Make up: Penn State Scandal

Since I missed a post a few weeks ago and I wanted to discuss this issue, I’m going to discuss my thoughts on the recent Penn State scandal.  First, I’d like to say this should have waited a few weeks to happen because it would have been a great topic to do the group project on since there were so many organizational issues dealing with what happened. It is a terrible thing that happened, if everything Jerry Sandusky is being accused of took place, which it definitely seems that it did. I think that the leadership at Penn State did a terrible job of handling this issue. Since there were trials regarding this matter long before it became publicized, people obviously knew what was going on. The fact that they did not take immediate action was highly irresponsible. I guess people thought that the issue would just go away if they did not do anything about it. Because of the  neglect to take action, the board of trustees was put in a position to do something once it did become publicized. The actions they took were very hasty and in my opinion not only did nothing to resolve the issue but punished the wrong people. The fact that Joe Paterno was fired came as a shock to me. He was made guilty by association and unjustly fired. What really bothers me about this issue is the fact that he said he was going to resign at the end of the season. With how much dedication he has had to Penn State and everything he has done for the school over the years, it is really disappointing that he went out with no dignity thanks to those trying to do damage control. I think that firing Joe Paterno did more harm to Penn State than good, especially after the reaction of the students.

Virginia Tech

Yesterday there was a police officer killed at Virginia Tech. When I first heard about this I instantly thought of the massacre that took place a few years ago. Luckily what took place was not as bad as this but it is still a tragedy that there was a police officer killed. This morning I was reading an article about the shooting and it discussed that within minutes the entire campus was on lockdown and everyone was aware of what was happening. This was able to be accomplished because after the first shooting there were plans set in place for an emergency like this. The article explained that this is partly because some said the school was not prepared enough and did not properly respond to the first incident. I think that it is pretty impressive that within such a short time the entire school had been alerted of what was going on. This made me wonder if Ship would be able to properly handle a situation like this. I know the school has things such as the emergency text message system in place but I don’t think this would be enough to alert everyone on campus. I’m guessing there are a lot of students and staff that are not signed up for this program. A friend told me about a time they pushed an emergency button on campus for a minor emergency they had. The said it was several minutes before anyone showed up. This makes me question how prepared we would be if something terrible like this was to happen at our school.

BP oil spill

I think that yesterday all of the groups that presented did a really good job. Out of the three groups that did present, I enjoyed the group that discussed the BP oil spill the most. The reason I liked this one was not that they necessarily did any better than the other groups but I think the topic they presented is most relevant. The BP oil spill was a massive catastrophe that had an immense negative impact on so many people all over the country. The effects of the spill were not limited to those who had to deal with cleaning the spill. I think that it was highly irresponsible for BP to do what they did to allow for this to happen. As the group explained BP could have taken more preventative measures to ensure something like this did not happen. Not only did BP fail to avoid this incident, but once it occurred they did a terrible job of taking care of it on multiple levels. First, they could have been speedier in the manner they acted to block the leak and stop oil from pouring into the ocean.  Also BP was not very apologetic to those this affected. They could have taken more responsibility for the situation they caused. Another point on this topic is that I do not think BP was held as liable as they should have been for the damage they caused. Not only did they cause an environmental disaster but they also had a huge negative impact on the economy. They put many in the Gulf Coast area out of work and essentially halted the productivity of this area. I think that the government should have been harder on BP in the way they were punished. It is unacceptable that an event like this can happen with all of the safeguards available.

Power

In our discussion Wednesday, we discussed many aspects of power that I think it is important to understand. With regards to the six institutions where power is found, I agree that the government military and business hold immense power in contemporary times. Even though there is power found in the military, I think that the power found between business and the government is a growing topic of interest. The connection between government and business has been increasing since the emergence of the modern corporation. This is even more apparent in recent years I feel. The integration of private business with government is considered socialism. It seems that more and more our country has been moving in this direction with examples such as the recent healthcare bill. Although there are some benefits that can come about from things such as the healthcare bill, I do not think that government and business should have such a strong integration. An even more worrisome aspect of the integration of business and government is the influence business is able to place on government. The power that corporations have has gotten to a level that I don’t think is acceptable. Corporations are able to influence politicians through lobbying and campaign funding. I think that these activities need to be eliminated, if not abolished. The fact that businesses are able to influence public policy, I find very unsettling. Because of their almost unlimited funds, businesses will continue to be able to carry out these activities. Without these activities stopping, corporations will continue to be able to have unfair advantages.

