The following are postings and responses to this topic at www.sociologistswithoutborders.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.cgi
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Sociologists Without Borders Thread
Wed, April 7, 2004 - 10:01 AMBurkhart -- (public sociologist?)
Tuesday 6 April 2004
Action.
Relevance.
Public Sociology is impossible to stop -- if by that is meant a more informed, self-aware global citizenery; and this is exactly the antidote for what I call Adolescent Capitalism and its excesses, that need to be reined in.
Of course, the profession of any "ology" must be seen to change in an age of greater general awareness, discourse, and action.
At tinyurl.com/3bmfu , there is an essay written about the topic of Aikido Activism, its role in community consciousness, and the opportunity for it to be used to catalyze the transformation of society. -
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Re: Sociologists Without Borders Thread
Wed, April 7, 2004 - 10:01 AMChristie, Chapel Hill, NC
Tuesday 6 April 2004
After taking a look at the essay recommended by Burkhart (tinyurl.com/3bmfu), I thought what better reason for Public Sociology to occur- at least in order to take an offense against Adolescent Capitalism. Many people in the US support globalization because they see its effects only on the Wall Street side. President Bush was about to nominate Anthony Raimondo to become manufacturing czar in order to 'champion keeping jobs at home'. (Time magazine, 3-22-04) Raimondo laid off 75 US workers while building a $3 million factory in Beijing. Luckily, John Kerry's staff caught wind of it before it happened and Raimondo removed his name from nomination. However, it is people like Raimondo that support adolescent capitalism, taking only money into consideration instead of morals by the exploitation of labor in the developing world. If sociology became more of a public sphere, perhaps more people would become educated and subsequently become more sympathetic to the human rights of others. -
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Re: Sociologists Without Borders Thread
Wed, April 7, 2004 - 10:15 AMBurkhart (public sociologist?)
Wednesday 7 April 2004
One point I'd like to ask you Christie if what you would object to in Raimondo's actions was if he had merely moved to a different state of the United States where he could get a lower wage would that be objectionable?
I think there is maybe a nuance, that in a globalizing world, competitiveness truly demands seeking lower cost ways of doing business, but that many of the low cost wages internationally exist because of the lack of protections of workers against unjust exploitations (and also that here in the United States there is the risk of that).
It seems like their is an avenue (and need) to advance democracy on a global basis, in order to protect all earth's citizenry from unjust exploitations. It seems like this is quite possible, with all the tools here today -- especially Internet communications supporting the formation and mobilization of a global agenda.
Some of the discourse on this topic from various online fora such as this is being consolidated at tinyurl.com/yssuq.
It will take diffuse and collective efforts (such as the discussions on Sociologists Without Borders, Progressive Economists Network, and many more) to drive the problem and solution sufficiently into public consciousness that corrective measures are accelerated.
Even so, but hopefully not, it still may take terrible outcomes that negatively effect many (for example a lengthening, expanding U.S. recession with many jobs going overseas) before remediation occurs.
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