{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 8?"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"color":"#002060","link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=234"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":"Conclusions"},{"insert":"\n\nWe do not live in a disembodied world of objects and physical laws. Neither do we live in a world of nature-created economic laws. We live in a world of people. The fundamental institutional structures, the rules, laws, principles, mores, and folkways are, consciously or unconsciously, created by people. The conditions for and the nature of productivity are not things-in-themselves, but products of multitudes of human decisions embodied in human activity and behavior. The benefits yielded by any mode of production can be viewed narrowly or broadly. They can be treated technically as a function of production curves, of so much raw material and labor costs, of product output and input factors, of production standards expressible in time per unit or units per hour. They can, of course, be viewed from the perspective of management as skill in using labor and equipment or of maximizing profits for investors. In many settings, the narrow view will inevitably prevail as determined by pressing agendas and the imperatives that result from functioning essentially in the service of narrowed vested interests. Stockholders do not gather together to hear reports of service to the broader public good but to hear what the balance sheets say, what the present profits are and, given intelligent projections, can be expected to be in the near future.\n \nBut educators, whether concerned with “liberal,” “professional,” or “vocational” programs, should not function as representatives of any vested interest but rather as public servants working to advance the public good. Such a responsibility requires a broad, a comprehensive, and a critical view of society as a whole. Our understanding of the role of our specialization must be determined by our vision of its place in service of a critically sophisticated view of the problems of working to achieve a society that serves the public rather than private interests. Our global vision must shape our understanding of our specialty; our specialty as a thing-in-itself, as a system of narrow loyalties must not be used as a model for generalizing our vision of the world as a whole. The vocational or professional educator who adopts the philosophy, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the United States” uncritically confuses vested and public interests.\n \nA market economy is compatible with democracy only insofar as large accumulations of capital cannot be used to harness mass communications to manipulate the public into the service of vested interest and private greed. There is no way to prevent such practices except through the development of sophisticated critical thinking processes on the part of the electorate as a whole. Such processes must be honed in school on complex, controversial issues that force one to deal with opposing points of view and the subtle devices of propaganda and mass manipulation. The results of instruction in critical thinking is independence of thought and flexibility of mind, the very features essential to the metamorphosis of work from routine, mechanical functions (more and more to be automated) to complex problem-solving functions that presuppose the ability to question and redefine the basic problems themselves. Our view should not then be “What’s good for General Motors is good for the United States,” but “What’s good for the United States is good for General Motors,” whether it realizes it or not.\n"}]}