fAngela has 2 post(s)

It would be naïve to think that the developments in the Persian Gulf are not connected to the growth of for-profit colleges. In the U.S. Corporations and other business have no responsibility when considering the human rights of people who differ from their social economic class or outside their business sphere. This analysis begins with the laborers of Saadiyat Island, who are exploited by the kafala sponsorship system and the Tourism Development and Investment Corporation. This sector traps the migrant workers of South-Asia by taking their passports, giving them inadequate wages and living facilities in sub par detention camps (“High Culture Hard Labor,” Andrew Ross). This system has resulted in over thousands of death and Human Rights watch group has been isolated from these continuous occurrences. Funding these projects are global museum institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre and others are being endorsed with capital revenue by private universities such as New York University (NYU). This is a prime example of how for profit colleges and universities are ran more like corporations by outsourcing cheap labor power for profits. The interest is their shareholders rather than the innovating educational growth for their pupils by preparing them as the next generation’s working class. Note that private higher education costs at least $100,000.00. The once American now global ideology is to attend university as a stepping stone to achieve a formidable career with benefits to support yourself and your family. However, this certificate in society is merely a ranking with no fulfilled promises whatsoever. The student indebted is similar to the migrant labor who is barely able to send wages back home to support their family. Tom Harkin and the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions reported on the profitable business of profit colleges. The statics revealed are shocking, the revenue and profit sharing for this before mentioned sector is 3.6 billion dollars/ 19.4 percent for profit distributions, 4.1 billion dollars/22.4 percent for marketing campaigns and a mere 3.2 billion dollars/17.7 percent for instruction that is 59.5 percent of profit for non- educational affairs which is more than half of the revenue and profit sharing (“Congressional Report Slams For-Profit Colleges,” Paul Fain). It’s fair to say that numbers do not lie, after seeing such an assessment it is an understatement to say that these profit educational institutions have mishandled their revenue for capital gains in lieu of not prioritizing the advancement of student’s education and future. Graduates are an insurmountable amount of debt and it’s a rat race to find a satisfactory job let alone a career to support one’s self, forget paying back a lifelong debt. So yes the connection in the Persian Gulf can be attributed to the growth of profit colleges but more so for the mistreatment of international laborers and students with below average means. Universities have the resources and the power to assure that all parties involved be uncompromised social and monetarily.

Braverman walks through a thorough history of the sociology of capital. Understanding the pre-industrial (before 1920) economic transition from craftsmen and farmers who cultivated their skills for at least five years. This yielded to the basis of  small proprietorship and entrepreneurship faded when imperial capitalism became the United States dominate economic system. During the industrial era, capitalism transformed into production dominance. This genre of capitalism was enforced by ex-slaves and farmers because the agricultural business was in the making of becoming an mass agricultural enterprise. No longer did we have the opportunity to invest years in learning a trade but were given on the job training in industries, such as coal mining, manufacturing and construction. These jobs Braverman describes as production labor. Production labor can be define by the goods/ commodities which are made in a certain measurement of time.  The feminist movement changed the job market by empowering women to take their domestic skills into employment opportunities. Capitalism has taken advantage of the migration of Europeans and South-Americans who fled their countries for freedom and and an increase in prosperity. With such an increase of people wanting to work it was easy to keep wages low, production high and profit higher. As new industries began to grow, for example, techonology, unemployment rates started to rise because technology was now aiding a faster production turnout (meaning less human labor and higher capital gains). Braverman considers finance, real estate, insurance, retail and wholesale unproductive work (even though during this time this text was written these industries were paid lower). Braverman’s point was that the production of these industries did not result in commodities  that were bought and sold in the economic market turning a constant profit. Productive work is broken down into managed labor and hired labor. Hired labor, the employee is the cog in the wheel that churns out capital for the one percent. The difference between these economic systems pre and post- Industrial era is that the laborer no longer has an investment in the company, they have no understanding how they influence the corporation as a whole, only how their protocol adhere’s to themselves. Braverman’s analysis of the working class is still true to this day. Not necessarily production and non-production work but how the laborer is exploited by capitalism and then dis-guarded without much retirement to be replaced by someone who’s younger and willing to work for measly benefits.