Stevie

feels bad man

Buy my battleaxes!

If you wanna be a merchant, Goldhands always need members. Hell, you don't even really have to be a merchant. Treasure hunters and crap too.

You'll wanna talk to a councilor and reconsider your life choices.

good times

Formed at the end of the 12th century in Acre, in the Levant, the medieval Order played an important role in Outremer, controlling the port tolls of Acre. After Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. The Knights were expelled by force of arms by King Andrew II of Hungary in 1225, after attempting to place themselves under papal instead of the original Hungarian sovereignty and thus to become independent.[4]

In 1230, following the Golden Bull of Rimini, Grand Master Hermann von Salza and Duke Konrad I of Masovia launched the Prussian Crusade, a joint invasion of Prussia intended to Christianize the Baltic Old Prussians. The Knights had quickly taken steps against their Polish hosts and with the Holy Roman Emperor's support, had changed the status of Chełmno Land (also Ziemia Chelminska or Kulmerland), where they were invited by the Polish prince, into their own property. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians' territory, and subsequently conquered Livonia. Over time, the kings of Poland denounced the Order of holding lands rightfully theirs, specifically Chełmno Land and Polish lands that would be conquered later, such as Pomerelia (also Pomorze Gdańskie or Pomerania), Kujawy, and Dobrzyń Land.

The Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic (after assimilating the Livonian Order). The Teutonic Knights had a strong economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies, and became a naval power in the Baltic Sea. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg). However, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse.

In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made a marriage alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland. In 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany.[5] The Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings.

However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body. It was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938,[6] but re-established in 1945.[7] Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe.

The Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms; this image was later used for military decoration and insignia by the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany as the Iron Cross and Pour le Mérite. The motto of the Order was: "Helfen, Wehren, Heilen" ("Help, Defend, Heal").[8]

SUNY Cortland

Eco 383 Midterm

An analysis of current conditions based on Harry Braverman

When looking at capitalism through rose tinted glasses, it is easy to assume many of the stated points that were argued for modern capitalism in the 50s and 60s were true. It would be easy to assume that advances in technology would eliminate most of the unpleasant jobs in manufacturing, and outside of manufacturing- the growth of jobs in the clerical, service, and retail sectors may have appeared to give greater opportunity and look like the future step away from the deskilling and routinization of labor. However, quite the contrary, Braverman has made many backed points from statistical data as well as real life evidence that neither of those points were the case. Though it cannot be one hundred percent proved either way, Braverman uses concrete evidence such as the Babbage principle, the separation of conception from execution, James Bright’s studies, and many other points to attempt to show that increasing technology actually worsens the position of the worker, and white collar work can be just as easily manipulated to serve the fundamental nature of capitalism (ie get workers to work as hard as possible for as little as possible, thus maximizing profit) as factory jobs were. Furthermore, Michael Zweig and his book The Working Class Majority provide further insight as to what has really been happening to jobs since the 1970s.

