Retribution not enough

Jim Choate ravage at einstein.ssz.com
Tue Oct 23 15:58:35 PDT 2001



On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, Sampo Syreeni wrote:

> 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.

Then you agree that their conditions aren't reasonable.

As to 'economic growth', that implies you have either the time or the
place to look for alternatives. These are not universal, especially in a
market where some parties act with intent to restrain other parties.

> >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. 

Read the first two para's of the DoI as to why this isn't as big an issue
as you might think, provided you get out early enough.

> That gives a reasonable incentive to the government/dictator to do something
> about those rights violations.

Yeah, like keeping them around just one more year so we can put just that 
much more in the treasury.

Historically dictators and such have not(!) acted to improve their
citizens lot in life, if the citizens get any improvement it's because
the powers that be recognize the situation and are hoping to stabilize it 
(so that their income streams are stabalized). They're not doing it for
the people, it's self-preservation.

> >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.

No it isn't. It's about getting the fundamental government-corporate
rights and civil liberties infrastructure in place in these countries.


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