Name that Capital

composed by Tracey Mollins with files from www.wikipedia.com

Pierre-Félix Bourdieu France (1930-2002)

Gary Stanley Becker USA (1930- )

Karl Marx Prussia (1818-1883)

Robert Putnam USA (1940- )

Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, a French sociologist and social-justice activist, extended the idea of capital to categories such as social and cultural capital and explored how these can be acquired, exchanged and converted. Cultural capital is the non-economic forces such as family background, social class, education, etc., that influence academic success. He showed that accent, grammar, spelling and style—all part of cultural capital—are major factors in social mobility (getting a higher paid, higher status job).

In 1992, Gary Stanley Becker won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for "having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including non-market behavior." He says that human capital is similar to means of production such as factories and machines—one can invest in human capital (via education, training, medical treatment) and one’s income depends partly on the rate of return on the human capital one owns. Human capital is different from other means of production because, unlike the other factors of production, knowledge is:

• Expandable and self generating with use: as a worker gets more experience and her knowledge base increases, so does her human capital. The economics of scarcity is replaced by the economics of self-generation.
• Transportable and shareable: knowledge is easily moved and shared and the original holder can still use the knowledge even after it is transferred.

Human capital is the assets we own. It allows us to receive income or "interest earned."

In some ways, human capital is similar to what Karl Marx called labour-power: under capitalism, workers sell labour-power. Marx pointed to "two disagreeably frustrating facts" with theories that equate wages with interest on human capital.

1. The worker must actually work, exert his or her mind and body, to earn this "interest." Marx distinguished between one’s labour-power (capacity to work) and one’s practice (activity of working).
2. A free worker cannot sell human capital to receive money; it is not a liquid asset. Even a slave, whose human capital can be sold, does not earn an income him-or herself. Under capitalism, to earn income, a worker must submit to the authority of an employer. As the employer wants profit, workers must produce surplusvalue—work beyond what is necessary to maintain their labour-power.

Social capital "refers to the collective value of all 'social networks' and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other," according to Robert Putnam. He says that social capital is the key to building and maintaining democracy and has benefits for societies, governments, individuals and communities.

Social capital may not always be beneficial. Horizontal networks of individual citizens and groups that enhance community productivity and cohesion are said to be positive social capital assets. Self-serving exclusive gangs and hierarchical patronage systems that operate at cross purposes to community interests can be thought of as negative social capital burdens on society. 

Adventures of the Social Capital Zamboni by Tracey Mollins

Some timely, hockey-related
observations:
On December 13, the sports panel on Studio 2 (TVO) discussed the NHL contract negotiations. Stephen Brunt of the Globe and Mail pointed out that hockey players are different from workers in other industries; as they provide the employer with both labour-power and the product, they are not as easily replaceable as say, auto workers and this gives them more power as they negotiate the worth of their human capital.

Mary Ormsby of the Toronto Star replied that this power is mitigated by the fact that hockey players have a limited choice of employers and if they seek wealth and celebrity, the NHL is their only choice.

Which led to these questions:
Are auto workers really more easily replaced than hockey players?

Which workers provide employers with both labour-power and a product?

Do not teachers and adult educators belong to this category?

Does not each educator introduce each student to a unique experience that cannot be easily replicated?

And if we provide both labour-power and the product, and have a choice of employers, why do we earn so much less than auto workers, let alone hockey players?

And ...What does it matter how much human capital you have if they send your job overseas?
Here is an excerpt of a letter from Tracey Mollins to the NDP, PSAC , her local Liberal MP and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in response to a CBC news report. The report was about the knowledge economy and how in the future there will be no unskilled jobs in countries such as Canada because they will all be outsourced to countries such as India. Only the CCPA replied—they are going to follow up on this for the Alternative Budget.

...Statistics Canada is outsourcing an $85 million contract for work on the 2006 census. Are there really no "unskilled" workers left in Canada or is this a way to avoid paying union wages and providing benefits to organized workers? How can we expect private sector employers to act as "good corporate citizens" and respect worker rights if the federal government doesnot?

...This strategy is being used by the same department that is scheduled to produce the IALSS (International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey) report later this spring. If past experience predicts future events, the report will be accompanied by headlines expressing shock at the low levels of literacy possessed by Canadian workers and blaming their lack of skills for their individual and our collective inability to compete in the global marketplace.

...Is the relationship between being "unskilled" and unemployed cause and effect as the headlines will have us believe, or a result of the fact that both the private and public sector value certain workers and their families so little that outsourcing their jobs to the lowest bidder has become common practice?