Beliefs and Values
How they are Shaped
Hserv 482 # 17
2008
Agenda
Values in USA
education?
business of the commercial media?
function of the media in a democratic society?
Shaping individualistic values in the USA
Alex Carey's summary of the 20th century
BELIEFS, VALUES
US beliefs, values
We're NUMBER ONE, above reproach, moral
authority
History: pilgrims escaping oppression
– Did not want government to rule their lives
– Pride in individualism, and ability to pull selves up
by bootstraps
– Took care of our own
Founding fathers:SMALL WEAK GOVERNMENT
– Federalism (national, state and local gov'ts)
– Legislative, Judicial and Executive
– Vote limited to those with property
US beliefs, values
Non-proportional representation (unlike any
parliamentary democracy)
– Bicameral Congress (Senate has power)
Weak political parties
– Individual candidates raise own funding, make own
decisions, run own campaigns
– Candidates communicate through media, not
through party organs
20th century deliberate weakening of gov't
– 1920s progressive movement,attacking politically
powerful and corporations
– Constitution amendments for women's suffrage and
direct election of senators
US beliefs, values
20th century direct primary elections took power from
hands of party leaders
– Presidential nominating conventions became meaningless
as candidates chosen in primaries
– Campaigns became more candidate and less party-centered
– Polyarchy:
Party doesn't vote together as in other countries
Public Policy: federal, state, local (cf Europe)
–
–
–
–
–
medical care
transportation utilities
welfare
early life
housing
US beliefs, values
Little gov't regulation, instead have day in court
Litigious 1990: 20 times # lawyers/cap as Japan,
10 times as Sweden, 3 times as Germany
– Tort costs 2.3% of GDP in 1991 cf 1.2% for
Germany, 0.9% France, Canada, Australia, 0.7%
for Japan, 0.6% for UK
– "There is hardly a political question in the US which
does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one"
Tocqueville
US beliefs, values
Public Sector (federal, state, local) %GDP 1995
(including the military)
US 33%
UK 43%
Germany 50%
Denmark 61%
Sweden 66%
50% for all EU countries, and without US military gap would
be even bigger
Tax Receipts 1995 % GDP
US 31, EU 45, UK 38, Sweden 58
US beliefs, values
Individualism, goals, advancement
NOT community goals or public advancement
Liberty (but 1/4 world's prisoners)
Equality of opportunity (not there, but belief is)
Poorer people are not able to compete
US beliefs WHY?
Migrants seeking escape, economic
advancement
Never had a democratic socialist movement
US states with own power to tax & spend resist
national initiatives
Labor unions only interested in their own and not
for ambitious welfare state as in Europe
Frontier "land of opportunity," could always go
west
WWII disrupted US much less than Europe
Reich: Supercapitalism
Reich: Supercapitalism
Harvey 2005
Change in Real Family Income by Quintile and Top 5% , 1947-1979
+116%
+111%
+114%
+100%
+99%
+86%
Bottom 20%
Second 20%
Middle 20%
Fourth 20%
Top 20%
Top 5%
Source: Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data in Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America 1994-95 (M.E. Sharpe: 1994) p. 37.
Harvey 2005
US INCOME SHARES
Bottom 90%
of US
Rich (top 1%) Superrich (top
0.01%)
(vast majority)
People in
2005
270 million
3 million
30,000
1980 income
share
65.3%
10.0%
1.3%
2005 income
share
51.5%
21.8%
5.1%
Picketty & Saez +
Johnston Free lunch
Change in After-Tax Income by Income Group, 1979-2004
+176%
+106%
+87%
+69%
+17%
+21%
+29%
+6%
Bottom 20% Second 20% Middle 20%
Less than
$17,300 $29,400 $17,300
$29,400
$43,200
Fourth 20%
$43,200 $64,300
Top 20%
$64,300+
Top 10%
$87,300+
Top 5%
$116,400+
Top 1%
$266,800+
Source: Congressional Budget Office, Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979 to 2004, Table 1C, December 2006.
Saez & Veall 2005
TRILLION DOLLAR
TRANSFER
Table 1 Categories of Income Shift 1
(shifting incomes from workers and their families)
Category of Income Shift
2005 Amount
De-Unionization (Union Wage differentials and secondary effects$156 billion
Temporary/Part-Time/Contract work Wage Reduction
$250 billion
Manufacturing/Job Offshoring Negative Net wage effects
$95 billion
Free Trade (Net Export-Import Job Creation Wage Differential) $19 billion
Legislated Wage Compression (overtime pay el
imination/other)
$41 billion
Health care benefits cost shif
t (premiums/copays/other)
$43 billion
Defined Benefit Pension Plans (Cash outs/Liability Owed)
$85 billion
Social security payroll tax surplus diverted to general budget $151 billion
TOTAL SHIFTED FROM WORKERS/FAMILIES
$850 billion
Table 2 Categories of Income ShiftII
(shifting incomes Wealthiest Households & corporations )
Category of Income Shift
Tax Sheltering, avoidance, evasion by wealthiest households
Bush tax cuts on capital incomes (dividens/capital gains/etc)
Bush tax cuts of estate taxes
Corporate tax windfall from foreign profits repatriation
Corporate profits retention (in excess of historical average)
TOTAL SHIFTED TO THE WEALTHIEST
2005 Amount
$200 billion
$118 billion
$29 billion
$193 billion
$180 billion
$720 billion
Rasmus Z Magazine Feb/Apr 2007
Beliefs, values in the USA?
