Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1349-1351

Jorge Villalba was a construction worker when the housing market began slowing in 2005, so the Glendale resident changed jobs and decided to invest in his future by going to college.

So far, the investment hasn't paid off.

Villalba, 34, owes $158,000 in student loans for his four-year degree in multimedia, 3-D animation and graphic design at ITT Technical Institute. He isn't earning enough to keep up with the payments, so the amount keeps rising with interest.

He figured he'd get a great job and pay off the loans.

"It hasn't happened that way," said Villalba, who is married with two young children but can't afford to move from their cramped one-bedroom apartment.

Soaring student loan debt poses risk to nation's future economic growth
LA Times

   Sept 5, 2015
   [emphasis JS]

 Harvard Business School is in a privileged position to explore this issue. On Wednesday, it will release a report based on a survey of its alumni — a notably well-heeled set — about their concern over America’s lack of shared prosperity. While it offers a case for optimism, it also suggests that executives’ enlightened self-interest is probably not enough to bring about social change.

Surprisingly, perhaps, executives care about such things. Two-thirds said it was more important to address poverty, inequality, middle-class stagnation or economic mobility than to stimulate economic growth.

Corporate Efforts to Address Social Problems Have Limits 
Eduardo Porter
New York Times
SEPT. 8, 2015 
[emphasis JS]

 The sociologist Max Weber classically argued that the Protestant Reformation had a peculiar effect on American work. At the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther preached that hard work in any occupation was a meaningful duty — a calling from God. John Calvin took this idea a step further, arguing that people should avoid socializing while working, as attention to relationships and emotions would distract them from productively fulfilling God’s will. Over the generations, these Calvinist teachings influenced Protestants, who came to view social considerations as inappropriate and inefficient in the workplace. Protestant men were especially susceptible, as they were expected and socialized to focus on productivity. For much of the 20th century, American workplaces were largely designed by Protestant men.

Yet in recent years, America has become noticeably less Protestant, dropping from roughly 70 percent in the 1950s to 57 percent in 1985, 49 percent in 2005, and 37 percent last year, according to Gallup. The proportion of Protestant chief executives has declined, too. 
Friends at Work? Not So Much 
New York Times 
SEPT. 4, 2015
 [emphasis JS]