Category: Teaching

Julian Friedland (Business Ethics Memo) Comments On My Blog

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching2 Comments

Julian Friedland maintains a blog, Business Ethics Memo. I had occasion to write and he wrote back.

This is what he had to say –

Hi James,

Thanks for the link and compliment. I would be curious to know what academic training you have, i.e. business, philosophy, etc.

Your blog is engaging some of the most important and timely issues today. However, I would council you to beware of your tone, which can be a tad shrill at times.

Instead of name calling (“incredibly stupid,” “evil” etc.) you might consider taking a more charitable view of the other side, which might help take the debate to a deeper level and alienate fewer readers. For example, there are reasons schools are invading student privacy, and some might be legitimate. How do we determine the difference here?

I know folks are shouting more and more in media these days (especially on the right), but I think educators like us should strive to maintain a better example. That said, I am all for calling a spade a spade from time to time. But in my humble opinion, that can be done without name calling.

Also, you might consider opening up the blog to comments.

BTW: I am writing an article on some of the citizens united implications for increased CSR. It’s entitled Sustainability, Public Health, and the Corporate Duty to Assist.

Did you catch my piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed last November? It’s subscription only (linked on my blog) so in case your library doesn’t offer access, I’m pasting it below.

Best,

Julian

An Introduction To Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure, Teaching

This is my thoroughly acerbic intro to my business ethics class.

Business Ethics is the study of what is right or wrong in the world of business. We are going to explore your views of ethics. While you will learn about many ethical systems, the emphasis of the class is upon your ethical development.
It is possible that you live in a moral vacuum. You could have no beliefs whatever as to what should or should not be done. However, this possibility is so rare as to be almost impossible.

More likely is that you have been influenced by society and have accepted the viewpoints of those around you. You float in a sea of belief systems absorbing what is “normal” and usually what is comfortable.

Some, a good number, have been educated into a moral system. The most common system would be that of a religion although other systems of ethics which can be found in organizations as diverse as political parties, charities, and organizations such as Ala-non. These other systems vary dramatically in the depth and importance of ethics in them.
The few remaining individuals will have actively considered what is right or wrong. Some have reflected on these issues a great deal; others less.

The intent of this course is that you actively consider your ethics as they relate to issues in business.
You move from moral vacuum, society’s choices, religious systems, organizational beliefs and your own reflections to a highly active consideration of ethical choices.

There is no rejection here of any system of ethics. It is quite likely that individuals will find in our attempt at developing a moral framework a ratification of their previous beliefs. It is likely that the strongest choice for many will be a religious system and those that have worked to develop their own judgment will usually find their search to have been significant.

Hopefully, all students in the class will develop their system of ethics in some sense. However, if a student begins the class with a system of ethics or an absence of such a system and finishes with no change, which will have no effect on the grade received.

What we will study

We will begin by exploring religious codes of ethics. Many religions, in particular Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Judaism and Islam have created sets of rules that apply directly to morality in the business context.

From there we will journey through the often confusing field of philosophy. We will discuss the impact of the major schools of thought on business ethics.

We will look at legal obligations of duty, fair dealing and care.

After this comes current thought, in particular American philosophies of business ethics.

We then investigate the issues of crime and ethical issues concerning business. A focus on particular moral issues concerning individual business fields like accounting.

Ethics programs and their implementation are next followed by human rights concerns and the last chapter concerns social responsibility.

Business ethics is a relevant and vital subject, but this field of ethics had been full of difficulty.

Business involves large sums of money, interactions between humans at different levels of power, interactions between one business and others, and interactions between business and government.

Some businesses have stolen incredible amounts of money, caused or contributed to the death of millions of people, damaged the fabric of the world economy, colluded with other businesses to set prices or drive other businesses out of existence, bribed government officials, evaded taxes and by giving an impression of constant criminality and dishonesty damaged the social fabric of many nations and poisoned their relationships with other countries.
Business ethics has been taught in the United States for about forty years. It has been a disaster. Corporate scandals so huge as to threaten the world’s financial systems have occurred several times. The more mundane corporate crimes ranging from tax evasion to the participation in causing injury and death are so commonplace they require little discussion.

Most of the individuals in these crimes were educated in business schools with business degrees probably the most common, the MBA. They had business ethics as a course. The fruit of that teaching is evident. There is no fruit. There is no positive result.

