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"Wow! If ordinary people have so many wonderful things today, what must the Tsar of Russia have!"
"Excuse me, but that colored fellow just walked right into the Country Club! Isn't he supposed to use the servant's entrance around back?"
"Why is that woman nearly naked?"
"All these tattoos....is everyone obligated to serve a hitch in the navy these days?"
"Larry King is still alive?"
One of my favorite lines from Dr. Who was one where they were at Queen Victoria's summer house. The companions had on typical modern summer clothes. She knew him, but ask very pointedly why the rest were dressed in their underclothes?
1912 the layers had lightened, but formality was still the thing.
I think a person from 1912 would look at 2012 in terms of social politics as: "Meh."
There are huge differences, and at the same time, similarities. The pendulum seems to be swingin backwards.
Old days of slavery seem to present itself as modern slavery through a system of structured market monopoly and oligarchy.
Globalization has become the new, modern-feudalism.
In terms of music? I think they'd probably throw their radios out the window whenever that stupid Rihanna song keeps playin over-and-over on the damn air waves like it was yesterday's greatest gift.
Total, absolute nonsense cribbed from God knows what.
First off, working conditions were immeasurably worse in 1912 than today. Wage levels were incredibly low. The modern worker is probably the biggest beneficiary of the past century. Bone up on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and see if you'd like to recant your statement.
Second off, the phrase "structured market monopoly and oligarchy" speaks to some kind of alternative reality on your part, because it doesn't even begin to describe the modern marketplace, which has more dynamism and more ongoing foundational change than any time in history. I mean, jeez, the entire history of business over the past thirty years has been the destruction of traditional business channels, from the breakup of AT&T into the Baby Bells to the deregulation of airlines to Wal-Mart's complete revolution in buying and retailing to the internet to our consumption of media. And you refer to it as a structured market monopoly? Have you ever even picked up a business magazine? About the only thing we have today that counts as a monopoly is Microsoft and they are on pretty shaky ground. Compare that to 1912 when Standard Oil sold close to 90% of all the oil in this country.
Globalization as the new feudalism? That statement is a complete laugh. Instead global trade is empowering people in exciting new ways, lifting untold millions out of abject poverty, creating new entrepreneurial classes around the globe and accelerating the transmission of knowledge and expertise. If you want to see REAL feudalism, all you had to do is go to China 100 years ago. Hell, all you had to do is go to China 20 years ago. Same basic feudalism with different masters. Globalism changed all that. Tell you what. Go to Botswana or Vietnam or Bolivia and tell them how much better economically they'd be 100 years ago than they are today. They'd think you were joking before shouting you down for spouting a bunch of half-baked paternalism.
In everyday life? People live decades longer, live better, enjoy far more choices, have more employment prospects, have more social mobility, have more entertainment, and have more expectations than their great grandparents ever dreamed possible. One would have to be the village idiot to suggest otherwise.
And finally, that doesn't even take into account the complete overhaul in societal thinking, from women's rights to civil rights for minorities. Heck, sixty years ago there were quotas on how many Jews could enter Ivy League universities, while women and blacks were rarities. My personal banker is a black man. My attorney is a black man. My accountant is a woman. In Alabama. If that doesn't tell you what progress is, I don't know what will.
So put down your copy of the Daily Worker and pick up a history book. You'd be amazed at what you'll find out.
"About the only thing we have today that counts as a monopoly is Microsoft and they are on pretty shaky ground. Compare that to 1912 when Standard Oil sold close to 90% of all the oil in this country.
Globalization as the new feudalism? That statement is a complete laugh. Instead global trade is empowering people in exciting new ways, lifting untold millions out of abject poverty, creating new entrepreneurial classes around the globe and accelerating the transmission of knowledge and expertise. "
While there is some of your response I'm in general agreement with, I'm quite uncomfortable with these statements as being glib and disingenuous. I suggest you read some of the work of Charlotte Dennett Charlotte Dennett - not just the current crop of stuff, but delving in more to her searches of history concerning Standard Oil and the Rockefellers. Don't swallow any of it whole, as there is some obvious bias, but use it as a starting place for further research of your own. You might be asking yourself a few questions along the way. Globalization has a very dark side to it.
Monopolies today in the U.S.... a lot depends on what you perceive as monopolies. Taken as a block, insurers are a monopoly attempting to control access of the general public to healthcare. How else can you explain that when DW had some MRIs done, the hospital wanted to charge about $4K... UNTIL they found that she was covered by an advantage plan, from which they would willingly only get a few hundred $ from the insurance and a tiny co-pay???
