Globalization, round two: Will it be a new beginning or an end?

[John_Mace]

@Sam Stone

I wanted to come back and address this - this is, I believe, one of the most common fallacies on the left - that there’s a fundamental difference between economic freedom and political freedom. There isn’t. Often, to make the point that you can have one without the other, the left will hold up examples of countries that are suppsedly capitalist and yet oppressive. But when you scratch the surface, these countries turn out to be more like oligarchies protected by government.

If you have true economic freedom - the freedom to keep what you earn, to choose who you will work for, to negotiate contracts freely, then political freedom follows from that. And if you are not economically free, being politically free is irrelevant.

The best test case for this will be China. China is essentially a capitalist country (in the urban areas), but the people have very little political freedom. It’s not easy for every Chinese to get into the capitalist areas (you can’t just move from the country to the city w/o a permit), but once you’re in, you’re in. So far, I haven’t seen any real advances in political freedom for the Chinese, either urban or rural.

[Driver8]

@China Guy

The price paid is that a lot of lower end manufacturing jobs have been exported away from the US and to countries like China. Those US workers then get double whammied because alternate jobs tend to be a cashier at WalMart.

This is a perfectly reasonable price to pay. This person is probably still better off than the person in China who now does the low end manufacturing job. To attach greater importance to this guy keeping his job than the Chinese guy not living in poverty strikes me as more nationalist than grounded in ethics.

Ideally the additional employment and money on hand in China increases the living conditions of the whole area. Isn’t this how the quality of life in Europe increased over the years?

[Henry-Finland]

@China Guy

The global economic pie is growing, the issue is that the global economic pie is also shifting to countries such as China. You’re going to see a major clash over the next few years because China has been a net exporter on a global scale.

Between whom?

@China Guy

Globalization has done a tremendous amount of good in terms of raising the standard of living and individual freedoms in countries such as China. The price paid is that a lot of lower end manufacturing jobs have been exported away from the US and to countries like China. Those US workers then get double whammied because alternate jobs tend to be a cashier at WalMart.

How far do you think the outsorcing will go?
What else will be left than the automobile and military industry, mining and such industries that are bound to the turf they are bound to?

When I do speak about outsorcing, I do not mean only China. Nor only USA, but the western countries.

Henry

[Henry-Finland]

@John Mace

Globalization has been happening for hundreds of years. It’s inevitable. Either go with it or get crushed by it. There’s no reason it won’t work out well for most people. Those “sweatshop” jobs are how countries kick start their ecomomies and become inustrialized. We’ve seen it all over Asia. Working conditions improve as people get more money, and become more educated. Besides, the alterative to those “sweatshop” jobs is more often than not no job at all, or back-breaking agricultural work.

(Bolding mine)

• There are alternatives to the worst sweatshop-structures.
• In some cases it is very near the picture where e.g. China is hiring slaves against foreign currency.
• It also depends what you mean by “more often than not”? As something that is realistic or to something that can’t be changed?

Henry

[Henry-Finland]

@Nocturne

I see this a lot. But it leads me to wonder about the following:

Not everybody is capable (either financially or otherwise) of improving their skillset. Nor might they have the resources to start their own business.

My question (and I do appreciate that this is something of a hijack) is this; what becomes of those who, for whatever reason, are truly incapable of improving their skills or starting a business?

Are they doomed to be forever at the bottom of the heap? Cashiers or cleaners at Walmart?

There is not and will not be enough of such work.
Or is many of the Walmart-type of shops closed because there is no workforce available? Or uncleaned buildings, etc.?

I am also interested in what is meant by “improvment/self-improvment”. In my country it means a longer period of studying. Even years. The problem in many western countries is, how to survive those years?
Some countries has free education and some even pays people that are going studying.

As I see it, the only solution is to invest in people, to give them an equal chance to additional education.
Henry

[Henry-Finland]

@Quartz

Someone needs to do the job. For someone to be at the top of the heap, there needs to be someone at the bottom. There’s a great phrase from the book Fluxx which I can’t quite recall, but it’s something like, “I may not like my position in the social order, but I recognise the necessity of its existence.”

The problem is not who is working where in the “work-pyramid”.
The problem are those that are outside it.

Henry

[Henry-Finland]

@Sam Stone

The ‘bottom of the ladder’ in the U.S. is not nasty, brutish, and short. In fact, it’s significantly better than the world average standard of living. Furthermore, there is significant mobility at the bottom, with people routinely moving up the ladder while others move down.

1) Many in the first world find themself without any ladder.
2) The world is hard, but should not those on the bottom be compared with the others in the First World, not just some ‘world-average’?
It is like saying:
“What?, you complain that it’s bad when you have no bread? In Africa they even lack water!! Be greatful you are not one of them!”