It can be claimed that business ethics has had some immeasurable effect that cannot be calculated. If that is a justification for having this course why don’t we teach a wide variety of other classes that might be effective. Is that how a business school is to be run: in the hope of a course being useful? Perhaps we should seek business success with Ouija boards, séances, and voodoo curses?

If we admit that current business ethical teaching is a failure. What can be done?

First, let’s have a look at our current textbooks. They contain many fascinating elements. First there are thought problems at regular intervals. A student is told in this thought problem that he is in position of having dire financial problems and at the same time he is confronted with an ethical problem involving a superior. If he does the morally correct thing, it could result in dismissal and the end of a career. If he does the wrong thing, he will keep his job and the risks are quite low that he will be caught. The student will of course give the proper response to the teacher. But he has already digested the principal lesson of the example. Don’t make waves. Don’t risk your career. When you get out into the real world you are going to have real financial pressure and if you lose your job, there will be consequences for the rest of your life.

How about that section on ethical systems, a vital part of the text? After all most of us attempt to work out our problems through with ethics code we already have and this is usually one common in our society. In most textbooks, there will be several pages perhaps even a large part of a chapter explaining the base elements of philosophy. This is so the eager business student has a good grasp on normative as opposed to descriptive ethics. You see that normative ethics is a system in which you try to figure out what is right or wrong. Descriptive ethics involves studying the current systems of belief or lack thereof. You see if we taught what was right or wrong we might offer students moral choices. But we give it a quick pass and offer students the choice of doing whatever is being done now, a convenient way of avoiding any moral choices at all. You see telling students what is right or wrong means forcing our ideas on them rather than allowing them the total freedom to act without any direction at all.

Then there comes the heart of the matter, a discussion of ethical systems that can range over as much as two to three pages. In one textbook which will remain nameless, Christianity is give two entire paragraphs, although there are reliable reports that a considerable number of Americans claim to live by its tenets. We then discuss utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Occasionally to amuse myself at the beginning of the semester, I ask the class how many of them live by utilitarian ethics. After a long period of silence, I try out Kant and the categorical imperative. Would you believe that our students don’t seem to make any of their moral decisions based on this thought? They don’t even seem to know what these things are! But if you ask about that Christianity thing, the one with two paragraphs, many of them react. Then you will find several students who are trying to figure out what is right or wrong in their own minds developing their own philosophy. And last you will always find two or three students who believe that money is the only measure of morality in this world, a descriptive ethic.

Our intent here is to explore the world of business in view of the many ethical systems that deal directly with business moral issues and there are more than a few. We also intend to look at your own moral development over the course of your life span.

Most importantly we will learn to consider morality and ethics as an active endeavor. You don’t put judgment in the back of your head as to what is right or wrong, you think about it actively. You have to think about what is right before the issue comes up or many times you will simply not realize the moral implications of your actions. You have a world to win, fight for it.

James Alan Pilant

“The Apartment” And Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching

In 1959, the Apartment, was filmed. It starred Jack Lemon and Shirley MacLaine. It was nominated for ten academy awards and won five.

They filmed some scenes in New York and intended to make much of the film there but Jack Lemon became very ill after at all night shoot in Central Park. So, they filmed most of it on the lot in Hollywood.

It’s beautifully filmed (I like black and white) and there is a great deal of subtlety in the details of the background that add to the message of the film

Why do I use it in class? First, it’s a view of an America that has ceased to be. An America whose history has tremendous resonance for our own.

Lessons from the film. (Not in order of importance.)

1. There is no normal in America. Every year we think this is normal, that everyone should do this. It’s how it is and you can’t change it. Well, it’s changing anyway. The only normal is constant motion in the direction of a new normal. It’s an important lesson because some of my students feel like they can have no effect in this world and thus should retreat to a private world of friends kept at a distance and media individualized to kill time and give a brief, fraudulent feeling of fulfillment.

2. I want my students to see the changes in how women are treated and how they adapted. Women were relegated to certain jobs and they realized their only avenue to improving their lot in life was to marry well. Many of the women in the film are just temporary forms of entertainment for all intents and purposes.