HOW ARE THEY SHAPED
Beliefs, values in the USA?
How are they shaped?
HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT
FROM BELIEFS AND VALUES IN
OTHER COUNTRIES?
Beliefs, values in the USA?
How are they shaped?
How are they different from beliefs
and values in other countries?
HOW MIGHT WE STUDY THIS?
NYT June 13, 2004
Values/Policies Across Countries
Values, policies, well-being of young
children in Canada, Norway, US.
Shelley Phipps
– data from World Values Survey 1990
Qualities Children Should Learn at Home
US male
US female
Canada male
Canada female
Norway male
Norway female
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Hard Work
Responsibility
Religious faith
Poverty Attitudes
US male
US female
Canada male
Canada female
Norway male
Norway female
% World Values Survey 1994
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
be caus e the y a re unlucky
be caus e of lazines s and la ck
of will power
Bec ause there is injus tice in
our society
Beliefs in equality WB2005 World Development Report 2006 Fig 4.2
Ingelhart World Values Survey representative samples of 69 countries
Belief that Luck Determines Income and Welfare Spending
Source ALESINA Fighting Poverty in US & Europe 2004
Redistribution and the Belief that Poverty is Society's Fault
Source ALESINA Fighting Poverty in US & Europe 2004
Whoever tells the
stories of a nation
need not care who
makes its laws.
Andrew Fletcher
Scotch Patriot
1653-1716
NATION BULDING
Reasons for nation state concept??
French invention of chair in 1490
Stories?
Individualistic Values
Health synonymous with health care
– Individuals, diseases
– Individual response
– Self-help culture
NYT Front Page 060205
Individualistic Values
Health synonymous with health care
– Individuals, diseases
– Individual response
– Self-help culture
Sports and glorification of gladiators
– Verification of logic of opportunity syllogism
Media?
Does media focus on
Populations?
Individuals?
WHY?
New York Times
CULTURE OF FEAR
"It is always simply a matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or
a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people
can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in any country."
Herman Goering
Hitler's propaganda chief said to Gustav Gilbert during an Easter
recess in the Nuremberg Trials on April 18, 1946
CULTURE OF FEAR
"The short answer to why Americans
harbor so many misbegotten fears is
that imminent power and money await
those who tap into our moral
insecurities and supply us with
symbolic substitutes.
(Barry Glassner) The Culture of Fear pg xxviii
Oderint dum metuant:
let them hate so long as they fear (Roman maxim)
"The events of September 11, 2001, fundamentally
changed the context for relations between the
United States and other main centers of global
power, and opened vast, new
opportunities."http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html
Media as Business
Product
Print
Times, PI
The Stranger
Television
XBC, CNN
Cable
Radio
commercial
PBS
Internet
Buyer
Seller
Media as Business
Print
Product
Buyer
Seller
Readers
Advertisers
Publisher
Viewers
Advertisers
Producers
Listeners
Advertisers
Producers
Users/Hits
Advertisers
Internet Sites
Times, PI
The Stranger
Television
XBC, CNN
Cable
Radio
commercial
PBS
Internet
Goooogle
"Our job is to give people not
what they want, but what we
decide they ought to have."
Richard Salant,
former President of CBS News
'I know the secret of making the average
American believe anything I want him to.
Just let me control television.... You put
something on the television and it becomes
reality. If the world outside the TV set
contradicts the images, people start trying
to change the world to make it like the TV
set images.....'
Hal Becker, media 'expert' and
management consultant, the
Futures Group, in an interview in
1981
Media in World War I
Woodrow Wilson elected President in 1916 on platform
“Peace without victory” since population extremely
pacifistic and didn’t want to be involved in a European
War, but Wilson administration was actually committed
to war and had to do something about it
They established the Creel Commission, a government
propaganda commission, which in 6 months turned
the pacifist population into a hysterical warmongering
population, which wanted to destroy everything
German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war
and save the world.
– Edward Bernays Creel Commission member and founder of
public relations industry
Edward Bernays
Propaganda 1928
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the
organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who
manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true
ruling power of our country. . . .
Clearly it is the intelligent minorities which need to make
use of propaganda continuously and systematically. In
the active proselytizing minorities in whom selfish
interests and public interests coincide lie the progress
and development of American democracy.
