TITLE
 

praxislittle.gif (3362 bytes)

RADICAL PEDAGOGY

T. R. Young, Visiting Professor
Virginia Tech

Sept. 1992

 Menu Item No. 020
Surplus Value, Profits and Labor

Distributed as part of the Red Feather Institute RADICAL PEDAGOGY Series.

The Red Feather Institute, 8085 Essex, Weidman, Michigan, 48893.

Cost:  15 Generic pts.  Payoff: Up to 15 Quality Points.

Limit: 10 people may 'buy' this assignment.

These Field Assignments and Special Projects come from the Point Menu of The Great Flying Chaos Learning Circus...an interactively rich and informationally diverse Syllabus.   The weight assigned to each Menu Item assumes a 200 pt. budget; i.e., students are 'given' 200 points with which they may 'buy' an assignment.  Of the 200 pts, 100 must be spent on tests.  Students can earn a grade without taking final examinations in this Syllabus...hence students are greatly motivated to 'spend' points.

Reading #2 by Victor Perlo
Surplus Value, Profits and Labor
Choose any three items below: 5 pts. each.          
     Check out a company for which you work or with which you
have some personal connection (a restaurant, store, factory
or, if you work for Virginia Tech, you may use it). 

1.   P. 19.  Perlo says that owners have better bargaining power
     than do workers.  He says owners can wait, pick and chose,
     threaten employed workers with replacement by unemployed.
     Talk to the people in the firm.  Do they agree or disagree
     about the inequality of bargaining power.  Is Perlo right?
2.   Table 3, p29 shows that real take home pay increased from
     1947 to 1972 and has declined since then.  Perlo says this
     decline is a result of business and government action
     against workers.
     Is that true for your firm as well?  Do the workers there
     have a hard time making ends meet or is it the owners which
     have the most financial difficulty?  Is Perlo right for this
     firm?
3.   Perlo says that firms hire women since it gets more surplus
     value from women than from men.  Are there more women in the
     firm than men?  Have women slowly taken over jobs that men
     used to have?  Are women paid less for the same work?
     Some say capitalism helps women by eliminating the structure
     of gender [male] privilege.  Some say that capitalists help
     men by favoring them.  Who is right?  Are both right?
4.   Chart 4, p.33 shows that profits for US companies have
     increased since 1931.  They increased when wages were going
     up (1950-70) and increased more when wages started to fall
     (1970)
     Is that true of your firm?  Why or why not.  Are times
     getting better [or worst] for your kind of company and worse
     [better] for other kinds?  Why would that be?
5.   Structural functional theory (Chapter 1, the text) says that
     the state, like the brain, does not take sides.  Perlo says
     the state helps owners exploit workers.  Does the State of
     Virginia give more help to owners or to workers in setting
     wages?  How?
     Use your findings to critique/support the organic analogy
     used by structural-functionalism.  Is the state neutral?
DO A GOOD JOB--ONE PERSON IN EACH LEARNING ATTRACTOR WILL BE INVITED BY
YOUR MENTOR TO A MINI-DEBATE FOR 10 MORE POINTS.