3. One of the strangest qualities of the film, and the director himself pointed this out, the Jack Lemon character, for the most part, is the architect of his problems and yet we feel sympathy for him and identify with him. And again, the Shirley MacLaine character largely chooses her own fate and we feel sorry for her.

There’s a big lesson here – we often feel sympathy, often a sense of identification and sometimes, even envy, with the unethical. I tell my students about the time one of my students came to me with this story of woe that virtually demanded sympathy. And I felt that way, until I noticed a sentence in this long story of suffering. So, I stopped him and said, “You did what?” There then followed a not very effective explanation. You see, he was a criminal. He broke the law. He was in the mess because of his own decision making. He did not deserve my sympathy. Yet, I was confident that every student he regaled with his tale of suffering felt bad for him.

If we are going to practice ethics, we are going to have to be tougher than that. People who do bad things, who treat other people cruelly, who act without honor or scruples, deserve moral condemnation. That will not change because you’re related to them, because they are friends, really attractive or you like their story. Practicing ethics is tough and it means being tough on other people who do wrong.

If you know what should be done and let it have no effect on your actions, you are acting unethically. You have failed to act ethically.

4. The role of minorities in the film is important. I believe that if film goers in 1960 believed that the film was inaccurate in its portrayal of women and minorities, it would not have been a success. Blacks in the film appear twice in the film, once a shoeshine boy and then, a group waiting to clean the offices at the end of the business day. My eagle eye students found a black man working among the mistreated proles in the huge office background and, once again, at the Christmas party (same guy). It just goes to proves that when lecturing it’s safer not to let them talk!

If my students ability to find a minority in the background when I couldn’t was bad enough, they really got me on the Eastern Europeans. I missed the fact that his neighbors and landlady were of the same ethnicity His landlady and his neighbors are all immigrants and recent ones. (The film is only fifteen years after the close of the Second World War.) They were warm and kind to the Jack Lemon character although judgmental about his ethical failings. (I did not realize the importance of this until it was pointed to out to me. Now, in my defense, I did realize the importance of his neighbor, the doctor, but I didn’t get the big picture.)

I was never able to figure out whether the restaurant hideaway was Chinese or Japanese. It seemed like one of those ethnic groups running a restaurant with some kind of Tahitian background. But basically we can conclude from the film that orientals are okay as long as they are serving food.

Generally, how did the film portray the different groups. The white corporate types were greedy, licentious, petty, and lacked any self perception whatever. Blacks are in the background, soulless workers who pretty things up. Chinese (possibly Japanese) are allowed certain profession but corporate life isn’t one of them. The Eastern Europeans are authentic human beings. They are tolerant and kind but willing not just to make moral pronouncements but willing to call attention to them. They openly criticize the Jack Lemon character for his (not real) sexual adventures. They have a moral center. Aside from our two main characters, they are the only real human beings in the film. And to be blunt, our two major characters only arrive at human hood in the last few minutes of the film.

If there is no other reason to show the film, the movement of the main characters from caricature to humanity makes it all worthwhile.

The doctor is the moral center of the film. He issues the call to personhood to the sinner in the next apartment.

As in instructor, it’s a good choice because there is no difficulty in getting students to watch and remember the film. They enjoy it and it leaves its mark on them. That makes it more useful than many more “on point” films.

If you are going to teach, misdirection, implification and appeals to unconscious motivations are legitimate tools.

James Pilant

Using Film To Teach Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching

I use three films in teaching business ethics, The Apartment, Cinema Paradiso, and Sabrina (the original with Bogart) (What! You think I’m crazy enough to use the Harrison Ford version?).

A thoroughly excellent question might be raised by this. “Why, Mr. Pilant, do you use commercial films instead of documentaries or teaching films from your school’s underused library?”

My response, “They don’t work, that’s why.”

Watch the reaction of your class when you announce the title of the latest exciting documentary you have found. You will note that a proportion of the class have immediately decided that the CIA had found some new interesting way of failing to extract useful information but you’re going to try it out on them anyway. The rest of the class is glad they don’t have to do any work. Strangely enough, watching films is very difficult once you realize it is an active form of study requiring training and experience, but they don’t know that and wouldn’t believe you if you told them.

So, you have lost half the battle right there.

