John, There has been a great discovery by the left wing that poorer people across the world - including our own developed countries - live lives of poverty, deprivation, and an absence of any likelihood of future improvement - lives without dreams.
Then kicks in the old mantra - huge capitalistic profits, mammoth incomes, even as the poor get poorer. New names are part of the mantra, mostly acronyms such as the WTO, WB, IMF, along with the buzz-word that encompasses them all - globalization. For a moment, think back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Are we to believe that worldwide deprivation started with globalization? That Africa was a country of well-fed black babies - that Indian kids filled up on Gosht Mughalai and Asian kids pushed away there plates of Moo Koo Gai Pan because they were stuffed? To listen to the propaganda, one would think that the international efforts to make things better caused all the misery in the world. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Misery and deprivation were rampant long before the acronyms. They were part of the economic picture of every third world country. As was political corruption, which inevitability is well fueled by the billions of dollars we send rather than allow the competition of their products to lower prices for Americans. Typical is Nigeria - a powerhouse African State - whose new government took office, pledged to end corruption. And they have made a beginning. In the last two years, one official has been prosecuted. Meantime, no-one seems to know what happened to $60 million of aid. It's apparently disappeared. Blaming the acronyms - particularly the WTO - is an exercise in ignorance. But, it goes down well with the equally ignorant mob. Even as the Seattle bunch were protesting Free Trade outside the WTO meeting - inside, representatives of third world countries were protesting because the WTO had failed to get them Free Trade. As you might expect, I am not much attracted to the acronyms anyway - though I have hopes that the WTO can get past some of the self-seeking corporate protectionism that inflicts the USA, Europe, and many other countries. The most protectionist entities in every country are corporate businesses. They know that Free Trade will cut into their profits. They simply love to sell in a restricted market. And their allies are the equally restrictive trade unions, and the anti-globalization advocates who unfortunately here have had an American education and are therefore ill-equipped to think through things for themselves. The opposite of alienation is cooperation - the coming together of people. And the principal agent of cooperation is trade. To oppose trade is stupid. To demonstrate, propagandize, and support legislation that restricts trade and erects barriers between people is criminal. The ultimate alienation is war. The classical liberal Free Traders would say: "If goods don't cross the frontiers, armies will." They were right. Harry _______________________________________________ John wrote: >The very deliberate(d) and well-orchestrated attacks ( there was surely >nothing "irrational" about these acts) on the symbolic heart of the >imperialistic U$ Capitalist system and its awesome military enforcement >arm (we can`t really say defense, can we!) The Pentagon, reveals the >appalling level of alienation besetting and further dividing ' homo >sapiens' at the very beginning of the so-called 22nd century. > >Alienation is an idea with ancient origins that has been given prominent >attention in nearly all the classical philosophical trends in both the >East and West....' the tragic fate of man.' > >Argued by some to be the result of a flaw in the very nature of human >beings, or at least within individual members of the human species, such >puerile ' explanations ' - with their emphasis on the ' fallen ' or ' >flawed ' individual - fail dismally to adequately explain (let alone >re-solve) the burgeoning range of widespread socio-economic, political and >ecological pathologies threatening the future of life of the planet. > >Subsequent explanations, such as those revolving around the idea by the >eighteenth century German philosopher Hegel that ' man is alienated >because human labour is alienated ', open the way to a much more ' >grounded ' analysis by Marx who, in rejecting the idea of the alienation >of labour as a universal anthropological characteristic, asserted that the >alienation of labour is not bound to human existence in all places and for >all future time but (rather) is a specific result or outcome of particular >forms of social and economic organisation. > >Indifference and alienation are today at the heart of the ever-widening >gulf between ' the haves' and ' the have-nots ' now dividing not just the >citizens of U$, English and Australian etc society, but the world >community as a whole - wherein countless millions of human beings are >being relegated as ' cheap labour ' and used or exploited in the >(over)production of a mind-numbing array of commodities to be sold