Hm. I don't know, Ed ....
Sound exactly like the conditions in England in which the Grand National
Consolidated Union of the 1820s was created. Remember nine were
transported to Australia for their temerity - the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Don't
forget the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 either. This was a time when you could
be transported for life for stealing anything worth more than five
shillings, and hung for ten bob. It was a time when wealthy landowners
protected their game from poachers with trip guns (loaded and cocked guns
with the trigger connected to a trip wire) and gamekeepers regularly shot
suspected poachers, no questions asked. Stealing from the Crown was a
recognised perquisite of office down to the end of the 18th century. Look
at the great country houses - from Cecil's Hatfield to Walpole's Houghton
Hall. Cecil was such a successful peculator he built three palaces -
Burghley House, Theobalds and Hatfield. Poor Walpole only managed two and
Wimpole Hall he only really improved though it does, according to the
brochure contain "state rooms that would do credit to a palace". It was
originally built by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. Except Pitt the Younger,
every First Minister left office richer than he came until Wellington set a
new standard of probity (though his older brother Richard, the Earl of
Mornington, preferred the older style, and returned from a term of office
in India outrageously wealthy). Down to the late 19th century, when the
great agricultural depression forced their break up, most of England was
divided up into great estates owned by a handful of powerful families who
ran England from Westminster and the magistrate's bench. Don't forget that
the English monarchs from William and Mary on were essentially window
dressing for rule by the Whig Oligarchy from 1680 to 1900.
Mike
>Arthur:
>> Maybe I missed it, but have we adequately explored the creation of strong
>> trade unions in these countries, trade unions that are part of a movement
>> aimed at upward harmonization of living standards??
>>
>
>No, I don't think we have. But I do wonder if they would fit. It's now a
>decade and a half since I was in India, but what I recall is a highly
>entrenched class system and a lot of vested interest in keeping it that way.
>People with power, privilege and wealth do not want to share it. There is
>very little flexibility in the system and very little chance of anyone borne
>into the lower classes rising above them. Any movement by the poor to shift
>power and wealth downward would likely encounter strong resistence. India
>prides itself on being a democracy and so, perhaps, it should. But Indian
>democracy is still little more than a veneer which covers a rigid
>hierarchical system, which, if it bends at all, bends only a little.
>
>We mustn't forget that unions are a distinctly western phenomenon, the
>product of a long history of social change and experimentation. They are
>possible where there is a fundamental belief in the equality of man and a
>willingness to bargain and negotiate. They are far less likely to be
>possible where the fundamental assumption is inequality and force or corrupt
>backroom deals can be used as means of suppression.
>
>Simply assuming that third world countries can adopt our systems and
>standards or even that they would want to adopt them will not get us very
>far. When I was in India, I saw ever so many poor children begging on the
>street. Some of them had been maimed, deliberately I was told, to give them
>an upper hand as beggars. Third world poor families knowingly sell their
>daughters into prostitution. If there are no options other than begging and
>prostitution, wouldn't working in a Nike sweatshop be preferable? Well
>perhaps not for everyone, but if one asked the little kids who are begging
>on the street or the little girls who are bound for prostitution (or their
>parents), I believe I know what the answer would be.
>
>My apologies to the Washington protesters. I'm sure many of them are there
>out of deep conviction and high ideals. However, what upsets me a little is
>that going after agencies such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF has
>become something of a blood sport. Not everything these agencies do is bad,
>and I for one do not believe they are totally in bed with the MNCs. Perhaps
>partly, but not totally. They are responsible to governments, and many
>governments continue to be responsive to the whole of their constituents.
>But in saying that, perhaps I'm simply revealing that I'm Canadian, and
>therefore naive.
>
>Ed Weick
