Retribution not enough

[Sampo Syreeni]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, Jim Choate wrote:

>> * "Low wage" compared to _what_?
>
>What it takes to have reasonable living standards and sufficient resources
>to help ones children do better than themselves.

Reasonable? Well, compared to dying of malnutrition, anything is
"reasonable". After that, it's mostly a matter of letting economic growth
do its deed.

>Because if the producers allow this behaviour they put themselves out of
>business.

OTOH, dismal civil rights conditions make a country a hostile, high risk
environment to investment capital. That gives a reasonable incentive to
the government/dictator to do something about those rights violations. A
similar argument holds for credit ratings and the subsequent cost of
foreign loaning.

>If the market were open, it isn't. The reality is that the market is
>controlled in such a way as to keep the status quo. This ensures the
>political, social, and economics supremacy of a small minority at the
>expense of the many.

And guess what? Part of globalization is getting the fundamental human
rights and civil liberties infrastructure in place in these countries.

>This bozo can't tell the difference between a 'socialism' (which is what
>he's describing) and a 'dictatorship'. Sounds more like he's begging the
>question.

Sure, they're separate. That by no means implies that socialism is stable
or that it could be kept from degenerating into a dictatorship. Cf. Hayek.

Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy at iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
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