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Private Speech posted:Pus the raging at globalisation is a bit silly - what the raging should be against is inequality and the rich within their own countries, and perhaps they can help the rest of the world as well. Private Speech posted:Because people of one nation shouldn't be put above others? Nationalism is cancer. These two statements seem to contradict each other. Many leftists are not against the concept of international trade altogether, but instead against the way it manifests itself when powerful countries politically favor capitalists over the rights of citizens. One of the biggest issues in the globalization debate is that current "free trade" laws actually are protectionist for established countries* and capitalists by setting up international legal mechanisms that cut the effectiveness of local economic ordinances (which may have been organized by local workers/citizens/activists to deal with the excesses of powerful individuals who had too much unaccountable control over people's wellbeing). In short, the kind of "free trade" being opposed is a system where capital has free mobility that normal citizens do not. (Normal people don't have the saved up money to just up and move whenever they don't like the laws or economy where they are, or free time and resources to influence the political process.) The asymmetry between capital's level of mobility and labor's allows for lots of unaccountable political influence, and causes inequality when one side can exploit many sets of laws while the other is mostly stuck in one place. e: *also the deals for which commodities a nation should specialize in will have developed countries exporting highly skilled, specialized labor that relies on heavy capitalization and training (see israel with IT), while poorer countries are set up to export low margin, labor-intensive commodities (haiti with textiles). High amounts of training in developed countries means an investment in their people and the institutions that allow a highly skilled workforce to exist; labor-intensive industries treat its total labor pool as interchangeable and disposable in the process of reaching low margin profits. Rodatose fucked around with this message at 20:21 on May 16, 2017 |
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May 16, 2017 20:14
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You said "the raging at globalization is a bit silly." Globalization, however, in its current form, results in draining wealth from foreign countries since the profit/gains from land and labor exploitation largely flow out of those foreign countries to rich private individuals who live in the developed world (but just rent the land and labor in foreign places because lax laws allow for better profits there). The flow of wealth to private individuals is wealth that doesn't go toward the development of both a robust public sphere that allows people in developing nations to rise out of poverty, and it also means a lack of development of domestic-owned capital in those developing countries who at least have incentive to make their community somewhat inhabitable since they live there). Do you mean the raging at "globalism?" Globalism is the right wing term about raging against foreigners as spreading their cultural problems to the first world and the shadowy elite who facilitate this spread in order to... i dunno destabilize it and enact new world order or some other conspiracy poo poo. Globalism and globalization are two separate things Rodatose fucked around with this message at 20:39 on May 16, 2017 |
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May 16, 2017 20:32
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That definition might more be "multiculturalism" or "transculturation". I define globalization as the seeking to consolidate as many logistics networks into a single, comprehensive global trade network with an emphasis on establishing the legal/political mobility of capital in order to increase individuals' access to resources (including the resource of labor) and ultimately cut costs. It's been around for a while, including the british empire's efforts at establishing a global supply and production chain for things like cotton (involving labor in the west indies and british raj and textile production in britain) It's proposed in theory that this sort of supply side approach will increase people's welfare. It could, in the same way any system that consolidates power for efficiency of service could if its gains were properly distributed. However, its current implementation lacks the kind of political restraints against consolidation of power to those who act the most exploitative or corrupt. Rodatose fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 16, 2017 |
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May 16, 2017 21:05
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Private Speech posted:Well, yes, there are issues with how it currently functions, but arguably it helps the economies of many poorer nations too - certainly the ones developing at the most rapid speed appear to be those which are derisively called the sweatshops of the world. The wealth of a nation does not equal the wellbeing of its inhabitants. For developing nations where the wealth from profits actually stays in country (as opposed to the value from land and labor exploitation largely flowing out of the country and not going toward the development of both a robust public sphere), there's a difference between the wealth of a nation and the wellbeing of generations of vast numbers of lower class citizens who are caught in the trap while that wealth is built. Many people who talk of the classical liberal labor model as a form of "lifting out of poverty" are the same who bemoan any abuses by those non-liberal economic/political models which may also lift nations out of poverty after a few generations of citizens' turmoil (Cuba, for instance). Both result in suffering to a more invasive, time-demanding master for the time being for the sake of promised future wealth, which suffering generations may not even see. Whether that master is effective depends on the particular political situation. The China example someone mentioned upthread for the efficacy of liberalism kind of ignores that a strong nationalist mixed system was built in order to prevent the kind of outflow of wealth that you saw in the 1800s/early 1900s spheres of influence period. There's no parallel to be made between the fortunes of politically weak states like haiti or bangaladesh with strong ones like china.
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May 16, 2017 21:35
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Another way that "free trade" isn't totally free is that free trade countries often blockade countries with political situations that are contrary to it and which it feels ideologically are a threat to its continued way of being. Haiti, once one the richest colonies (in terms of raw trade), saw a european blockade against the sugar trade after the revolution in part because european nations refused to do trade with a nation run by black people (think of the implications for our concepts of civilization!). It owes some of its current plight to that, and to centuries of debt held over it by France. Some of it, too, is because its main crop was sugar cane, and it's easier to blockade (since you just get sugar from another sugar-growing island) or manipulate a single commodity or market. Nowadays, currently something like 90% of Haiti's current exports are textiles. When it sells on the world market, it's subject to the dictates of fewer competing (or colluding) buyers in a single commodities market - something that gives producers a pretty hefty amount of political influence to maneuver against citizens rights. It's also at the mercy of international textile prices, so national fortunes are sensitive to supply and demand fluctuations in a single market. A non-liberal state like Venezuela is likewise invested mostly in a single export industry, and with the crash of oil prices, that led to the current collapse and ensuing brutal state repression to hold onto power. A non-liberal state like Cuba has done relatively well when compared to its welfare in the past and compared to many latin american countries (both liberal and non-liberal), despite being blockaded, because iirc one of the emphasized parts of the revolutionary plan for cuba was to establish many different, diverse industries well beyond its traditional fruit and sugar trades so that it would be less susceptible to world market shocks and private influencers. Britain was initially very protectionist in its textile trade, setting up some pretty onerous (but capital-friendly, think establishing minimum weekly working hours for labor) regulations to try to nurse its nascent industry into something strong enough to serve as a force in the world economy. The use of machinery for textile works expanded into use for other manufactured goods which had, iunno, kinda good results economically for britain Having your economy tied to a single export commodity probably won't raise any country out of poverty long term. And if that's so, then there has to be some sort of will to establish multiple industries in a certain place. Usually, free trade capitalists don't seek out growing non-traditional industries in developing countries bc it's a huge risky undertaking and investment in a land that isn't their own and they likely have no emotional or cultural connection to.
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May 16, 2017 22:35
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