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From: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Newsgroups: can.politics,net.women
Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin
Message-ID: <1131@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Jun-85 20:42:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1131
Posted: Sun Jun 30 20:42:36 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 04:42:49 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <2102@watcgl.UUCP> <1127@ubc-cs.UUCP> <2128@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 78
Summary: 

In article <2128@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
>If the programs even exist; last I heard your provincial government was
>cutting down on the ESL (english as a second language) programs/resources
>in the province.

Unless they changed the rules all immigrants have to know one of the two 
official languages. Thus, I would assume that the ESL program was directed
at the children of immigrants. If indeed ESL is the quicker way of 
integrating these children into the mainstream, then it would appear
that cutting back on the program was not one of the brighter moves of
the Socreds.

>> P.S. As necessitated by my view of Utopia I support easy access to
>> job training and *retraining* programs and to post-secondary school
>> opportunities in general. I believe that tuition fees for such
>> schemes should be very modest (almost, but not quite zero) and that
>I think that is an excellent idea. But why not zero?  It seems to
>me that society benefits when the average educational/skill level of
>the population rises so why not make it free.  In the same way, if
>someone has become "obsoleted" and will have to go on welfare why
>not just send them to school/retraining for free instead of paying
>(probably) years of welfare - it's probably cheaper in the long
>run and society gets a newly productive member out of it.

I'm philosophically opposed to providing most things absolutely free.
My reasoning is that they are ultimately *not* free and charging a token
fee is as good as way as any to remind the beneficiary of this. Also,
you are less likely to get abuses if the beneficiary has a (small)
investment in his education/medical care/whatever. Thus, a modest $50
to $100 per term fee for university education would be what I'd seek.

As for the suggestion concerning welfare recipients, I'd go a step
further and make school/retraining mandatory for recipients who
are neither physically nor mentally handicapped. The alternative 
would be to participate in some kind of community work. Naturally,
recipients with dependents would either have to be excused or it
would be necessary to provide day-care for said dependents. Somehow,
I've never been able to come to grips with a system which *pays* those
so inclined to stay home and kick back.

>As long as everyone truly does have real equality of opportunity then
>that would be all I ask for, but I don't think you would claim that
>that is what we have now; until then looking at the result is a 
>reasonable measure of how equal the opportunit really is.

Not entirely true. The  examples of discrimination and suppression
against women that Mr. Chapman makes are not nearly as true now as they
were, say, thirty years ago. Moreover, this type of discrimination
(or cultural bias) is rapidly diminishing. Thus, in my opinion, there
exists a time lag which makes it difficult to look at the economic 
situation of *all* women *now* and from that observation determine 
the level of opportunity that exists for those women who did not grow up 
under those conditions. It would make much more sense to me to look
at the economic situation of women who have been in the workforce for
maybe the last five years, and compare that to the economic situation 
of men who have been working for the same five year period. I do not 
expect that the women in this sample would be making 100c to every dollar
earned by men but I'm sure it would be significantly more than 62c.

[It might also be useful to determine what kind of a trend exists.
Thus we'd first do as suggested above and compare dollar earnings of
men and women who have been in the workforce for the last five years.
Next we'd look at those people who had been in the workforce for the 
last 10 years, and etc. If we end up with a rapidly increasing curve
I'd say there is no urgent problem. On the other hand if this is not
the case then measures of some kind may be needed]

Thus I question Mr. Chapman's apparent solution to the problem
which, if I got it right, was to raise women's salaries by 50%. This
does zippo as far as increasing accessability into the non-traditional 
work areas goes. It also meddles in the already over regulated 
marketplace. Instead let's first get a *real* idea of where we stand 
concerning opportunities for women and then work on the means of 
increasing these opportunities if deemed necessary. Solutions
such as "equal pay for work of equal value" are cosmetic, and thus
do not address the real problem.

J.B. Robinson