EDUCATION
Schools as an indoctrination system
– Curriculums tolerated as long as perform institutional role
– Today: Commercialism in schools
• eg. vending machine contracts in Seattle schools, Channel 1
• Derek Bok: former president of Harvard writes in 2003
– Once confined to athletics (paying coaches $500,000, recruiting
students only for athletic ability), now booming in medical schools and
research labs
– "commercialization threatens to change the character of the university in
ways that limit its freedom, sap its effectiveness and lower its standing in
society"
– "Company officials regularly insist that information concerning the work
they support be kept secret while the research is going on and for a long
enough time thereafter to allow them to decide whether to file for a
patent"
– (Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher
Education)
Courses, passing exams, imposing discipline rather than fostering independent
thinking
Encouragement to get credit ratings in middle school,
Medical Harm, population health in medical school, public health school
EDUCATION
William E. Simon, Secretary of the Treasury under
Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford [and
President of the conservative Olin Foundation].
"Why should businessmen be financing left-wing
intellectuals and institutions which espouse the exact
opposite of what they believe in?" he asks, referring to
the fact that many corporations give grants to
universities or institutions whose scholars may be
critical of business.
Ann Crittenden, "Simon: Preaching the Word for Olin," New York Times, July16, 1978
Example of function of Education
I pledge Allegiance to the flag
of the United States of
America and to the Republic
for which it stands, one
nation under God, indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for
all.
Example of function of Education
David Spritzler, a twelve-year-old student at
Boston Latin School faced a disciplinary action
in 1991 for refusal to recite Pledge of Allegiance
which he considered "a hypocritical exhortation
to patriotism" in that there is not "liberty and
justice for all."
Teachers, as paid functionaries of the state,
are expected to engage in a form of moral,
social, political, and economic production
designed to shape students in the image of the
dominant society
"The business community needs
peace to see economic growth.
They need kids to be educated to
be consumers and workers."
Carol Bellamy director of UNICEF
quoted in NYT September 3, 2000
NYT 050515
"The business community…
need kids to be educated
to be consumers and
workers. The rule of law,
good governance
is important for creating an
environment that will
probably also be good for
investment"
Carol Bellamy
director of UNICEF
NYT 000903
QUIZ
ON WHICH DO WE SPEND MORE
Advertising or K-12 Education?
Foreign Aid or Advertising?
Advertising or Iraq Invasion?
Toys or Advertising?
NYT 050515
Toy Advertising for Children
$100 million in 1980
 $2000 million in 2004
Advertising costs amount to 15-20% of revenue to manufacturer of toy
 Promotional budget exceeds all other costs of developing toy and getting it to
market
Toy industry: fast turnover, quick returns, big hits and constantly reinventing
few items with staying power
1955: Mattel and Mickey Mouse Club, Disneyland
-By 1980s only practical barrier was how far kids push parents
-Film and toy tie-in industry: started with Star Wars 1977
"If I wasn't a filmmaker, I'd be a toy maker" George Lucas
Three Rs now FOUR R's
Advertising for Children
Advergaming
viral marketing
buzz marketing
orchestrated word of mouth
consumer generated marketing (best sales person is
friend rather than an ad)
"slumber parties" for 8-13 year old girls" (GIA: Girls
Intelligence Agency--"you and your 10 best buds
hangin out all night with the hottest, yet-to-be-seen-instores, stuff for chicas like you"
Advertising for Children
Which emotions to attack?
-hire child psychologists
-ads play on insecurities and need to fit in with peers
"It's the fear of social failure. You have to have the
latest. You don't want to feel like an outcast"
Sean Brierley Advertising Handbook
"Advertising at its best is making people feel that without
the product you're a loser. Kids are very sensitive to
that."
Nancy Shalek president Shalek Agency
The Nag Factor
"The child exerts a certain amount of
pressure, the effectiveness of which
depends on his (or her) ability to
argue sensibly with an adult. The toy
advertiser can help the child by
providing him (or her) with arguments
which will satisfy mother."
report to Mattel on how to sell Barbie to mothers (who hated the doll)
Dr. Ernest Dichter
pioneer of "motivational research" manipulation of deep psychological cravings as persuasion
techniques.
Never too young
"I guess when I started they thought the youngest
child you could advertise to and get a result
was five; now they think it is somewhere
between two and three"
Bob Moehl, advertiser
Targets- now birth to 3 years--hot demographic
- "if you own this child at an early age, you can
own this child for years to come. Companies
are saying, 'Hey, I want to own the kid younger
and younger.'"
Mike Searles president of Kids R US
Trends in child marketing
Began with toys, candy, cereals
Today clothes, fast food, computers, cosmetics,
cars and credit cards
By age 18 have strong brand awareness
Strong awareness of one particular brand is
worth $100,000 extra sales over a person's
lifetime
EU child marketing
All EU states base regulations
on TV commercials on
Television without Frontiers
Directive
Sweden: no advertising
directed at children under
age 12
Greece: commercials for toys
banned until 10 pm
Belgium: no commercials on
children's programs and not
during 5 min. before or after