The Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 1:00 am
Harry Targ
Harry Targ is a
professor of political science at Purdue University in West Lafayette.
Hurricane
Harvey touched down on the coast of Texas on Aug. 25.
On
Aug. 31, Indiana leaders – government, the corporate sector and higher
education – issued a statement announcing establishment of the Applied Research
Institute: “ARI will facilitate and manage collaborative research teams to
pursue major federal grants and contracts and perform corporate-sponsored
research that will generate technology transfer and commercialization in
military defense and other sectors of Indiana's economy.”
ARI
will have access to research facilities and personnel valued at
$1 billion: laboratories and personnel from corporations, the military and
the two major public universities, Indiana and Purdue.
The
board of directors of ARI include the governor, the presidents of Indiana and
Purdue, the president of Defense Aerospace at Rolls-Royce and the technical
director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. The project was launched in 2015,
according to the article, with the help of a Lilly Endowment Grant of
$16 million.The Lilly Endowment chairman said he was pleased ARI “...has
assembled a board of directors of this caliber and distinction.”
The
ARI announcement emphasized development of computer technology, products that
would have commercial value and advances in military security. The news
release listed initial projects including “trusted microelectronics technology
and security; multi-spectral data fusion and security (cyber); high density
power storage and management; and advanced material science.” ARI research will
accelerate “technology commercialization that supports economic prosperity.”
In a
related development, in a letter to the Purdue academic community, President
Mitch Daniels celebrated the university's developing research collaboration with
Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Rolls-Royce, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane
Division and Infosys. He also praised Purdue's acquisition of for-profit online
Kaplan University and the creation of the new so-called “Purdue New U.”
Indiana
workers
The
Indiana Institute of Working Families issued its Labor Day report on Sept. 1.
It found that there were parallel declines in union membership and Hoosier
workers' income in the 21st century. Indiana workers' real income peaked in
1999 and has been in decline ever since. The Institute cited Advisor
Perspectives, a market advisory firm, which called Indiana a “21st Century
Loser.”
Compared
to the other 49 states, Indiana has experienced the ninth-largest drop in mean
income. Lowered incomes and wages have been exacerbated by declining union
membership, passage of a right-to-work law in 2012, and the end to the common
construction wage in 2015. The report said “Indiana's median household income
grew so little compared to other states that our income ranking dropped from
34th to 36th in the nation. Indiana now has the lowest median wages of any of
our neighbors, including Kentucky. If there are benefits to undercutting
Indiana's labor standards, they aren't showing up in the average Hoosier's
paycheck, or even in employers' ability to find a skilled workforce.”
Who
benefits
These
disparate reports were distributed while Texas was experiencing one of the
worst hurricanes in U.S. history. Hurricane impacts were linked not only to
climate change but also to unregulated growth in Houston. In addition, the
announcement about ARI was made at a time that:
Gaps
between rich and poor grow and smaller numbers of corporations and banks
control more and more of the economy.
Major
universities, such as Indiana and Purdue, have become extensions of big
corporations and the military.
Racism
and white supremacy have been fueled by opportunistic politicians and ignored
by the rest. The tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia are just one recent
example.
Massive
wealth and power have become ever more concentrated in economic and political
elites.
And
all of these changes in American society are going on below the radar screen
while the media and mainstream politicians concentrate on the follies of
politics in Washington. To borrow from Naomi Klein's idea of the shock
doctrine, the Trump presidency is the shock, while new institutions like ARI,
mostly invisible, are creating a new American reality that does not address the
real needs for economic and social justice in Indiana and the nation at large.
In
sum, Hoosiers might conclude that the beneficiaries of projects such as ARI,
are big corporations, universities and the military – not Indiana workers.
