costs of labour becomes government policy.  Attacking collective bargaining rights, as in the US, is a way of reducing average wages, and it will eventually reduce the costs of labour globally, so will importing cheaper labour from other parts of the world to developed countries.  Ironically, reducing average wages will reduce our capacity to buy commodities, the essence of the capitalist mode of production.  So, go ahead boys, cut our wages, cut our pensions. By doing so you’re cutting your own throats.

So, Canada came into existence officially in 1867.  When do you think it will die?  There’s no question that it will. When and how are the questions, not if.  Will the death of Canada come from the outside, from invasion?  Not at all likely, unless it’s the US over water.  No, Canada will come apart at the seams, much like the US will, bit by bit.  Omnibus bill by omnibus bill.  Harper decree by Harper decree.  But don’t worry, it won’t happen for a few years yet.  A hint might be though that 95% of the petrochemical business in this country is foreign controlled.  Now with the Nexen and Progress deals paving the way, outright ownership is on the way.  And don’t believe a word Harper utters about tightening the rules.

Labour has always been a necessary part of the capitalist mode of production, but labour is being replaced by capital (by the use of technology and automation) or cheapened by the same process.  The inevitable result locally and globally will be a few very rich people and the rest of us.  How far do you think we are away from that outcome?

Do online courses spell the end for the traditional university? | Education | The Observer

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 1 Comment

Do online courses spell the end for the traditional university? | Education | The Observer.

This is a fascinating article about online education. Some would write online “education.” What do you think about this? Check out the comments too. Lots of different pros and cons with some people obviously feeling some passion about the subject. I’m quite ambivalent in some ways about the subject. I think learning and teaching happen many different ways and in many different places. The official education system is just part of the story. I would be sad to think that that would be the only context in which learning could take place.

Strombo | The World’s Oldest Gymnast: 86 Years Old And Still Rockin’ The Parallel Bars

~ Roger JG Albert

Strombo | The World’s Oldest Gymnast: 86 Years Old And Still Rockin’ The Parallel Bars.

This story from Strombo is most inspiring.  Seems I need lots of inspiration lately and thankfully, I’m getting it.   This ‘old lady’ is twenty years older than I am.  I’ve got no excuses and lots of time.  Get out to the gym!

Click on the link above!