The breakup into baby bells? Don't make me choke. One highly regulated national monopoly vs. a half-dozen regional monopolies with ever-DECREASING regulation and shrinking competition? How about another monopoly? One hyphenated word - Con-agra. One simple word. MON-SAN-TO. Another hyphenated word UNION-PACIFIC. These "regional" and "limited" monopolies cover as many or more people as national monopolies did in the 1940s and 1950s.
"About the only thing we have today that counts as a monopoly is Microsoft and they are on pretty shaky ground. Compare that to 1912 when Standard Oil sold close to 90% of all the oil in this country.
Globalization as the new feudalism? That statement is a complete laugh. Instead global trade is empowering people in exciting new ways, lifting untold millions out of abject poverty, creating new entrepreneurial classes around the globe and accelerating the transmission of knowledge and expertise. "
While there is some of your response I'm in general agreement with, I'm quite uncomfortable with these statements as being glib and disingenuous. I suggest you read some of the work of Charlotte Dennett Charlotte Dennett - not just the current crop of stuff, but delving in more to her searches of history concerning Standard Oil and the Rockefellers. Don't swallow any of it whole, as there is some obvious bias, but use it as a starting place for further research of your own. You might be asking yourself a few questions along the way. Globalization has a very dark side to it.
Duh. All movements, economic, political, and technological have excesses to them. But guess what? Over time, reform takes place as the new rules are written and refined. In fact, if anything, we're seeing backlash in places such as China where workers are demanding better pay and better working conditions, the natural evolution of the workplace. Are you seriously telling me that you'd dispense with the economic advantages of globalism? But once again, tell that Chinese factory worker fresh from a farm province which he'd rather be doing, standing on an assembly line all day or gleaning rice in a paddy? You'll find out in a hurry which one he prefers.
Monopolies today in the U.S.... a lot depends on what you perceive as monopolies. Taken as a block, insurers are a monopoly attempting to control access of the general public to healthcare. How else can you explain that when DW had some MRIs done, the hospital wanted to charge about $4K... UNTIL they found that she was covered by an advantage plan, from which they would willingly only get a few hundred $ from the insurance and a tiny co-pay???
Of course, nobody really discusses the wholesale intervention of the Federal government into the healthcare sector and how it has destroyed rational pricing. Healthcare is the most heavily regulated, heavily intervened industry in America, with the possible exception of electrical utilities, and yet prices for care keep spiraling upwards. Before Medicare/Medicaid, healthcare was less than 5% of the United States economy. Today it's around 20%, in a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. The incredible price break you got on the MRIs under Medicare were because the government pays an artificially low rate while everyone else pays an incredibly high rate to compensate. Even then, that multiplier has a great deal more to do with the incredible costs of governmental compliance (Just ask a hospital administrator what it takes to keep the Feds happy. It is astonishing what it takes in terms of man-hours). Heck, even then, your local hospital is prevented from enjoying any kind of economies of scale. Ever hear of a Certificate of Need Committee? In that sense, the Federal Government is the biggest monopoly of them all.
The breakup into baby bells? Don't make me choke. One highly regulated national monopoly vs. a half-dozen regional monopolies with ever-DECREASING regulation and shrinking competition?
Haven't you heard of Skype? Are you running your telephone through your cable internet? Have you heard of Sprint and Verizon? Have you noticed that close to 30% of American households don't even have a landline phone anymore? In fact, I would lay odds on the prediction that even more fragmentation will take place in the future telephony market. I suggest you stop looking at snapshots and look at trends. Thirty years ago, it cost me 25¢ a minute to call my girlfriend 100 miles away. Today, with a Skype account, that same call would have been free. Two years ago, I went to New Zealand. I put $10 into my Skype account so I could call home and to my clients. I literally talked for hours while there. Two weeks later, I returned home with a balance of $7.50.
How about another monopoly? One hyphenated word - Con-agra. One simple word. MON-SAN-TO.
And look at the nascent local food and organic movements. Heck, these aren't even nascent anymore. With retailer grocers becoming much more sensitive to genetically modified foods (And seeing the marketing potential for them), competition to the ConAgras and Monsantos of the world is beginning to become viable.
Another hyphenated word UNION-PACIFIC. These "regional" and "limited" monopolies cover as many or more people as national monopolies did in the 1940s and 1950s.
