Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Martinus]

The temporary pain will be well worth it in the end.

You are Tyrion Lannister arguing that 7 years of slavery is nothing.

More like 7 years on welfare, these are first world workers we are talking about. We put together a plan for world economic development. Statistics show it is working. I presume you had a better plan?

I don't. I am just saying it is not a convincing argument if we are talking about "temporary pain" of yourself or that of your loved ones.

Frankly speaking, despite my ideological soul searching for the last decades, I don't have a very good plan how to improve people's lives en masse. So far, generally giving people as much freedom as possible, while reacting to biggest injustice and helping those in greatest suffering out of charity, seems like the best solution - even though it is not terribly original nor perfect.

[DGuller]

If you want to talk about racist and condescending, the "$0.35 an hour sewing Nikes is good enough for them; after all, they'd be tenant farmers in the rice paddies otherwise" argument advanced by the "free market" crowd had a good lead on anything the socialists produce.

Offering economic opportunities is racist and condescending? $0.35 an hour is not good enough but you have to start someplace. What is your non-racist and non-condescending plan?

Force the foreign companies to pay their workers in Bangladesh $7/hour, they're just as human as the American workers.  If you implement this plan, I guarantee you that there will be a massive reduction in the number of upsetting stories leftists in the west will get to see.

[Capetan Mihali]

Because that's what anyone has said.  I hate to say it, but less of a strawman couldn't be found in the Wizard of Oz.

[Valmy]

I don't. I am just saying it is not a convincing argument if we are talking about "temporary pain" of yourself or that of your loved ones.

Frankly speaking, despite my ideological soul searching for the last decades, I don't have a very good plan how to improve people's lives en masse. So far, generally giving people as much freedom as possible, while reacting to biggest injustice and helping those in greatest suffering out of charity, seems like the best solution - even though it is not terribly original nor perfect.

Well nothing is free. Considering the short term issues the free trade regime was likely to bring on I think things have gone...alright. I was worried it would be worse.

I am all for charity and welfare to help people out and give them the ability to better themselves. But economic opportunities had to come as well. Opening up the markets of the developed world had to be done in order to grow those local economies. Eventually that should provide better opportunities for the workers back home.

Force the foreign companies to pay their workers in Bangladesh $7/hour, they're just as human as the American workers.  If you implement this plan, I guarantee you that there will be a massive reduction in the number of upsetting stories leftists in the west will get to see.

I know you are joking but as more and more countries pass laws like (or rather have labor markets that demand pay like this) this over time there will be fewer and fewer places the corporations can economically move to. At least that is the plan

[Tamas]

I know you are joking but as more and more countries pass laws like (or rather have labor markets that demand pay like this) this over time there will be fewer and fewer places the corporations can economically move to. At least that is the plan

well yeah that is just the thing: if we don't mess it up with protections systems and wars, eventually, the western worker will earn a bit less, third world workers will earn much more, and it will more or less balance itself out minus local specialties.

i.e. what Mihali and the other lefties talk of wanting, but in fact not wanting.

[Martinus]

I don't. I am just saying it is not a convincing argument if we are talking about "temporary pain" of yourself or that of your loved ones.

Frankly speaking, despite my ideological soul searching for the last decades, I don't have a very good plan how to improve people's lives en masse. So far, generally giving people as much freedom as possible, while reacting to biggest injustice and helping those in greatest suffering out of charity, seems like the best solution - even though it is not terribly original nor perfect.

Well nothing is free. Considering the short term issues the free trade regime was likely to bring on I think things have gone...alright. I was worried it would be worse.

I am all for charity and welfare to help people out and give them the ability to better themselves. But economic opportunities had to come as well. Opening up the markets of the developed world had to be done in order to grow those local economies. Eventually that should provide better opportunities for the workers back home.

You misunderstood me. I am not saying we should not do any of those things - I am just saying that the "long term benefit for the economy" is not a great consolation for people who lost their jobs in the Rust Belt, for example.

