The United Militarized Police States

[Mr. Tea]

And on zhao's point about driving an SUV: you can't call people who work in the petrochem industry in developing countries "slaves" without severely debasing what that word actually means, I think. Your average Arab rig jockey may not earn as much as most people in the developed world but that's a long way from being forced to work for nothing by threat of violence. Further, would he be best pleased if the developed world suddenly decided it could do without oil altogether?

Incomes in developing countries generally rise as their economies develop. This happens through selling stuff to more developed countries. This system is clearly not without its flaws but it's definitely not the same thing as the slave-based economies of the old imperial powers.

 

[craner]

he was th only person i talked to who supported the war and gave an honest reason for his support

No he wasn't, he was the only person that gave you an openly cynical reason, which in your mind is the only thing that equates with honesty. How deracinated your judgement has become! O, it is sad to behold! You've spent too much time listening to all of these Lyndon LaRouche fanatics on Dissenses, that's your trouble; it's made you fuzzy-headed and misanthropic simultaneously.

 

[baboon2004]

For some/many writers (see dependency theory writers, for example), it has been exactly that - a way to continue imperialism without getting one's hands dirty, a proletarianisation of the developing world labour force into what is essentially slavery at a remove.

Slavery in the classic sense isn't being forced to work for nothing either, it's being forced to work for no income that you can decide what to do with, e.g. in return for labour you get board of some kind and food (eg in the modern world, child help provided by irregular immigrants to western countries from the developing world).

If you are not being slaved in the classic sense, but only earn enough money to buy those basics (and barely enough to do that), then there's not any real difference, only in the guilt felt by the slaver. I don't think it debases the word at all to use it in these contexts - rather it ilustrates the continuity between the West of yesterday and the West of today, which are supposedly different, but in fact very much the same. Keeping people alive just to the extent that we can profit from their labour. Of course traditional slavery is still rampant, too.

Edit: reply to tea, obv. i dont' know the specifics of the petrochem industry, talking more generally, eg garment industry. Obviously a minority of rich people from the developing countries have also been entirely complicit with these happenings, just as was true in imperial slavery. There was also the changing of the British law recently re legal aid, such that funding is no longer possible in british courts for those affected by UK companies abroad (eg Shell) to bring class actions, thereby presumably allowing multinationals even more freedom from ethical concerns.

Edit 2: essentially the point of dependency theory is that developing countries' economies will only ever grow in a stilted sense if they rely upon exporting goods, ratehr than developing internal demand etc. it's what is very interesting about China's development - as long as it is reliant upon the US market, it will never usurp it as a world power, so the argument goes.

 

[luka]

Lyndon LaRouche

who is this? you will deny this but you never actually gave a reason for supporting the war. it was just you striking a rather jejune pose.

 

[craner]

I completely deny this.

This thing baboon is talking about is really interesting, though -- this dependency theory thing, is an argument of the right also, isn't it? People like Dambisa Moyo and William Easterly argue that aid and development programmes not only keep corrupt regimes in power by absolving them of responsibility for their own citizens, but actively immiserate them by stalling the development of internal markets -- therefore preventing them from joining the global market, the ultimate route out of poverty (so this argument goes). I don't know if this exactly matches 'dependency theory' which sounds like it has a wider and more critical scope, but it's an interesting corollary.

Autarky for all sounds like a really bad solution to me.

 

[craner]

Paul Wolfowitz tried to find some solution to this when he was at the World Bank, and he was smeared and hounded out for his efforts.

 

[vimothy]

Paul Wolfowitz tried to find some solution to this when he was at the World Bank, and he was smeared and hounded out for his efforts.

Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Or, more succinctly:

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Slavery in the classic sense isn't being forced to work for nothing either, it's being forced to work for no income that you can decide what to do with

Is it? Historically it's meant being rounded up by some mean dudes with big weapons, having irons clapped on you and then being forced to work on pain of a beating - or being born into those conditions because your parents are slaves themselves. Someone in the position you describe, having no viable option but to work for a pittance (which is obviously a wretched way to live, and in practice may not feel too different from slavery) can in theory tell them employer to go fuck themselves if some better opportunity comes along. A slave doesn't have an employer, he has an owner. It's a legal condition. Slaves are property.