Activity from a few weeks ago

Before we discussed the activity we did two weeks ago I was unsure of what the point of it was. I was somewhat confused due to the lack of instruction given by Dr. Goates. However after our discussion it became more apparent of what we were supposed to gain from doing this activity. One of the main points that we discussed about this activity was the degree to which people would take the initiative to deviate from the ambiguous rule sheet. I wanted to act in a way that wasn’t completely following the rules that were established, I did not do this though. This was not because of fear of having a negative consequences, which was the main reason we concluded was the reason people did not do this, but rather I did not want to take the risk of doing something that would make the activity not turn out the way it was supposed to. I thought that doing something that was not specified in the rules may lead to some sort of confusion or miscommunication. One interesting aspect of this activity I noticed was how everyone did make an attempt to follow the set of rules we were given for the most part. During most of the activity many people were trying to follow the directions as well as they could. This seemed to change abruptly though as we began to run out of time. As we got close to the end of class people seemed to be less concerned about following the rules and began to act as they felt necessary. I think the reasoning behind this is that since we were running out of time people realized a sense of urgency for wanting to earn extra credit. People knew that they needed to do something to gain control of the extra credit so they started caring less about what the rules were and started playing by their own rules so they had a better chance of getting extra credit. I thought it was interesting to see how people started to look out for their own interest rather than the interest of the group that they were in.

Book report part 5

In the last segment of my book, The Culture of New Capitalism, the author discussed many things that dealt closely with our discussions regarding motivation.  The first thing that he focused his discussion on was what he described as narrative. Within this topic were a few sub-topics that made up narrative but were each individual and served their own purpose. First within the idea of narrative was the idea that there needs to be provided to workers “parallel institutions” which will provide workers continuity and sustainability. The main reasoning behind this is that currently there are not enough safety nets for workers in the modern economy. With how volatile the economy is in contemporary times there needs to be a better structure set up for workers that face situations such as unexpected unemployment, although this would be more of a solution to prevent unemployment in the first place. The author gives the example of the United Auto Workers Union as well as the Boston Secretarial Union as unions that are taking an innovative, proactive approach to assisting their members. For example, the Boston Secretarial Union has programs in place for single parents in place to help with communal needs (Sennett 185). This makes me think of our discussion on motivation regarding the motivator hygiene theory. Although some of peoples personal needs being taken care of an employer, or in this case their labor union, may not increase their satisfaction with their job, it can allow for the employee to have less to worry about in their personal life, resulting in a more productive individual in the work place. Another idea that the author discusses is a program called job sharing. This can also be beneficial to workers that are experiencing unemployment due to volatility in the economy. The idea behind this is that for jobs that would traditionally be carried out by one employee are split into duties to be carried out by two or three individuals. This allows for a greater number of workers in industries that are seasonal in nature to find employment during other parts of the year. It was explained that this system being used by the Dutch, which like the United States is negatively impacted by the vigorous use of outsourcing, alleviated some of the negative impact (Sennett 185). The author also touched on the idea of how welfare should be handled. He supports a system which he called “basic income.” In this system every citizen would receive an allotment of funds provided by the government. This amount would be enough to provide for a basic standard of living and everyone would receive this, rich or poor. It would be up to the individual to spend this money as they see fit however, if they were to run out of money, they would not be given any additional support by the government. I think this is a pretty radical idea. It may sound good in theory, although I do not see this working as a suitable substitution for our current welfare system. The second major idea that was discussed in this portion of the book was that of usefulness. This was the idea that people want to feel what they are doing on the job is serving a purpose. People feel more motivated when they are doing work they feel good about and as discussed in the book people are willing to work at jobs that they are not getting paid as much as they could be making elsewhere if they feel that their work at the less paying job is more worthy. This is an idea we have mentioned in class and has been apparent in some of the readings. The last main point that the author brought up was the idea of people considering craftsmanship in their work. He defines this is as doing something for the sake of doing it right. This was brought up previously in this book. It is important for people to take pride in what they do. This is a major factor in the motivation process. If people are doing work that they can enjoy they will have much more motivation to accomplish their work. These last two main points remind me of the nifty animated video we watched in class. These points of usefulness and craftsmanship reflect two of the main points brought up in the video, purpose and mastery. In the video it explained that these along with autonomy are major factors that contribute to highly motivated individuals. By combining these attributes people will be able to excel in their jobs as well as gain satisfaction in what they do.