Have you heard of a little thing known as the Interstate? You know, where these large vehicles with internal combustion engines pull wagons filled with many tons of goods around to destinations that don't even have a rail spur? The heyday of the railroad was in the 1940s, not today. What's more, even within the narrow definition of railroads, there are 650 different rail carriers in the United States.
In short, the world is continuing to change for the better in countless ways.
Keep on researching. A few years back I would have been more in agreement with you. I suspect you'll come around to my POV eventually.
"The heyday of the railroad was in the 1940s"
Actually... the heyday of the railroads was 1912 to 1914 - what can I say, I'm a history buff AND railroad buff, I know this stuff...
"ConAgras and Monsantos"
Competition within a high-end market sector is not the same as competition related to the masses or world markets. Won't get into the whole Monsanto thing in depth, since there are religions on both sides of that argument, and the flak obscures points.
"30% of American households don't even have a landline phone anymore"
But instead have internet access (which you claim as a replacement) through cable companies (yet another monopoly) or !gasp! the phone company. I've been TRYING to ditch AT&T for a few years. Maybe this year. Or maybe next year in Israel... Or maybe if tinker-bell gets slapped with a few hundred suits... Cell-phones - a true pox on humanity. Outside of basic 911 service and prepays, they are luxury items for most people, and bear the onus of luxury pricing structures.
"nobody really discusses the wholesale intervention of the Federal government into the healthcare sector and how it has destroyed rational pricing"
...uhhh... I do. I'm well aware of the lobbyists and money going into election campaigns and the sellout of everyone from the AARP down through the ranks of janitors in Washington. Insurances have turned into a state sanctioned monopoly, which is where about 90% of privatization and globalization will lead if you allow it to continue unfettered. And the complaints about medicare underpaying? When all the insurance companies are creaming pants trying to start up medicare advantage plans which pay out even less? Gee, just who IS the lowest payer in this game, and who is it that has a vested interest in complaining about a government run Medicare program... could it be... oh I don't know... the INSURANCE companies??? Yes Medicare should pay more. Add about 20% to medicare payouts and that is what we might ALL be paying as a standard rate for healthcare. Take a look at the Ohio hospitals websites. They have a neat little law where they are REQUIRED to posts the costs of cash payers who use their systems. Those amounts, with quite generous profit margins are nowhere NEAR what the uninsured have to pay in many other states, including Alabama. Don't let the wool be pulled over your eyes.
"Are you seriously telling me that you'd dispense with the economic advantages of globalism? "
I have a feeling you may be about to see some of the DISadvantages of it, big time. I hope not, but we shall see. Globalism, the way it has been implemented, is another form of extremism and colonialism. All I am suggesting is that you continue to research, and get some reliable sources outside of the vetted cheerleaders in skimpy costumes that seem to be so popular.
Last edited by harry chickpea; 10-15-2012 at 09:30 PM..
I would think the most conspicuous thing, beside obvious technology, would be the weird dichotomy of Hypocrisy and Shock Culture. Everything in the performing arts (and a lot of other activies) are constantly being pushed to the limit for shock value. Music is measured by decibels, regardless of artistic merit. Performers are measured by outrageous costumes and set designs. Going to prison is considered a career move. Every movie has a gratuitous close-up of somebody vomiting and women dropping the F-bomb. Stand-up comics are a machine-gun series of bleeps in the version that airs before midniight -- nothing is funny unless it elicits extreme disgust. Reality TV shows that feature people pushing the frontiers of disgusting behavior. Fashions are pushing the limits of revolting slop, right down to the butt cracks and obscene tattoos. There is a huge and growing industry that produces nothing but noise. People leave their private homes to go to out in the street to yell on cell phones, then go back indoors when they are finished. (The only thing that actually elicits real disgust is if somebody's deodorant wears off, and then everyone takes notice and starts screaming Yukk -- maybe stink will be the new shock frontier.)
That, coupled with the shrill and ironic hypocrisy that the script has to be vetted for political sensitivity, and a career can be ended by a single wrong word in a private club to which someone has brought a videocam. A talk show host who pronounces a word with a foreign accent for effect has to make a public apology to viewers who that same day are forwarding hate-spewing e-mails. A wardrobe malfunction can cost a network millions of dollars in fines. To protect our tender eyes and ears!
All Americanization ie Globalization does is turn communities into commodities.
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