If the film is any way (down to the microscopic) controversial, a good part of your students will ignore or marginalize the message. But what if you have a great success, what if the class cries in unison, demands action and stops after class to tell you how great it all was. You didn’t do to well on that one either. People are embarassed about their shows of emotion, their passion dies away and that letter they were going to write isn’t going to be written. You gave them the same heart tingling experience of good cone of ice cream.

So, it is time for you to argue that if documentaries don’t work, that people tune them out, etc., why can’t they do the same thing with your academy award winning crap? Because they can’t.

They can’t tune them out. The wonderful thing about great films (and when I mean great, I mean the top of the top, the top 100, the absolute best) is you can’t ignore them. They get you down where you live. When your classroom watches a documentary, you can always pick out students who are going through it objecting to this, disregarding that. They are not going to let that film just do its work. They feel obligated by their politics or whatever to make sure that it doesn’t affect them.

A great film captivates. It pulls in the attention. I’ve seen it multiple times. All the students in the class with the same expression watching the same film.

Sometimes, it’s surprising. One of my most difficult decisions was whether or not to use Cinema Paradiso. The film has two choices of spoken language, French or Italian, so I have to use a subtitled film in class. In America, the phrase “foreign film” or the even deadlier phrase “not in English'” are usually enough to stop people from watching the film in the first place.  Because the class is used to my strange ways, when I tell them I am going to use a subtitled film, any objections are quickly murmured in the back of the class. (They have gotten to used to situations in which I explain something they know couldn’t possible be true or make any sense and then I make it work. It disturbs them.)

So, I show the film. At first, there is not the strong attention I get when I show one of my English speaking films but after  the scene where the Catholic Priest is removing all the kissing scenes from the town’s movies, they are caught and they never escape.

Film is not a logical medium. It goes around the frontal lobes and lodges its message in the emotional parts of our thinking like a cleverly thrown curve ball. So, my use of outrage producing or factual documentary material throws a few facts their way which will quickly be disregarded or forgotten. I have noted in my own life that if I read a book about the Spartans, I retain far more information and make far more observations than I do from the History Channel’s documentary.

Besides I want to change my student’s way of thinking and improve their methods of observation when watching films and television.

What’s more, I want to introduce controversial subject to them without running into the immediate rejection ideas usually get.

So, how to do it? Films. No just any films, but masterpieces, films that have resonated with audiences for many years. Why those? Because these films have demonstrated a staying power which indicates they have connected with our unconscious in some manner. Now generally speaking, we believe we like certain films because of the actors, the kind of film (Western, etc.) and because our friends told us we had to see it. Those are most of the films we see. But the ones we remember, the ones that play with our heads, the ones we think about, often years later, have an appeal to our whole mind, not just the conscious stuff (which for many people isn’t that a big a deal anyway) (Okay, look, if you spend your life slavishly duplicating the actions of your neighbors, doing all the things you are supposed to do and avoiding any difficult decisions especially moral and ethical ones, the only difference between you and a corpse is that your status is not properly defined.) I use those films.

The unconscious is where the action is. Consciousness is nice, don’t get me wrong. I try to spend a lot of time there. Nevertheless, many of my decisions (more than I like to think) and most of my emotions emerge from the depths of the mind, not the top.

So, to change my students way of thinking as painlessly as possible for them and me, I use films. Now don’t think for a moment that we do not discuss the logical, moral implications of the film. We do. There is a cerebral frontal cortex appealing part of the class. But reaching behind that is more important.

Look at the three films. What are the messages? The one message they have in common is that humanity is more important than business success. But in particular –

The Apartment – Love is more important than success.

Cinema Paradiso – Film can fill your life with wonder that morphs into action.

Sabrina – We can change.

Now, take a look at my students. (Obviously, this is a majority of my students, not all, but see how many you think reject all three of these.) 1. I’m going to have a meaningful emotional life just as soon as I have enough money(or I get the right job or after my education or after I move). 2. Films and television are just films and televisions. I am too smart, too clever, too worldly wise for my actions to be influenced. (The unexamined life.) 3. I can totally completely change my life anytime I feel like it. I have total free will. Now, salary wise and where I live, I’m stuck but my point of view and how I live, if I want to change, I can. (And on number 3, let me point out that I get to stand at the top of the classroom and observe them and their bullet and bombproof self concepts day after day.) Continuing point 3, when they watch Sabrina they just can’t understand why Bogart hasn’t already changed or they spend a great deal of time telling themselves that if only they were in his shoes, they’d know what was important, when the fact is that if they were in Bogart’s position you couldn’t blast them out with a tactical nuke.

