This is the blog for INFS 2520 Alternative Knowledge: How Radical Ideas are Communicated in Society. This course examines the role of dissident knowledge in shaping and influencing a democratic society. This blog allows the instructor and the students in the class to post items of interest and comments about ideas and issues raised in the class.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
TED Talk Pulled from TED's Website
Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer describes job creation as "...a consequence of an eco-systemic feedback loop between customers and businesses." Kinda reminds me of a drawing I once saw. #
Thanks for sharing, Drew! There's some great fodder here if we were to have another mini debate about capitalism! This also does a great job of illustrating a lot of what we discussed in class related to propaganda and social coercion/consent. Also, yes, I believe I have seen a drawing like that somewhere before...
Some of the highlights that I think particularly illustrated what we've been discussing in class:
"An ordinary consumer is more of a job creator than a capitalist...That's why, when business people take credit for creating jobs, it's a little bit like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. It's actually the other way around."
"...hiring more people is a course of last resort for capitalists; it's what we do if- and only if- rising consumer demand requires it. And...calling ourselves job creators isn't just inaccurate, it's disingenuous...When the biggest tax exemptions and the lowest tax rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is the rich get richer. Since 1980, the share of income for the top 1% of Americans has more than tripled, while our effective tax rates have gone down by 50%; if it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more wealth for the wealthy led to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs."
"...if the typical American family still retained the same share of income that they did in 1970, they'd earn like $45,000 more a year."
"Significant privileges have come to people like me, capitalists, for being perceived as job creators at the center of the economic universe and the language and metaphors we use to defend the current economic and social arrangements is telling...and it's only honest to admit that when somebody like me calls themselves a job creator, we're not just describing how the economy works but, more particularly, we're making a claim on status and privileges that we deserve...the extraordinary differential between the 15% tax rate that capitalists pay on carried interest, dividends and capital gains, and the 35% top marginal rate on work that ordinary Americans pay is kind of hard to justify without a touch of deification."
RE: the fact that this video was removed from the TED site, there has been some discussion of that and whether it was censorship. Here is an article from Forbes that addresses the issue from a different perspective:
I have visited the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (You can too! http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000) and the actual statistics, if you search from 1995 - present, are more complex than the graph used in Hanauer's talk/video suggests. While this shoddy/misleading graph does take away from the point about unemployment, I do think a lot of what Hanauer had to say was legitimate and could be the starting point for a discussion. I think a lot of this actually reflects what we were discussing in class about dissident ideas not being as well-researched/established and that shutting down such discussions in the public sphere before they have a chance to develop.
Also, while Bruce Upbin, the author of the Forbes article does claim to share some of Hanauer's beliefs about the wealthy, do you think this article might be different in any way if it had been published elsewhere? Keep in mind, Forbes is a large, mainstream media company that - in its various publications- reports on and provides tools for business/investment.
There is some talk on the Internet about how TED promotes and filters its content, and without a statement from TED, I think it's mostly just speculation as to what the reasons are--political, quality, etc.
Upton's "shared beliefs" with Hanauer are nothing but a few credibility cards played as an attempt to balance the bias of his article. It's like stating "It's hot today" to align yourself with scientific facts and then going on to contradict global warming.
Similarly, Hanauer is trying to make a point, and he uses misleading data to make that point. That's important. However, what he looses in credibility for massaged graphs, I think he makes up for in common sense.
As for TED and "censorship," I think it's important to note that the talk happened and the video exists. Unlike what record labels often do when their content lands on YouTube, TED does not appear to be actively removing this video from media channels.
4 comments:
Thanks for sharing, Drew! There's some great fodder here if we were to have another mini debate about capitalism! This also does a great job of illustrating a lot of what we discussed in class related to propaganda and social coercion/consent. Also, yes, I believe I have seen a drawing like that somewhere before...
Some of the highlights that I think particularly illustrated what we've been discussing in class:
"An ordinary consumer is more of a job creator than a capitalist...That's why, when business people take credit for creating jobs, it's a little bit like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. It's actually the other way around."
"...hiring more people is a course of last resort for capitalists; it's what we do if- and only if- rising consumer demand requires it. And...calling ourselves job creators isn't just inaccurate, it's disingenuous...When the biggest tax exemptions and the lowest tax rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is the rich get richer. Since 1980, the share of income for the top 1% of Americans has more than tripled, while our effective tax rates have gone down by 50%; if it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more wealth for the wealthy led to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs."
"...if the typical American family still retained the same share of income that they did in 1970, they'd earn like $45,000 more a year."
"Significant privileges have come to people like me, capitalists, for being perceived as job creators at the center of the economic universe and the language and metaphors we use to defend the current economic and social arrangements is telling...and it's only honest to admit that when somebody like me calls themselves a job creator, we're not just describing how the economy works but, more particularly, we're making a claim on status and privileges that we deserve...the extraordinary differential between the 15% tax rate that capitalists pay on carried interest, dividends and capital gains, and the 35% top marginal rate on work that ordinary Americans pay is kind of hard to justify without a touch of deification."
Also, I do appreciate you turning the drawing into a hashtag. :)
RE: the fact that this video was removed from the TED site, there has been some discussion of that and whether it was censorship. Here is an article from Forbes that addresses the issue from a different perspective:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/05/17/the-real-reason-that-ted-talk-was-censored-its-shoddy-and-dumb/
I have visited the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (You can too! http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000) and the actual statistics, if you search from 1995 - present, are more complex than the graph used in Hanauer's talk/video suggests. While this shoddy/misleading graph does take away from the point about unemployment, I do think a lot of what Hanauer had to say was legitimate and could be the starting point for a discussion. I think a lot of this actually reflects what we were discussing in class about dissident ideas not being as well-researched/established and that shutting down such discussions in the public sphere before they have a chance to develop.
Also, while Bruce Upbin, the author of the Forbes article does claim to share some of Hanauer's beliefs about the wealthy, do you think this article might be different in any way if it had been published elsewhere? Keep in mind, Forbes is a large, mainstream media company that - in its various publications- reports on and provides tools for business/investment.
There is some talk on the Internet about how TED promotes and filters its content, and without a statement from TED, I think it's mostly just speculation as to what the reasons are--political, quality, etc.
Upton's "shared beliefs" with Hanauer are nothing but a few credibility cards played as an attempt to balance the bias of his article. It's like stating "It's hot today" to align yourself with scientific facts and then going on to contradict global warming.
Similarly, Hanauer is trying to make a point, and he uses misleading data to make that point. That's important. However, what he looses in credibility for massaged graphs, I think he makes up for in common sense.
As for TED and "censorship," I think it's important to note that the talk happened and the video exists. Unlike what record labels often do when their content lands on YouTube, TED does not appear to be actively removing this video from media channels.
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