Family Activity III Winners

After careful consideration of the family submissions, I have decided to award bonus points to the Yellow and Green Families. I thought both points that the Yellow family submitted were good, and one point from the Green family (which gave a different interpretation of the "Dot-Communist Manifesto") was also worthy of a couple bonus points. Unfortunately, the Blue family's points were weak, especially on "Karl's New Manifesto." So, below are the points as described by each family, with some editing on my part. Anything I may ask about this exercise on the final exam will come from the description of these points below.

GREEN FAMILY

A capitalist society like ours revolves around purchases, especially of necessities such as food, shelter, water, etc., which must be paid for with money. In addition, we purchase things to satisfy our desires and for leisure. We pay to go to see a movie, to read a magazine, etc. The Internet provides an interesting dimension to this issue, where anyone with access to a computer can essentially read a magazine or listen to music for free. In Andrew Sullivan's article, though dated, this issue is discussed. He discusses how our "public space" (has) become increasingly private," yet the web has allowed us to become "equal citizens far more possible than ever." If Marx were alive today he would contend that the dream of being a whole person or to be "ends, not means" could in essence be illustrated through how we use the Internet. However, contemporary capitalist society does not want us to be able to go on the Internet and download music for free. It does not want us to read magazine articles without paying for a subscription. This takes away profit which is the driving force of capitalism. We think that it is important to mention that Napster, and other free online music sharing websites, have continually lost the battle in court to provide free music, and the most dominant music sharing programs on our computers today, at least the ones that function, are the ones where you have to pay with a credit card. So, perhaps capitalism will triumph after all.


YELLOW FAMILY

One interesting point from the article that can offer insight into contemporary capitalist society is the idea of public property in "Dot-Communist Manifesto." In traditional capitalist societies, private property is vital and necessary for societal functioning. The author used the Internet as an example of how public property can work, and how it can be a positive institution. The author talks about how motives other than profit become important to people, unlike capitalist society where "cash is king" and we are all motivated by our own self-interest. The author observes, "Private property is about as fashionable in the online world as public property is in the offline world." In the online world, private property is not profitable. Websites that require payment for membership are not popular, unlike those where anyone can access and be enriched by the content of the site. Private property contributes to alienation, while public property brings people together in this sense. The article offers a real life example of how public property is thriving on the Internet, which is one of the biggest and newest markets available. Could this catch on in other areas? Is public property really that bad? These are questions the article, although humorously, makes the reader think about.


In "Karl's New Manifesto" David Brooks brings up a point that is highly relevant for modern capitalist society. He ends the article talking about the striking structural differences between families of different socioeconomic classes. He gives the statistic that today only one-third of "poor" families are headed by married couples. This leaves an overwhelming majority of poor children to be raised by single parents. Children who do not live with both biological parents are less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to get a job, more likely to get in trouble with the law, less likely to raise their own children in a two-parent household, etc.That children who come from poor families are more likely to have disadvantages gives us an interesting take on capitalist society. Marx said that capitalists, by virtue of what it means to be a capitalist, "sow the seeds of their own destruction." The interesting insight is that, in this scenario, capitalist society is potentially creating a class of people that is perpetually struggling to catch up. Brooks suggests that this undereducated class is equivalent to the oppressed working class of Marx's "Manifesto" and the frustration created by this inherited inequality could prove to be dangerous for the educated capitalists.


That's it. So Yellow family members earn 4 bonus points, and the Green family members 2 bonus points.

After the break we will select new families, which I guess will end the Yellow family's dynasty.....