I'm not defending companies that pay people in developing countries pittiful wages (or anywhere for that matter, but especially developing countries, where poverty has a totally different meaning from what it does in developed countries) but there is the point that corporations exist to turn a profit for shareholders and nothing more, which is in itself amoral, not immoral. The real villains, as I see it, are organisations like the World Bank and IMF that offer 'development packages' to poor countries that come with all sorts of conditions attached, such as loans at unreasonable rates of interest or a deregulation of the labour market, which (as you point out) tend to benefit the already wealthy business owners in those countries but have at best mixed and sometimes disastrous results for ordinary workers.

That said, a company based in a developed country that turns a blind eye to appalling practices by its third-world suppliers and contractors is clearly being invested in and run by some pretty repugnant people.

Edit: obviously it's possible to effectively force someone to do something other than by threatening them with violence, I'm not that naive. But the point about big companies operating in poor countries is interesting. If people work in a sweatshop for poor wages, it's not because they literally have no other option, it's just that the other options open to them - e.g. remaining at home to tend the family plot - may be even worse. And there are all sorts of reasons why a more traditional (i.e. agriculture/pastoral/fishing- rather than industry-based) living might not be tenable any more - environmental degradation by foreign or domestic companies, land grabs by greedy governments, unfair subsidies received by producers in rich countries that make third-world exports uncompetitive, climate change, overpopulation, ethnic strife (fuelled by the above) - all sorts of stuff.

 

[baboon2004]

Historically perhaps, but to see slavery as purely a legal condition is kind of outmoded, as any modern-day anti-slavery organisation would attest to - they primarily deal with illegal slavery based upon nominal employment, not declared ownership, eg enforced prostitution, home help, god knows what other types. The enforcement is not legal mostly - though one exception is work slavery within prisons, esp in the US.

I think there is a fair degree of consensus upon that. What there isn't consensus upon is the other part of the debate, that where the proposed slavery is not directly enforced by physical means (as with developing world workers who theoretically can get another job, though I'm sure you'll find that in some cases they are 'persuaded' with implied force not to do so), but rather by economic/the deliberat cultivation fo a situation where there is little other opportunity, is it still slavery? I think one's answer to that is kind of analagous to whether the phrase 'economic violence' is something that makes sense to you, or whether violence/coercion is seen as only physical.

I'd agree that corporations are amoral in the broad sense, along with almost every other institution based upon power (police, civil service etc), but to me that means that obv implies they will perform immoral acts, along with moral ones - there simply is no difference to them. Naturally I agree about the IMF, World Bank etc, but you will find huge lobbying within the World Bank etc on behalf of corporations etc, such that they're all very mixed up. Politics and corporate business are often, if not one and the same, hugely intertwined. The IMF etc create conditions that provide fertile soil for multinationals to thrive/destroy local businesses

To your edit: yeah, I'd agree broadly. What I'd say, though, is that all those other condtions usually result (or are exacerbated by) from explicit Western policies, or simple Western neglect. Obv in cohorts with a small upper class within the developing world countries, and less small in places like China.

Is it? Historically it's meant being rounded up by some mean dudes with big weapons, having irons clapped on you and then being forced to work on pain of a beating - or being born into those conditions because your parents are slaves themselves. Someone in the position you describe, having no viable option but to work for a pittance (which is obviously a wretched way to live, and in practice may not feel too different from slavery) can in theory tell them employer to go fuck themselves if some better opportunity comes along. A slave doesn't have an employer, he has an owner. It's a legal condition. Slaves are property.

I'm not defending companies that pay people in developing countries pittiful wages (or anywhere for that matter, but especially developing countries, where poverty has a totally different meaning from what it does in developed countries) but there is the point that corporations exist to turn a profit for shareholders and nothing more, which is in itself amoral, not immoral. The real villains, as I see it, are organisations like the World Bank and IMF that offer 'development packages' to poor countries that come with all sorts of conditions attached, such as loans at unreasonable rates of interest or a deregulation of the labour market, which (as you point out) tend to benefit the already wealthy business owners in those countries but at best mixed and sometimes disastrous results for ordinary workers.