@Sam Stone

The old class warfare rhetoric, which assumes that the people at the bottom are there permanently just isn’t applicable in a modern free economy.

That’s why globalization is important to these other countries. Factories don’t just increase the standard of living, they increase freedom. They provide the means by which people can improve themselves and move out of despondency. Because as long as the poor in a country are dependent on either handouts or eaking a living off of a tiny plot of land for subsistence, they have absolutely no hope of changing their condition.

1) Can you then explain why South America is in the situation it is?
2) In many 3rd world countries where people has been moving to the outskirts of the big cities, the same people had earlier “a tiny plot of land”, that has fed them.

We, the First World have the problem with overproduction.
We, or our governments subsides our agriculture and then we “help” the third world by duming this overproduction in The Third World.
After that we have put out the small farmers in the 3rd World and feel very proud of ourselves "How good we were when we again helped ‘those poor ones’ ".

All help should be help where those that gets the help, are able to help themselves.
Our solution with the “help”, is to get rid of our own overproduction.

@Sam Stone

But factories change that. People make more money, and have the ability to gain skills and experience. But more to the point, the mere existence of the factory implies a lot of investment in the infrastructure, which helps make the country more productive, which lifts up everyone over time.

Yes, we can show some such examples, but that was never the aim for those entrenepeurs that went to those countries in the first place.
They just wanted, as they are supposed to, make profits for the share-owners.

I do not know how the outsourcing, the globalization etc., can be developed in a controlled way, but I think that the globalization has only begun.
How uncontrolled it will be in the future, that we still have to see.
I think we have opened a real Pandoras-box in the far east, and we will be quite out of control. If we ever had any control, that is.

@Sam Stone

It’s a lot better to be poor in South Korea today then it was to be of average wealth in South Korea 50 yers ago.

I think their education has been expanding hand in hand with the business.
Good, if it is so, but when we begin to see problems, not because of SK, but others, does our education for average-Joe and the chances for him to use the opportunity, also grow hand in hand?

@Sam Stone

As for Globalization in general, it’s inevitable. And it’s a good thing. Will it hurt those of us in the west? Not necessarily. This isn’t a zero-sum game. As the world as a whole becomes wealthier, we all benefit.

Right you are, but who are “we” that benefits?

@Sam Stone

Look at the auto industry. The new challenges from Korean makers have driven up quality and driven down prices across the board. Koreans making cars, ships, and computers and much more valuable to the world than are Koreans subsistence farming and living in shacks. Sure, they are competitors, but there’s nothing wrong with competition.

When we in the west, has closed down all bigger auto industries, docks, etc., where should those workers go?
Do they have a chance, the bulk of them, to put up a small business in e.g. Detroit? I would say no. And to move somewhere else and begin with a business in an environment you do not know, will mostly be a disaster.
To educate themselves by them selves? I do think that the guys in jail has a bigger chance to do that. They have anyhow the bread coming every day.

@Sam Stone

Some anti-globalization people think that globalization will drive down American wages. They are operating on the mistaken assumption that Americans make the wages they do because they are protected from the alternatives. But in fact, Americans make the wages they do because they are productive enough to earn them, and that will not change. Or at least, it won’t change because of globalization.

If we correct the inflation from the salaries of today, how far back do we need to go in order to find the vages that are e.g. 5 % less worth that for today?
In normal occupations; teachers, welders, construction work, work within the food industry and so on. Does anyone have any statistics about this?

How does the illegals in US effect the works and salaries?
How does the workers from the former socialistic countries effect our salaries here in Finland? Working much cheaper than we are?
Everyone here can figure out the answer.
Henry

[Quartz]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

If you would care to address this part of my post–
–then perhaps.

Sorry, but I asked first. You made a claim and I’ve asked you to justify it.

[Quartz]

@Henry-Finland

The problem is not who is working where in the “work-pyramid”.
The problem are those that are outside it.

Nobody is outside it, bar hunter-gatherers.

[BrainGlutton]

@Sam Stone

I wanted to come back and address this - this is, I believe, one of the most common fallacies on the left - that there’s a fundamental difference between economic freedom and political freedom. There isn’t. Often, to make the point that you can have one without the other, the left will hold up examples of countries that are suppsedly capitalist and yet oppressive. But when you scratch the surface, these countries turn out to be more like oligarchies protected by government.

:dubious: What makes you think a capitalist society, as such, is not an oligarchy protected by government? What we’ve got in the U.S. now fits that description pretty exactly.

In any case, I only posted what I did because, as a democratic socialist, I am committed both to socialism and political freedom, and I never want to let anybody get away with suggesting the two are incompatible. They’re not. OTOH, it is possible to have economic without political freedom. Look at Pinochet’s Chile: Laissez-faire economy, zero political freedom.