Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 07:31:27 -0500 (EST)
From: GLORIA BOBBIE <BOBB9199@SPLAVA.CC.PLATTSBURGH.EDU>
Subject: economic globalization - a hot topic
To: ppn@csf.colorado.edu
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Date sent:  6-JUN-1998 07:14:09 
>

Hi Nan and all,


From:	IN%"Nan.Hildreth@Mcione.com"  6-JUN-1998 04:27:49.46
>To:	IN%"ppn@csf.colorado.edu"  "PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK"
>CC:	
>Subj:	Economic globalization - a hot topic
>
>Dear Martha, 
>
>Thanks for the book list.  
>
>Economic globalization is a hot topic.  Both Republican populist Pat
>Buchanan and liberal Noam Chomsky say that we are becoming a Third World
>country too!   I explained MAI to a couple of Libertarian activists here.
>They were against it.  My Sierra Club has been doing action alerts on it.
>Grassroots are very interested. 
>
>We must teach a new vision besides the invisible hand.  Besides Keynes'
>"fair is foul and foul is fair".   Some way to take care of ourselves
>besides hoarding money and power.   Or we will consume the world in short
>sighted self-interest. 
>
>Can anyone put it in words for me?  

I am an anthropologist (cultural/development) and will try to give a very 
brief summary of what our research has shown.  

>
>Nan Hildreth     Nan.Hildreth@MciOne.com
>
>"Between 1972 and 1994, real wages of working Americans fell 19 percent,
>the longest slide in three centuries." (Patrick Buchanan, The Great
>Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed
>to the Gods of the Global Economy, 1998, p 9) 
>
>"... businesses, factories shutting down, workers being laid off, ... The
>price of free trade is painful, real, lasting - where is the benefit ....?
>As I began to write skeptically of free trade, I discovered that I was
>trampling on holy ground.  For some conservatives, to question free-trade
>dogma is heresy punishable by excommunication."  (ibid, page 18) 

In the business world profit is king....business students have the words
"maximize profit" pounded into their heads.  In capitalism there are three 
components which must work together smoothly for it to succeed as an 
economic ideology,  the capitalist, the consumer and the laborer (everyone 
is a mixture of all three, but their is dominance which dictates the 
primary function).  

Keeping the above in mind, think of how business has progressed.  Modern 
international business has its roots in colonialism and unfortunately has 
not gotten past the colonial mentality.  We as a nation have forged into 
third world countries, not to develop them, but to extract profit from 
them.  We pay the people in those countries sweatshop wages which does not 
actually increase their standard of living, justifying it with the 
reasoning that it is more than they had before.  We are producing more 
goods, but are not creating markets in these countries, because the wages 
we pay, do not allow the producers of the goods to purchase them.

On the homefront:  It takes money to expand.  The capitalist has little 
control over the price of materials as a rule, must satisfy the investor by 
showing a return or they will take their investments elsewhere so the only 
place to make cuts ends up being the laborers wage and benefits.  We are 
all too familiar with the downsizing, layoffs, elimination of benefits,
etc. which have occurred.   However, the problem with this is, that it 
destroys markets at home as well and eventually too much is being produced 
and factories must close because they cannot sell t heir goods.

Example:  Nike....has a plant in anywhere USA...decides to move to Thailand 
where labor is cheap...closes the plant in USA laying off 1000 workers who 
can no longer purchase Nike shoes....moves to Thailand and pays slave wages 
so no market is created there.....what has happened is there are 1000 less 
people to purchase the shoes...multiply this by several plants and there is 
a surplus which cannot be sold...surpluses drive prices down and the 
company must downsize or close.

It does not have to be this way, but until the mentality of the corporate 
world is change (perhaps by force via forms of worker rebellion like 
strikes, boycotts, etc) it will continue.   

There is proof that the current beliefs are false and that it does not have 
to be this way.  If you think back to the attempts to get the minimum wage 
raised a few years ago, you will remember dire predictions of gloom and 
doom.  Just the opposite happened.  People had more money to spend and put 
into circulation in the economy, unemployment dropped rather than 
increasing as expected and GNP raised as was not expected.

The sync between capitalist, laborer and consumer is off balance and must 
be righted if we are to reverse what is happening.  This is a very 
abbreviated version but hopefully will help.

Gloria