I thought it was interesting that the chapter talks about labor and capital, the two basic productive resources, and is defined culturally and are matters of perception. The Untied States thankfully now outlaws child labor so adults can no longer see children as workers. I don't agree that what labor is and who is capable of it should be a social judgement. I think there should be one definition of it that all the world has to uphold.
The chapter makes a good point when they say that knowledge, capital, and labor are the three basic factors of production. Each is essential to produce all goods and services in all societies and eras. This reminded me of a company today because every person working at the company has to take part to make the product. The five different resource distribution I found very interesting because I would have never thought of knowledge, capital, and labor being put in different distributions. I would have never thought that all the distributions could be found in history and that each would give rise to its own class structure.
Thanks to logocracy, investing in capital is not needed because people only need to possess knowledge in order to control and profit from economic enterprises and to occupy high seats of government. I think the spirits of witch doctors and the God of the Middle Ages are now ghosts and because of logocracy the ghosts haunt capitalism and socialism.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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I also found it very interesting that the basic factors of production are labor, capital and knowledge. I’ve never thought about it in that way before but it makes sense. You need someone to think up the idea (knowledge), someone to execute the idea (labor) and something to supply the material (capital).
ReplyDeleteA quote from the article that I really liked was, “Experts can rarely prove the validity of their knowledge. Thus they must create a general perception of credibility…” I thought about it and its true! There is little practical use for all the knowledge they hold and it is hard to display, so they must make up for this in other areas. Another point that was made was about the value of knowledge over capital or labor. When we give a dollar to a friend we are a dollar poorer but when we share an idea we now both have it. Knowledge doesn’t run out like capital or labor, it only expands.
All these things seem like common knowledge (ironic), but nothing I have ever sat down and thought about myself. Now I get it, and it didn’t cost me anything. Well, except for the cost of the book (capital) and the time and energy reading the article (labor). Hmmm…so maybe knowledge isn’t free.
I found this article very interseting. I have never thought of how people protect their trade secrets. The articel does a very good job of illustrating this. I had never thought of my degree as a ticket into an elite club that oter people are not allowed to just join. It takes a certain amount of time and training to do any job and the harder the knowledge is to obtain either through time and effort put in or thorugh finacial issues the more money that people make once they have obtained there ticket to that job.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I started reading this i thought of the stone masons and guilds in medival time andthen the article talks about how stone masons would drop their tools if an outsider came along. That is job security. This article really makes you think differently about why peoplel do what they do. I always look at waiters in resturants and critique their service and attitudes in my head. See for me a waiter looks like the easiest job in the world. You just need basic social skills and the ability to write, But I always wonder why I have never gotten a call back from a resturant I apply to? It is because Mount Pleasant is full of people that have waited tables for years and why would they hire someone with no experience. It is just like a guild or society that looks out for waiters and makes sure that they take care of their own.
The elite thinkers have always had the upper hand in society just like the article talks about Imhotep designing the pyramids while slaves broke their backs to make it happen. Had a slave been born to Imhoteps parents and rcieved the same education could he have not designed the pyramids? Maybe he could have designed them to be pointy side down? The main I dea of this article is just like School House Rock: "Knowledge is Power"