[lit-ideas] Re: national defense and global economics
- From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:44:22 +0900
On 2004/09/03, at 15:49, Eric Yost wrote:
> In less hyperbolic terms, citizens are being asked to defend their own
> increasing economic disenfranchisement. The hostage-taker is asking the
> blackmail victim ("those from whom something is demanded") to defend
> the
> hostage so that the hostage situation can continue.
In fact, I agree with your analysis 99 44/100% (the 56/100% is reserved
for normal, all analyses are human artifacts and thus less than perfect
skepticism).
If you haven't seen it, the issue is raised poignantly in William
Grieder's _Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism_, where
Grieder talks about the consequences of China's using its market power
to say to Boeing, "OK, if you want to sell airplanes in China, you have
to build substantial parts of them here." As a result, guys who used
to work on a tail assembly in Seattle lose their jobs. But the other
side of the coin is that guys in Shensi now have much better jobs than
any they could have found before.
To me the crucial equity issue is that the corporate bosses are
unloading all of the sacrifices that result from globalization onto
their workers while constantly raising their own, already obscene,
compensation, and blaming the Seattle worker's job loss on "natural"
market forces.
Increasingly I hold to the view that if market forces are "natural,"
people who lose jobs when American firms shut down their American
plants should be given relief just like the victims of earthquakes,
floods, or hurricanes, and the guys at the top of the food chain
should, indeed, be taxed enough to provide the necessary funding.
How's that for a radical thought?
John
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