Alas, there is an interesting test case coming in the liberal Montgomery county: question B limiting the bargaining power of police union. Let's see if the liberal sympathy falls with the union or with the management.
Wojtek Sent from my Droid On Oct 31, 2012 4:22 PM, "Marv Gandall" <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2012-10-31, at 3:13 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> > Marv: "Woj continues to insist belong to the power structure rather
> > the newest layers of the working class. "
> >
> > [WS:] It is a bit more complicated than that. I never doubted that,
> > economically speaking, large numbers of college educated professionals
> > are members of the working class. I am certainly in that class and so
> > are most folks on this list.
>
> I inferred you were arguing otherwise from your comments earlier today
> that "it is not some impersonal force like 'globalization' or 'new
> technology' but...the new social class, the technostructure...that decides
> power relations inside the US. It is social class and the technostructure
> class in particular". That's also been the thrust of your previous
> interventions, where you have said they belong to a "different class than
> 'ordinary proles'."
>
> In any case, perhaps we can now agree that a very thin layer of
> professionals with senior policy- and decision-making authority in large
> public and private enterprises may be seen as part of the ruling class, but
> that such is emphatically not true of the great majority - not merely
> "large numbers" - of college educated professionals who work under their
> direction, who neither sit on nor advise management committees.
>
> > members of the cognitariat espouse ideologies, like
> > entrepreneurial libertarianism, that puts them in a different class
> > than "ordinary" proles.
>
> What is your evidence for this? I had earlier replied:
>
> "The burgeoning public sector, schools, and health care industry typically
> attracted social science and humanities graduates who retained their
> liberal values and still form the core of whatever progressive left exists
> within the Democratic party and European social democracy. Polls have
> consistently shown them to be in favour of medicare, social security,
> government regulation of the economy and environment, and other features
> associated with the modern welfare state.
>
> "Your description of 'entrepreneurial libertarians' mostly fits those who
> came out of the commerce and engineering departments and found more
> lucrative work in the higher reaches of the financial and high tech
> industries, which also underwent rapid growth. These latter, as you note,
> are often social liberals but also economic conservatives who aren't
> reliant on government programs and are consequently for lower taxes and
> less government spending."
>
> The best and most current data we have is from the BLS (
> http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat42.pdf).
>
> These indicate both the number of employees in the "management and
> business and financial occupations" and in the "professional and related
> occupations", including the percentage of those who belong to trade unions
> within each category. You can do a further BLS search to view the hundreds
> of occupations within their sub-categories.
>
> It's clear to me that most of the professionals, particularly in the
> "life, physical and social sciences", "community and social service", and
> "education, training, and library" occupations, would necessarily have
> liberal arts backgrounds, while most of the better paid employees in the
> management, business, and financial category could be expected to hold
> conservative economic views. Of course, this is only my impression, and you
> can do your own analysis and draw your own conclusions.
>
>
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