On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> That's not to say these and other workers shouldn't be encouraged to > support > the equivalent of affirmative action to redress the historic inequalities > resulting from imperialism - ie. open borders for immigrant workers, and > trade union and other efforts to raise working class standards abroad. But > they should do so not from an installed sense of guilt as repentent > oppressors, but in solidarity as fellow workers, and it's in that spirit > that I would approach them. The point of acknowledging a group's privileged position is not to induce guilt, but rather to prevent a sense of entitlement. For instance programmers in the US are bitterly opposed to outsourcing and to immigrant labor because they feel that a standard of living that is "rightfully theirs" is being taken away by these other workers. Somebody's got to tell these people, that no, a standard of living that involves every individual owning a big SUV, vacationing in the Caribbean every year and eating out 4 times a week, is not "rightfully theirs" and in fact is absurdly unsustainable - unless it is reserved for a small privileged class. The point is, true global justice will require the *average Western citizen* - not just the top 1% super-rich - to "reduce" their standard of living, so that the rest of the world can have more. (I say "reduce" in quotes because a scaling back in GDP or consumption may very well turn out to be a good thing for everyone.) But in GDP terms, it really is, to some extent at least, a zero-sum game. How many people, even on the Left, are prepared to sacrifice a little for the sake of their ideals? That is, of course, an awkward question but does that mean we should avoid it? -raghu. -- "Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies."
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