Now, it’s time for the main question. What do you teach them with these movies?

The Apartment gives examples of the changing status of women, the treatment of minorities and the often petty nature of corporate life.

The unconscious lessons are that authority can be wrong, that individual action is important and that you can live as hero or heroine even in small matters. I could teach these as part of the conscious part of the class but what for? The ideas are now planted. I might water them a little but time and inclination are more important in determining the effect. (There are also thousands of tiny lessons relating to verbal matters, environment, emotional stances and ways of thinking.)

Cinema Paradiso shows how a business can become embedded in the life of a community and how that influence changes over time. I also find it useful for demonstrating small business decision making as opposed to corporate decision making.

The unconscious lessons are the effect of entertainment particularly movies and, most precisely, on children. The film recreates and recaptures the films of our childhood but much, much more important, it captures the emotional content of those films, the emotional content that redirected our lives.

Sabrina shows the upside and downside of self transformation, an American preoccupation. The film’s observations on class differences are delightful not to mention the interrelationship between the personal and the professional.

The unconscious lesson of the film is that we do not live our lives logically or reasonably. Far more interesting is the idea that even if you are short, fairly ugly, depressed and (in the film) unemotional, beautiful young ladies will still find you attractive. (Whoops! Sorry, that’s my lesson from the film.)

The big lesson from the film is this. You are not what you think you are. You never will fully get a grip on the mystery of you. You are a great unknown. You may look for meaning all your life in books, in experience, in profession or normality, and one day, one moment, it will hit you in the form of a child, a friend, an observation, or in the case of this movie, a young female. And if you fail to grab it, to realize the importance of it, to see what it means, you will walk, talk and eat and still be as dead as a stone.

That’s what I want my students to know.

James Pilant

Rumors Of A Moral Economy

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching4 Comments

Fernwood Publishing is going to bring out the book, Rumors of a Moral Economy. It is to be used as a textbook in business ethics. I attempted to apply for a review copy only to discover that since I live in Arkansas and lack a Canadian Province to report as my locale, I am out of luck. (They don’t do any business in the United States? I mean we have a common border, right?)

Nevertheless, I have the privilege of having as a friend on Facebook, the author of the aforementioned textbook. He has his very own blog (which I link to, only the seventh link I have on my blog) Christopher Lind, The Moral Economy. This is his picture and a brief description of what can only be described as a busy career. (Now, I copied this in its entirety from the web site, Fernwood Publishing.  So, if they want me to stop recommending the book, the author or copying their advertisement so others can see it, I will.)

  • Affiliation: St. Andrew’s

Dr. Christopher Lind is a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.
From 2003 to 2006 he served as Director of the Toronto School of Theology. The Toronto School of Theology is one of the largest and most diverse ecumenical theological cooperatives in North America. From 1985 until 2003 he was based in Saskatoon, first as Professor of Church & Society and then as President of St. Andrew’s Theological College. A lay Anglican, from 2000 to 2003 he also served as President of the amalgamated St. Andrew’s College and St. Stephen’s College in Saskatoon and Edmonton, sponsored by the United Church of Canada.
Dr. Lind holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University in Philosophy and Political Science, a Master of Divinity degree from Trinity College and a PhD in Theology from the University of St. Michael’s College specializing in Ethics and Economics. He has authored or co-edited five books in the areas of Ecumenical Social Ethics, Globalization and Agriculture, Mission and Theology. Dr. Lind has distinguished himself as an ethicist and theologian over 30 years of an academic career. His employment and career path are expressions of his vocation as a leader in personal, institutional, and social transformation.

I went on the web and read some of his stuff. He’s a fine writer. He avoids a heavy academic style for a more comfortable prose style. So, read his blog. Wait with breathless anticipation for his book and I will attempt to lay hands on actual Canadian copy (I may be indicted for espionage.) and tell you all about it.

James Pilant

What Is Net Neutrality?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Teaching

I found some videos explaining the subject.

A more comic book take on the same subject.

This is (adult content) The Daily Show’s take on net neutrality in 2006. (You have to click on the link because the videos won’t come in directly. Sorry!)

Here is The Daily Show’s take on the subject on October 26, 2009.