within >a now globalised mode of production and marketing, with the surplus >(profits) from same being concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of >fabulously wealthy (and thus politically powerful) elites....the 357 ' >billionaires ' around the world, the 5 million or so ' millionaires' in >the U$A and their counterparts in Asia, Australia, China, Russia, the ' >United ' Kingdom and so on. > >At the same time, however, several billion other world citizens - in both >the so-called ' underdeveloped ' Third World - AND the so-called ' >advanced, civilised democracies ' - are being thrown on the scrapheap of >involuntary un-employment, under-employment or unpaid labour (such as that >provided 24 hours per day x 365, by family Caregivers of people with >dependent disability ), and forced to subsist in a marginalised status - >having an increasingly diminished and largely irrelevant place in either >sphere of production or consumption of the massive outputs from the >globally dominant system of production for profit (as opposed to need). > >Whilst the division of labour in society (and resulting alienation) may >well have begun, "probably ...in the early theocratic "civilizations", as >Brad McCormick suggests (although social and economic anthropologists such >as Karl Polyani would most likely disagree), both phenomena have increased >exponentially since the development of a Capitalist mode of social >production and re-production overthrew the ' less-than-optimally-efficient >' Feudal system some 300 or so years ago in Western Europe. > >Among the results, for our contemporary social formations, are narrowly >proscribed and fiercely contested notions of ' work ' and ' value ' >dictated to the majority of us by highly-credentialled - but usually >appallingly ignorant - econocrats and others of the >Managerial/Administrative Class, aided and abetted by the spin doctors >from the parasitic PR and Advertising industries....not to forget members >of the parliamentary and legal ' professions ', who legislate and uphold >The (industrial) Law(s) that regulate/control the pay rates and conditions >of the Working Class in an otherwise anarchic ( ie ' free' ...of >interference by government, unions, religious ' do-gooders ' or anybody >else) market-place. > >Thus, how many of the obscenely-overpaid members or ' executive ' >employees of, e.g., the New York Stock Exchange, the World Trade >Organisation, the World Bank, IMF, the OECD, giant Insurance and >Accounting firms and so on, are even aware of (or the least bit interested >in) the poor working conditions and level of remuneration for the symphony >orchestra workers and other artists (whose labour ' entertains ' them) >alluded to by Brad McCormick and Ray Evans Harrell? What hope, then, for >the countless millions of indigenous campesinos and peasant workers >throughout the ' under-developed ' world, whose exploited and alienated >labours enable First World ' executives ' (and their families) to enjoy >their imported coffee and other exotic foods, fossil fuel products, >building materials (exotic timbers and marbles etc.), precious metals and >gemstones....all shipped or flown across the world for their privileged >indulgence, whilst their own children die of easily preventable diseases >because of sub-standard working and living conditions? > >And while nurses and music therapists who work to ease the suffering of >the terminally ill are forced to work double shifts or leave their noble >professions because of low pay, overwork and disillusion, ' professional ' >football players, golfers, pretty TV news-readers, financial ' consultants >' and the like rake in millions, if not tens of millions of dollars PER >YEAR for their ' work ', travelling the globe in THEIR ' private ' jet >aircraft, designing/building/owning exclusive sporting-resort facilities >that consume enough water and financial capital (money) to maintain many >thousands of " The Needy" in either the ' Third World ' or their own ' >rich country '! Protecting the god-given rights and privileges of these >parasitic ' elites' are the war-mongering ' executives ' who ' manage ' >the giant weapons-manufacturing TNCs and various branches of the State >military and para-military apparatus`, and whose role it is to protect the >' private ' property interests of their ' superiors ', the ruling elites. > >In anthropological terms, then, the exceptionally well-planned and >executed destruction of the WTC and attack on the Pentagon reflect the >deep-seated anger and total indifference/alienation by those responsible >towards their mostly innocent victims, in a reciprocal payback for often >decades or more of gross injustices and cruelties imposed upon their >people, and rapacious exploitation of their labour and the natural >resources located within the land of their forebears, under the ideology >of bringing ' progress ', ' freedom ' ,' and ' democracy ' to their lands. > >john foster ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 352-2242 *******************************
