short follow-up on my comment on segmented labor markets and
IQs:
one of the barriers between the primary and secondary labor
markets is that of racism: it white society discriminates against
one because you're melanin-enhanced, you're more likely to get
stuck in the secondary labor market, which offers a lower return
to "IQ," education, experience, etc.
Second, and more fundamentally, Ray Miller says that
"... Some people are simply
less well suited than others to the particular
social/cultural/political/economic/institutional milieu in which we live."
Part of the problem is that capitalist _needs_ poverty. Without
the possibility of being poor, the "cost of job loss" fades to nil
and we won't work as hard to produce our employers' profits.
Part of the problem is that individual characteristics are socially
determined. Put a poor individual in the schools I went to and I
bet that he or she could do damn well if it's possible to hide
race, sex, non-standard ways of talking, etc. But our society
typically denies access to my kind of education to the people
with the "wrong" color skin, the full complement of X chromosomes,
the "wrong" language, etc.
One thing I learned in school was how to do well on the type of
multiple-choice questions that show up on IQ tests.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