This is the best one. It’s a clear explanation. Watch this one.

I hope this helps. Sometimes video is just more effective than print.

James Pilant

And remember this.

Facebook Discussion On “Internet Rip Off”

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching

When I make a blog entry on this wordpress account, I have set it to immediately post on my Facebook account. The discussion there was lively and informative. So, I am going to repost it here for you to read!

(You will note that my presence in the discussion was tiny. I was playing Dungeons and Dragons from that afternoon until two in the morning. Yes, I am 54 years old and still play D&D – sue me.)

Bryan Aguiar How is the interent a public good? I run a server on the internet. It cost me money to buy it, me money to buy software that runs the computer, and me money to buy the router that connects it to the interent. How is freedom of speech even remotely affected by this? You can still stand on a street corner and shout out your message or pay to print it up on flyers, billboards, newspapers, etc. Where does it say anyone has a right to free interent access? Newspapers costs money, magazines cost money so why shouldn’t the internet?
Yesterday at 9:48am

Gary Bender The internet is considered a public good because it is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. By using the internet, one person does not deplete the internet so that others can’t use it. This isn’t perfectly true, for if enough people or consuming the resources of the internet, the extent with which everyone can use the internet is decreased. However, those resources are only limited by the efforts of monopolistic owners created by government in the grant of ownership to the ISPs.

Whether the internet is non-excludable is arguable. Educators and employers often argue that access to the internet is necessary for all in order to compete in the international economy. The internet is too important as a tool of economic growth to allow exclusion. There are certain special interests who see the internet as a personal cash cow and who would like to exclude some in order to drive demand by limiting supply. This is the reason that the ISPs have hired so many former members of Congress to lobby against net neutrality.

The issue isn’t whether the internet is free as in beer, but free as in speech. I believe that I should have as much right to the internet as Bill Gates without being gouged simply because I don’t generate as much profit for the ISPs as Bill does. I have the same right to drive I-520 to 1 Microsoft Way as Bill. Why should I not have the same right to use the Information Superhighway as Bill?
Yesterday at 10:30am

A.G. If you use other people/companies servers, then you will pay for the convenience. OR you could pay for your own server like Bryan does, and browse the internet as you see fit. The internet is a product just like any other.

How is this any different than posting a message on your local newspaper? If your local paper, being a private company, doesn’t like your message than they don’t have to post it. If they choose to post it, then you will pay more for a half page ad (if that’s what you want) than you will for a quarter page ad. If you don’t want to pay for your newspaper ad, then you should own the newspaper.
Yesterday at 10:46am

Bryan Aguiar The internet is very excludable just like cable TV; therefore, it is not a public good. “The internet is too important as a tool of economic growth to allow exclusion” is strictly an opinion. In the Dharavi slum of India, they export goods around the world worth 500 million per year. They have one toilet per 1,440 residents, barely have electricity, let alone internet.
“I believe that I should have as much right to the internet as Bill Gates ” You do, just pay for it like Bill Gates does. He doesn’t get it for free and neither should you. Before the internet were you saying you should get a free newspaper while Bill Gates should have to pay for it? Information is still available for free in public libraries. “Educators and employers often argue that access to the internet is necessary for all in order to compete in the international economy.” Yet we have very few computer labs and computer classrooms at NWACC. Yet thousands and thousands of workers work evryday day without using the internet. I went to taco bell for lunch yesterday and they made my lunch without having to use the interent. “The issue isn’t whether the internet is free as in beer, but free as in speech”. No, that is the issue. People are trying to make it a free speech issue so they can get something for nothing. The government provides public goods with tax money. Private goods and saome quasi-public goods (cable TV and the Internet) are paid for by the user.
Yesterday at 11:00am

Gary Bender Actually, the ISPs are trying to exclude people, not based on the fee, but on the ISPs choice. They want to decide who should use the internet. “Any entrepreneur with an idea has always been able to create a website and share their ideas globally – without paying extra tolls to have their content seen by other users.” Up until now, the users of the internet decide whose ventures succeed and whose ventures fail. The ISPs want to change this. They want to rig it so that their friends succeed and others fail. It’s political. Has nothing to do with somebody getting something for nothing. If the ISPs succeed, I won’t have the same access to the internet as Bill Gates, not because I won’t pay but because we are in different political camps. My internet provider, Cox Communications, already has tiered service. But anyone willing to pay the monthly fee can get any tier he or she desires. That is about to come to an end.
Yesterday