Book report part 4

In the third chapter of The Culture of New Capitalism, the author tries to convey the idea of consumerism and the hold it has on our society. Not only does he try to convey this idea but he also attempts to convey how political power is promoted through the same way as modern marketing techniques used for products.  The chapter begins by describing that there are two groups of individuals that have emerged in the new economy. First, there is the elite group of individuals that control the wealth. These people can be described as the executive type of people that are in control of business and have the means to control production of goods and services. The other group that is identified is the everyday working-class citizen. These individuals do not hold as much power and are dependent on the upper class in the sense of being provided work (Sennett 132). This notion is not anything new. This closely mirrors the economic perspective of Marx. Marxism first described an almost identical scenario referring to these parties as the bourgeois and the proletariat. With these distinct classes identified, the author proceeded to lay out how the control the elite class has on production leads to the heavy consumerist culture we have today. The first major point that was brought up was the idea of “gold plating.” This is an idea that even though there is a great diversity in the products we buy, take cars for example, there is no difference from one to another, they are merely marketed and repackaged to seem as if there are superior products when compared to each other. The author used Audi, which is owned by Volkswagen, as an example. When comparing the top luxury model to the lowest priced base model there is only a very small difference in these cars, they are about ninety percent the same car. Even though there is about a ten percent difference in the design of the car, the luxury model sells for about double what the base model does (Sennett 145). It does not seem logical that such a small difference in the materiality of what you are buying would cause such a dramatic increase in purchase price.  The way in which producers are able to pull this off is the way in which they present the product to the consumer.  The producers market these products so that the consumer is fooled into believing that there is a substantial difference in the products being offered. This can be done in a variety of ways including the presentation of a commercial or simply changing the packaging on different classes of products. A second main idea that was brought up was the idea of planned obsolescence. This is the idea that producers create an environment in which the consumers are tricked or forced into having the need to buy new things Sennett 140). The first way in which this is done is by consumers attacking consumers psychologically, they make them think they need the newest and best products. This is done by using simple tactics such as constantly coming out with new models of things as well as stressing new trends and fashions. Also producers can make products that are not of very good quality, making them wear out sooner, causing people to have to buy replacement goods. Another aspect of consumerist culture that the author discussed is the idea of what he called “branding and potency.” This idea is describes the nature of the products we buy. With so many advancements in technology and our ever-increasing distance from a self sufficient (as in individuals and families producing much of what they relied on) economy, many individuals know very little about the products they buy. The book explains that we should educate ourselves much better about the products we are consuming (Sennett 145). This does not mean that we need to know how to build it ourselves, but we should know how the products we use work. The reasoning behind this is that much of what we purchase is excessive beyond our means. This is not to say that we can’t afford these items, but their capabilities surpass our practical capacity. Take for example an IPod. The larger models of IPods are capable of storing up to 20,000 songs. It is possible to fill this to capacity, however, not only is It pretty unlikely, it is surpasses our mental capabilities as well. The average person would only be able to remember a fraction of this amount of songs to recall that they are even on their IPod, so having this many songs is effectively pointless. The author also uses the example of people in cities driving cars that are designed for extreme terrain such as a hummer, or driving a high performance sports car, just to end up spending a majority of their time sitting in traffic (Sennett 151). I think that all of these ideas can be directly related to the topics that we discussed this past week in class. The fact that companies use these techniques to sell their products and profit heavily from them may be seen as unethical practices. I believe this relates to the Machiavellian managerial ethic that we discussed. By using tactics to sell their products that some may say are deceptive, companies are helping to ensure their survival and gains. Companies that use these strategies clearly only have their self interest in mind. Although companies do need to sell their products and have gains, they can still accomplish these tasks, but use more consumer-friendly ways of conducting business. If companies took an approach to doing business in a way in which created good for all, this would be much more responsible. Rather than focusing on simply making as much money as possible, companies have the ability to create benefits for everyone depending on how they conduct business. Things that companies can do to create a shared benefit include ideas such as being environmentally healthy, providing high quality products at low prices and provide employees with a good work environment. Companies that consider the triple bottom line are shown to be more profitable in the long run than those that do not. Along with this notion is the idea that companies need to uphold their social equity and stakeholder concerns. If more companies took this approach instead of the Machiavellian approach then there would be fewer problems with the issues that have been discussed.