4/27/96, Greg Ehrig wrote:
>I am not going to go into your belief that a job is a job, and a worker
>is a worker, and it matters little to performance where they are or
>how much you pay them ( which is not true, by the way)
Obviously. That's why I said "other things being equal". I
realize that some companies which moved to Mexico later moved back, because
overall real investment-productivty didn't benefit from slave wages and an
under-educated workforce. But your simplistic CLAIM that "If wages go down
in the first-world, they must go up in the third world" called for an
equally simplistic counter OBSERVATION. We can now proceed to
consideration of second-order terms if you so desire.
--- >However, I >do want to go into your statement to the effect that corporations are >the enemy of all mankind.If you're going to distort my statements, I suppose that's an admission of weakness in your position. Corporations can be very beneficial, and can be an efficient means of economic organization, development, innovation, etc. It's _excessive_ corporate power -- laissez-faire Corporatism -- and corporate corruption of the political process that are of concern to me... I'm also opposed to criminal individuals, but that doesn't mean I think "people are the enemy of all mankind".
>Question: Who owns corporations? >Answer: "Investors" >Question: Who are "investors"? >Answer: they are not, on average, rich jerks like Donald Trump... >The point of this story is that demonizing corporations is really a >pointless enterprise, since those most responsible for it are those >who are day to day, middle class, working America, (and Britian, and >Japan, and just about everywhere else with decent capital markets).
This is shallow neo-liberal propaganda. On a par with "Corporations are just folks working together". The great "401K Swindle" is simply a way to steal everyone's retirement money and make it available for no-strings-attached corporate use. The thinner stock ownership can be spread, the LESS control any stockholder has over corporate policy. Investment funds dilute control even further. Your benighted pension-fund managers in NO WAY represent the interests of pension-holding workers except (possibly) in their narrow self-avowed value-free mission to increase the monetary quantity of the funds. Further, I anticipate a pirate raid on 401K funds similar to the Bush-managed S&L "scandal".
--- >the idea was that the state was the only one with the size and >coercive ability to extract domestic capital and invest it wisely. >Imports from the west were heavily taxed, and domestic industries >heavily subsidized, with an eye towards developing domestic >industries that eventually would be competitive in domestic markets >without the need for protection. In every country in which this was >tried, the results were an unmitigated disaster.Let's take a deeper look at history. Protectionism created the economies of Great Britain, the United States, and modern Japan. "Free trade" becomes a policy only after economic strength is attained, as a way to keep poorer nations from catching up.
Cuba managed its resources so well that an illegal blockade by a super power has been necessary to bring it to its knees, to prevent it being a model for third-world development. And please spare us the old saw that only Soviet subsidies permitted Cuba to survive -- that was only a counter-balance to the non-market armed interference in Cuba's natural trade opportunities by the U.S.
>Consumers in Japan are constantly >"exploited" by having their incomes diverted, through direct and >indirect ways, into the "bottom line" of corporations.
I'm not sure what the point is here. As a national economy, Japan's protectionism seems to have worked very well. If the internal distribution of that wealth is unjust (I'll take your word for it), that's another matter.
--- >>I imagine you know the answer to this as well as I do, and you >>could possibly be one of those "deep thinkers" yourself. > >Actually, I have no idea. I replied to your post to get a feel for the >argument of the progressive movement, and this aspect of it baffles >me. I wonder if you brand every person who disagrees with you to be >part of "the conspiracy"...Please don't get paranoid -- I simply meant that it's professional intellectuals who do the "deep thinking" for the corporate elite. In that sense you _could_ be one of them, but it would be silly of me to go beyond "could" with what little information I have. BTW> WHAT progressive movement? I wish there was one that had some ideological coherence and organizational savvy!
--- >>You tell me -- who dreamed >>up and sponsored GATT? > > >Well, I believe that who dreamed it up is a less important factor than >why it was dreamed up.Well, you're the one who raised the "who" question re/elite corporate planning. I thought making the question more specific might help answer it.
>It was developed because there was a >widespread conviction among policy makers and a significant segment >of the public that the Great Depression had been caused or greatly >exacerbated by exactly the same forces that you praised in your >original post: National Protective Tariffs, and competitive currency >devaluation.
That may be the primary cover story, but I've seen so many it's hard to keep track. The actual purpose of GATT, viewed objectively, is to supercede national sovereignty by corporate-controlled technocrat commissions, creating a neo-feudalist/fascist corporate world state.
It's simply a matter of fact that protectionism has played an important role in the development of most major economies. It can certainly be over-done or mis-applied, and if abused, can serve to perpetuate inefficient management. I've never said anything about currency devaluations.
Cheers, Richard