Bryan Aguiar ‎“The ISPs want to change this. They want to rig it so that their friends succeed and others fail. It’s political. Has nothing to do with somebody getting something for nothing. If the ISPs succeed, I won’t have the same access to the internet as Bill Gates, not because I won’t pay but because we are in different political camps.” I agree that is wrong, wrong, wrong, and they should be stopped from doing that.
Yesterday at 11:48am

Gary Bender James did have a good point about economics which I think deserves an addendum. You might remember when the ISPs laid the groundwork for the internet – the fiber that makes the internet possible. Certain companies were given the contracts in exchange for promises. Those promises have not been met. Moore’s law is in effect with the internet. Excess capacity and breakthroughs such as multiplexing are allowing for a doubling in throughput every 9 months. Hence, the cost to transmit a bit decreases by half every 9 months. Has your ISP cut your rates or doubled your speed? I saw only a tiny increase over the past three years. Moreover, the government, in its foolishness, allowed for virtual monopolies. Oh, Cox will tell you that there is competition. That’s like saying that cars have competition. You can walk. The pols, by allowing the ISPs to get away with what is actually a breach of contract, have created the illusion, Americans being good capitalists, that this is about economic philosophy. It’s not. We are being gouged. While this is not the same issue as net neutrality, it is related and helps to muddle the issue. I think that $45 plus/mo. is too much for the piddling bandwidth and intermittent service that I get, but if Americans are willing to get cheated, there is not much I can do about it. Anyway, these are important topics and I’m glad to see that people are paying attention.
Yesterday at 12:06pm

James Pilant Gary, will you give me permission to put your comments up as a blog post? jp
Yesterday at 3:46pm

Bryan Aguiar Millions of people around the world survive every day without cars and internet. If $45 per month is too much, don’t pay it. And when you and others stop paying it, the price will come down. Problem is too many people think it is worth it, accept the crappy service, and are willing to pay that price or more for it. But as you said Americans are willing to get cheated. By the way cox sucks which is why I am no longer their customer.
Yesterday at 4:31pm

Gary Bender It’s not that I can’t afford $45. Nor can’t I live without the internet. I did so for almost half a century. It’s the fact that if the government hadn’t created these pseudo-monopolies, competition would drive prices down. Cox doesn’t care if I or fifty people like me quit. They will still have their monopoly and a hundred thousand customers in NWA who are too busy working to make that money to think about why they need so much money. Compared to the price of their four kids, boat, and SUVs, internet service is nothing so long as the credit card still works.

I know someone with three kids, a new house, and a new SUV worth as much as I make each year. Yet she is getting government aid. Perhaps if she were to give up some of her unnecessary goods and get off the government dole, I would consider boycotting Cox.

I checked with AT&T. No go. Not that I will ever go back to those thieves, but I checked into it anyway. I don’t know what alternative I have. I won’t go back to dial-up. I really have no choice so long as I’m an educator. I need access to email. I could move to the Midwest and go back to farming, I suppose.

James, you have my permission.

Bryan Aguiar Agreed. Competition would drive the prices down and the government created the monopolies. Fifty people, no cox could care less. 500,000 maybe.
Yesterday at 6:19pm

James Pilant I want to post the whole exchange on my blog! Any objections? jp
11 hours ago

Bryan Aguiar Fine with me
11 hours ago

Gary Bender No objections.
about an hour ago

James Pilant Thanks! I put it up. jp
2 seconds ago

CEO of JP Morgan “tired” of Villification

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure, Teaching

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan says –

“We do not have change-of-control agreements, special executive retirement plans, golden parachutes, special severance packages or merger bonuses,” he told a JP Morgan healthcare conference, adding that many of company’s employees are in client-facing jobs and work hard with small and mid-size businesses. “I am a little tired of the constant vilification of these people,” he said.

I am going to do my best to make this gentleman even more tired.

When I was a young man a very long time ago, there was all this talk of people refusing responsiblity. Usually there would be a seedy hippie sitting on the witness stand in a court room full of dignified justified middle class citizens. He would have done some readily apparent crime and would claim that it was society’s fault that he had committed this act to the derision of all concerned. I never really saw much of this actually taking place, old as I am.

