OT Food for thought

On 27 Feb 2004 05:44:35 -0800, (Jonathan Cook)
wrote:

Peter Charles wrote in message . ..

Is it all bad?

Of course not, for the top 10% or so (of which I am one, I guess).
We still need the 90% to serve us meals, fix our car, do our
yardwork, and be our ghillie on the river (OBROFF).

Structural unemployment is an artifact of this reality.

That's nice and sanitized, but _people_ are having to live it.

Modern economies are very resilient
and Ontario turned around so much so that, by the end of the decade,
it was roaring along

For the top 10% or for everyone?

... Consequently, much of our public
infrastructure is eroding. But, we're doing OK. We do have a growing
disparity in wages as the working poor contiue to decline

Sounds like you're heading towards feudalization as fast as we are...

laugh when I hear the righties wail about the need for protectionism
because it's such a lefty thing to do.

IMO it's populist, not right or left.

that were developed in American, by America, for the benefit of
America. This game is being played out according to your rules so it
still works out in your favour more often than not.

Oh, I know. It makes it easier to delude the 90% (of Americans) that
they're not heading towards serfdom because the effects aren't seen
by them as quickly.

Jon.

PS: Actually, I don't begrudge other countries wanting to provide
more and better jobs for their people -- 90% of the gradute students
who have worked with me are foreign, and are great people. But as
you say, the global trade rules don't really help them either -- just
treats them as more serfs. I understand the world that technology,
communication, transportation, and all that makes, and no, I don't
have any answers. I just think it's plain as day that the ROFFians
my age (quickly heading towards 40) and under better start thinking
about how they might plan for some _serious_ societal upheaval.


You mistake me for someone who believes the neo-con rational. I
don't. I believe in the power of the neo-con approach to globalize
the US economy and to produce enormous amounts of wealth. I have
absolutely no confidence that the neo-con approach is capoable of
distributing it in any sort of equitable fashion.

When I use the word "equitable", it will likely strike one of two
chords. The neo-con (BTW, can we use the proper term here --
"Neo-liberal"? The neo-con ideology is actually a return to classic
Liberalism.) considers "equitable" to be the accumulation of wealth by
anyone who "earns" it. The Socialist postion would consider
"equitable" to mean that the government redistributes the wealth to
the poor.

The Neo-liberal approach results in three classes, a super wealthy
class, a professional cadre who provide essential knowlege and skill
serives to the super wealthy, and a vast under class of desparately
poor. The Socialist approach, if talken to the extreme, results in
everyone being poor, but not to extent of the desparate state of the
Neo-liberal under-class.

The sucess of the liberal-deomcratic state, has been to balance these
two extremes into a reasonable third way. However, with the decline
of the relative power of the nation state vs. the corporate sector,
the balance has been shifted. To illustrate this point, 50 of the top
100 economies in the world are trans-national corporations. 350
corporations control 50% of the world's trade. As the US leads the
world in this regard, what passes for US policy influences the rest.
Canada, for example, cannot forge an independent economic policy as
the immense economic power of the US overwhelms any attempt at
independence. This is the primary reason why the Canadian health care
system is under such pressure.

Unless we can restore some balance, expect the drift toward the
Neo-liberal ideal to continue. And with that drift, expect more wars
and more Osama bin Ladens to emerge, for the under-class never wants
to go away quietly. Unfortunately, the redress of this balance can
only be achieved through serious US electoral finance reform and that
doesn't appear to be anywhere on the horizon anytime soon.



Peter

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