The article I found explores reasons behind income disparities in the U.S., and the technology that might be related to the widening gap between classes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/business/17scene.html
Interestingly, the author discounts large corporations as propagators of economic discrepancy, since "Microsoft has created cheap software and many jobs, and its co-founder, Bill Gates, is giving away most of his fortune." So in some ways, Microsoft's cheap software may be leveling the playing field.
The largest factor in information inequality is education, and along with that, the libraries, computers, labs, etc that are characteristics of good schools. In all, the article concludes with a pessimistic note (but probably very realistic): "Technology is advancing faster than our ability to educate. So even if inequality declines today, it may well intensify in the future. Even if American education improves at every level, the largely not-for-profit educational sector may simply be less dynamic than the progress of new technologies."
Video Reflection
14 years ago
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I didn't find this article very inspiring. Some of the information given could definitely be checked to see if the claims in the article are accurate. Two main points jump out at me:
The fact that Microsoft is helping to bridge the gap in technology inequalities could be checked in a few ways. First, although sure to disprove this claim, would be to check the number of homes in the U.S. with a working and fairly recent version of Windows. Second you could compare the price of Windows and PCs to the price of MACs and other operating systems to see whether the claim of Microsoft having affordable software is also accurate.
The second claim of the article that jumped out at me was that divides in education levels are increasing the inequalities between those with a higher education compared to those without. To investigate this I found a table showing the changes in wage based on education since 1973. I put this table on My WebSpace at https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/susa/web/SWA08_Wages_Table.3.15.pdf?uniq=-87ebni
This table shows an overall decrease in wages for high school graduates and a very significant increase for college graduates and even greater for post-graduate degree holders. This shows that education could very well be the greatest dividing factor in inequality.