That is why more freedom* should be the rule of thumb - because when you try to have everyone follow your master plan, there will always be winners and losers - and telling the losers they are the collateral damage to your Grand Design for the Bettermen of Humanity (tm) is a tad hypocritical.

*At least at the level of a nation or a group of nations agreeing to follow the same rules (such as the EU). This gets much more tricky when you have different nations following different rules, when some of them just play dirty.

[The Brain]

Shouldn't this discussion be in the Venezuela thread?

[Razgovory]

India, Brazil, and China are by no means "desperately poor" on a global basis.  And SK was permitted to introduce the kind of tariffs necessary to stimulate domestic industrialization, not to mention the anomaly of having a superpower dedicated to its success, ready to buy its goods, to supply it with foreign aid, and to loan it money at advantageous rates.  From the other side of the Cold War, Cuba was relatively successful at industrializing under similar circumstances, too, even though they remained dependent on the export of sugar and coffee.

EDIT:  And yes, Iran's stability has increased quite notably since the 1979 revolution.   The "banana republics" were, in a sense, a crude neoliberalism avant la lettre; one liberally enforced by US military intervention where states were prohibited from any kind of internal development and were induced/forced to base their economy around export-oriented commodities, often a single commodity -- like bananas.  So their pre-1945 lack of stability really cuts against your argument rather than in favor of it.

India, China, and Brazil are pretty poor.  Tell, who "let" S. Korea prosper?  Why didn't they "let" India prosper?  Latin America was pretty unstable before the US ever became a major power or before any country adopted the first liberalism.  Their instability was the cause of American influence, not the result of it.  A strong stable country doesn't have other people set up dictators.  You may have noticed that the US efforts to control Canada didn't work out so well.  In a sense, the economies and governments were Latin America were left overs of traditional economies and governments of European colonies.  In fact, a much more real sense then any avant la lettre of "Neoliberalism".  Somehow I doubt that the Hacienda owners had a prescient knowledge of 1970's and 1980's economic fads.  In fact, the economic systems of Latin America are very much like the one that existed in the US prior to the US civil war, when the liberals destroyed it.

[Admiral Yi]

India, Brazil, and China are by no means "desperately poor" on a global basis.  And SK was permitted to introduce the kind of tariffs necessary to stimulate domestic industrialization, not to mention the anomaly of having a superpower dedicated to its success, ready to buy its goods, to supply it with foreign aid, and to loan it money at advantageous rates.  From the other side of the Cold War, Cuba was relatively successful at industrializing under similar circumstances, too, even though they remained dependent on the export of sugar and coffee.

China was desperately poor before Deng opened the economy.  Working from memory, per capita income was $54 a year under Mao.  Cuba hasn't been a success at anything.  Cuban income is $20 a month and 3 eggs a week.

[Martinus]

Shouldn't this discussion be in the Venezuela thread?

No, that's the thread for discussing Bernie.

[Valmy]

You misunderstood me. I am not saying we should not do any of those things - I am just saying that the "long term benefit for the economy" is not a great consolation for people who lost their jobs in the Rust Belt, for example.

Well obviously. Some of those Rust Belt cities are still doing pretty well though.

That is why more freedom* should be the rule of thumb - because when you try to have everyone follow your master plan, there will always be winners and losers - and telling the losers they are the collateral damage to your Grand Design for the Bettermen of Humanity (tm) is a tad hypocritical.

I am not saying they are collateral damage, only that we are making a long term investment that will ultimately be to their benefit. Also having the majority of the population of the world in extreme poverty is dangerous.

*At least at the level of a nation or a group of nations agreeing to follow the same rules (such as the EU). This gets much more tricky when you have different nations following different rules, when some of them just play dirty.

True.

[viper37]

You may have noticed that the US efforts to control Canada didn't work out so well.

Well, Trudeau and Obama sure acted like old pals, so...

[11B4V]

[CountDeMoney]

Lulz, cloth armor

[11B4V]