But here I am in 2010 looking at the “villification” of these financial workers. These huge financial institutions through a form of complex transactions that essentially mimic gambling at a casino did damage to this country that will take decades to repair. My favorite part of his defense is that his obvious claim that most of his workers are innocent and shouldn’t be villified. We of the general public have a difficult time perceiving on a case by case basis who destroyed much of the American economy and therefore wind up distrustful of the entire industry. He is surprised by this.

The villification has just begun. You see I do not believe this economic crisis is over and I definitely do not believe the damage done by these institutions is going to stop or abate.

James Pilant

Did Not Take Pilant’s Ethics Class Award 7/17/10

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Teaching

Parents Shocked By Swimming Instruction Techniques reads the article title. The technique involved tying a child’s shoes and throwing him into the pool. This was to teach him how to float even in “dangerous conditions.”

Ethically, just where do you start? If the purpose of swimming instruction techniques is to teach the child to swim, an overwhelming fear of the water caused by your own actions might be a detriment. Secondly, it does not appear from the article that parents were aware of this aspect of training.

As a parent I think I would like to be aware if the class had taken a turn toward training my child what to do if a comic book villain ties his shoes together and throws him into water.

I ran an internet search to see if this practice was common but had no luck. It’s possible it happens elsewhere. But search terms like “tie shoes together” and “swimming instruction” just don’t seem to get any hits.

James Pilant

Educating My Students – To What End?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure, Teaching2 Comments

I have students. I am college professor. Generally speaking in these very tough economic times, they come to school not for an education but to get that piece of paper they have been grandly told over and over again will get them a job. Oh, yeah, I guess that is confusing, going to school but not for an education. Let me explain.

We have a thing in America called No Child Left Behind, which makes the mammoth and bizarre claim that we can measure progress based on tests. That’s right, bizarre. I might agree with you if had some numbers correlating success with grades (and you don’t). Oh, there are some university studies, which since they develop their very own concept of what we might call success, don’t amount to anything useful. (If you get to decide what determines success for your own programs, you have a tendency to win.)

No Child Left Behind means that for a school to be determined to be successful (worthy of money from the State and the Feds), it has to have good test scores generated by its students. So, in pursuit of this, students are drilled relentlessly in the subjects to be tested. The school that drills its students longer and harder than the others is supposed to be improving. Since the primary indicator of grades is social and economic class, the scores fall into utterly predictable categories. Obviously there are variations. An inspired group of teachers can pump up test scores with skill and effort. But inspired teachers are just like inspired politicians, inspired architects, inspired pediatricians, etc. There are only so many per profession.

Now, you will find that there are people who say we can train teacher to be inspired in large numbers. That enthusiasm and a willingness to go beyond requirements should be the standard. This is nonsense. There are only so many inspired, truly dedicated individuals on earth and that’s it.

The effect over time of teaching to large scale tests is devastating. Students are conditioned not to think but to remember. The advent of the internet solves many problems of remembering and great deal of remembering is useless trivia. America needs thinkers and it’s as if we wish to exterminate them that we do this crazy testing. We have perverted the idea of education from developing human beings to the production of standard products as if on an assembly line. My students aren’t products, they are people. Human achievement is not measured by tests. No test will ever be a substitute for the real life measurements of success these people will produce.

It fills me with rage to look at what has been done to my students. I want thinkers, doers and patriots. What I get are rote learners, good passive students and bumper sticker patriots whose knowledge of the greatness of this nation is limited to the most trivial.

You see, there is a funny thing about these people, these students; they’re magnificent. When I look over my classes I don’t see A and B and C students. I see these people waiting to be told of the enormous power, potential and talent they each carry within them.

My students are the heart and soul of America. They are leaders of the next generation. They work hard. I don’t see the government of the United States lavishing care on these most vital people for the future of this country. There is more an attitude of how much we can make them financially obligated for the rest of their lives and make sure that they don’t escape paying a dime of it.

We need to figure out our priorities. If you truly desire a second rate society of “information” workers, if you truly believe that this country is merely a corporate resource to be disdained if the money is too dear and that only the “right” people should have a say in what happens, this educational system is perfect for you.

This is the United States of American. We can do better.

James Alan Pilant