With rapid advancement in technology, it is not surprising that many had thought that these new machines would get rid of the tedious work that was done by the factory workers and simply leave the ‘creative, skillful, and educated’ jobs alone and even make them grow and prosper. However this is when looking at machinery through what is called the “Engineering Approach”, which views advances in technology as merely making things more efficient and innovative. If you switch that to the “Social Approach”, which views technology with its relation to human labor, a much different picture is painted. In 1832, Charles Babbage introduced something that Braverman refers to as the ‘Babbage principle’, in simple terms Braverman states that it means: capitalism constantly works toward the division of (skilled) labor into its constituent parts so that wages can be lowered and the capitalist himself/herself can purchase exactly what they need when they need it, in terms of labor. That is precisely where the advances of technology in capitalism come in. There have been three key developments in machinery that have systematically brought labor to one of its most unskilled and automated times in all of history- which include: first, tool and work are given a fixed motion path by the machine itself, or in Marxian terms, taking the tools out of the hand of the worker and putting it in the machine. The next two key developments are moving from ‘internal control’ to ‘external control’ and then finally the development of automatic systems. With the possibility of external control and the various antagonisms between Labor and Capital- these antagonisms being management wanting to work the worker as hard as possible and give them as little control over their own labor as possible- these advanced machines do not eliminate the tedious jobs of the factory worker, but infact can be used with a very Tayloristic and Babbage principle effect to help capital control not only the pace at which the workers must work, but the skill level of the workers as well. In the words of Harry Braverman toward the Tayloristic effect of machines, “Machinery offers management the opportunity to do by wholly mechanical means that which it had previously attempted to do by organizational and disciplinary means.” (Braverman, Pg. 134) By controlling the pace of labor with something as simple as a conveyor belt, management can set the pace of work and no longer need an excuse to fire those that cannot produce that output that they wish, if you cannot keep up with the machine, you’re gone. This puts further stress on the worker mentally, and constantly operating a simplistic machine where all you must do is either push a button or press a lever can be just as mind numbing to the worker as their previous factory positions.  Similarly, these machines help eliminate the need for skilled workers almost entirely, completely contrary to what was said in the late 1950s and 60s. As said by Braverman on Page 137 when speaking about the job of a machinist being replaced by a machine, “... There is no question that from a practical standpoint there is nothing to prevent the machining process under numerical control from remaining the province of the total craftsman. That this almost never happens is due, of course, to the opportunities the process offers for the destruction of craft and the cheapening of the resulting pieces of labor. ” This quote very much symbolizing Braverman’s interpretation of the Babbage principle in full effect with the machines of capitalism, breaking down the skilled work of the machinist into its constituent parts so that it may be done by various unskilled laborers working with a machine whose sole function is to replace the skilled worker, thus completely taking the creativity and skill out of the process and being driven solely by settings on a machine. Furthermore, to assume that higher levels of technology means higher levels of skill is simply naive, as shown on page 154 in Labor and Monopoly Capital, James R. Bright was able to chart the effects of automation and skill requirement, showing that although there may be an initial increase due to difficulty adjusting, once the processes become standardized and ‘habituated’, there is actually a swift decrease in skill needed to operate under higher levels of mechanization. Furthermore, Machines in capitalism are “made to be operated; operating costs involve, apart from the cost of the machine itself, the hourly cost of labor, and this is a part of the calculation involved in the machine design.” (Braverman Pg. 137) Since machines are then designed to be as little cost to the capitalist as possible, the amount of labor that goes into them is continually restricted almost to a point of complete automation, leaving human contact, and thus labor cost, to an absolute minimum. In summation, the advancement of machinery in capitalism does not simply remove the tedious jobs of the factory worker and allow for skill, creativity, and ability to prosper, it merely destroys the skill of any manufacturing craft entirely and breaks it down into its simplest forms of labor to be done by either a worker tediously operating a machine, or complete automation.

Although the above stated discrepancies with the assumptions of capitalism may be true, it is no secret that factory jobs have been on the decline, and there has been a massive rise in clerical, service, and retail jobs as a whole. However, this does not mean that these workers will no longer be subject to the ‘grim prospects of continual deskilling and the routinization of labor’ and similar to that, simply because there has been a rise of ‘semi-skilled’ workers and education has been prolonged, does not mean that we are escaping the relentless antagonisms of capitalism against the working people. First, the process starts from breaking down the complex tasks to single tasks (as know as separation of conception from execution) then slowly leads to deskilling and mechanization. Real life examples of this taking place can be seen in former office professions such as Telephone operators and bank tellers, both being replaced by computerized softwares in answering machines and ATMs. Further falsifying that point, many claimed that the complexities of Clerical and office work would be too great to rationalize and get down to an almost ‘assembly line’ like level, however as demonstrated by Harry Braverman, this is very much not the case: “In the first place, clerical operations are conducted almost entirely on paper, and paper is far easier than industrial products to rearrange, move from station to station, combine and recombine according to the needs of the process… much of the raw material of clerical work is numerical in form… so the process may itself be structured according to the rules of mathematics.”( Braverman Pg. 217) With a great many of the processes being mathematical, it is easy for management to break down the tasks from complex problems to almost routine addition and subtraction, this was even further demonstrated by Charles Babbage and his rationalization of decimal tables, it only took the work of 6 skilled mathematicians to derive the formulas that were eventually used by 60-80 people using addition and subtraction. Braverman said it best, “The work is still performed in the brain, but the brain is used as equivalent of the hand of the detail worker in production.” (Braverman Pg. 220) Once management is able to get office work down to this level, as demonstrated by the above evidence, how is it possible to say that rationalization of office work is impossible? So long as the mental capacity at which the individual must think is brought into a repetitive manner it is not much different from the menial and repetitive jobs of the factory worker of ‘past times’. Another portion of the argument that must be addressed is the constant claim that rise of education proves that jobs are becoming more skilled, although “time spent in school has been increasing: the median years of school completed by the employed civilian working population rose from 10.6 in 1948 to 12.4 by the end of the 1960s.” This most certainly does not prove any sort of jump in skill. It all started during World War II, when the mass amounts of veterans coming back obtained their GI bills to train for higher skill level jobs/expand their education, however that lead to the generalization of secondary education and “employers tended to raise their screening requirements for job applicants, not because of educational needs but simply because of the mass availability of high school graduates.” (Braverman Pg. 303) The diploma itself is used “as a screening device, often seeking people with higher levels of education even when the job content is not necessarily becoming more complex ir requiring higher levels of skill.” (Braverman Pg. 303) With the mass amount of surplus labor that is available now to capital (even in today’s working dimension) the diploma can be used to further restrict this supply of labor so the pool at which to chose from is even smaller “even when job content is not necessarily becoming more complex or requiring higher levels of skill.” (Braverman Pg. 303) Jobs are not becoming more difficult nor do most of them require more skill, the prolongation of education is simply due to the fact that secondary education has become generalized- and capital just needs another way to siphon and categorize the labor force.

In reality, the working class (and in extension their jobs) has become extensively bigger and more controlled than ever before- regardless of what some might say. As said by Michael Zweig, “Class is not in the name. Class in the power relationships people experience.” (Zweig Pg. 39) To further expand on that, jobs have become more and more regimented as demonstrated by Braverman, the “working class” isn’t just those that have low wages- it is heavily based on the power relationships that exist in the workplace between the workers and management, thus power plays a massive role. With that expansion of power, jobs have not necessarily become more free because of the switch to white collar work, sixty three percent of workers are still controlled by management and regimented to fit the needs of capital, and not given access to creative and skillful jobs that aren’t subject to the overarching power of management.  And we live in a time now that capital’s power over labor is such that the lines of what the capitalist controls and what the worker controls is almost entirely blurred. Furthermore, “Class is first and foremost a product of power asserted in the production process.” (Zweig Pg. 10) and as we demonstrated earlier, further mechanization increases the power of the capitalist class to control the very production process itself, morphing the working class even further below the level at which the capitalist class is on in terms of class ‘power’ and structure. Statistically speaking, if creative and ‘skilled’ jobs are infact paid more, why is it that the statistics are completely opposite what they should be? According to the State of Working America, once we hit 1973 to 1995, there is a blaring and massive difference between the growth of the two polar sides of classes: Negative seven percent growth for the poorest twenty percent and thirty two percent growth for the richest twenty (SOWA, Pg. 3)- the numbers not only got smaller- but they went negative for the people who needed it the most. Similar to that, the share of poor in ‘deep poverty’ has increased at least 14.3% since 1975 (SOWA, Pg. 4), and the United States has “The richest tenth [making] six times the income of the poorest” (SOWA, Pg. 5). With statistics like this, it is hard to prove that menial, poorly paid jobs are disappearing, especially when the ‘working class’ as defined by Zweig, constitute over 63% of the population. Class is merely a social extension of what your ‘job’ is, and if the laboring class is making less money than they have in the past and growing in size, what is really happening to jobs? They are becoming further and further rationalized by the capitalist class to justify lower wages and to retain as much profit as possible.

gd

me in eu4 xD

new bedtime song for my children thx