That said, a company based in a developed country that turns a blind eye to appalling practices by its third-world suppliers and contractors is clearly being invested in and run by some pretty repugnant people.

Edit: obviously it's possible to effectively force someone to do something other than by threatening them with violence, I'm not that naive. But the point about big companies operating in poor countries is interesting. If people work in a sweatshop for poor wages, it's not because they literally have no other option, it's just that the other options open to them - e.g. remaining at home to tend the family plot - may be even worse. And there are all sorts of reasons why a more traditional (i.e. agriculture/pastoral/fishing- rather than industry-based) living might not be tenable any more - environmental degradation by foreign or domestic companies, land grabs by greedy governments, unfair subsidies received by producers in rich countries that make third-world exports uncompetitive, climate change, overpopulation, ethnic strife (fuelled by the above) - all sorts of stuff.

 

[baboon2004]

This thing baboon is talking about is really interesting, though -- this dependency theory thing, is an argument of the right also, isn't it? People like Dambisa Moyo and William Easterly argue that aid and development programmes not only keep corrupt regimes in power by absolving them of responsibility for their own citizens, but actively immiserate them by stalling the development of internal markets -- therefore preventing them from joining the global market, the ultimate route out of poverty (so this argument goes). I don't know if this exactly matches 'dependency theory' which sounds like it has a wider and more critical scope, but it's an interesting corollary.

The Wolfowitz (sp?) saga is really interesting as regards whether you can reform a corrupt institution from the inside. He found tht you couldn't.

Dependency theory originally was from the anti-colonial left - people like Cardoso (who became Brazilian president later, i think), Samir Amin (Egyptian academic), AG Frank etc, formulated in response to modernisation ideas, (end-of-history, every country will progress to welath along the same route type thinking). it was flawed in that it didn't offer a convincing causal account of how dependency happened, but some later writers improved upon that with theories about proletarianisation etc, which seem to fit very well with the way Western multinationals operate, and are encouraged by western governemnts and Intnl Financial Institutions.

Dont' know Easterly and Moyo, but that reasoning sounds different. Dependnecy theory suggests that the developing world should develop economically separately from the west, creating large internal markets, and not try to join the global market (in the main). Stuff like ALBA in Latin America stems originally from this, i think; China's problem seems to be that workers' salaries are so low (to keep exports competitive) that despite a huge population, internal demand is still not big enough to lift it out of being an export-oriented economy. But then rich Chinese don't give a shit about that, and have blocked moves to raise wages etc.

edit: i'd agree with their point about problematic aspects of most aid and development programmes though, as vehicles for entrenching poverty further, see below comment.

 

[baboon2004]

Most interesting thing I've read lately has been (part of) a book about the failures of microcredit, which purported to be anti-proletarianisation/exploitation, but just led to a debt culture that left people even more in the shit (especially women, at whom the programem was originally aimed). .

 

[Mr. Tea]

Historically perhaps, but to see slavery as purely a legal condition is kind of outmoded, as any modern-day anti-slavery organisation would attest to - they primarily deal with illegal slavery based upon nominal employment, not declared ownership, eg enforced prostitution, home help, god knows what other types. The enforcement is not legal mostly - though one exception is work slavery within prisons, esp in the US.

OK, so slavery as a legal status is obviously outmoded since slavery was banned around the world, even though it still goes on in many places, as you say. What I'm getting at is that someone who is in a state of slavery - held in bondage and forced to work by threat of violence - is nonetheless in a somewhat different state from someone who does a menial, poorly-paid job just because there are no other jobs available and the alternative is destitution.

Again, not that it's OK that people are in the latter state just because it's not technically slavery, obviously.

 

[droid]

Wolfowitz resigned from the world bank because of a dodgy pay deal he arranged for Shaha Riza, his then girlfriend. He appointed Bush cronies and was criticised repeatedly for a lack of transparency, consultation and consistency.

The idea that he was some kind of anti-corruption crusader is laughable.

 

[luka]

thank you droid. i was just choking on my earl grey.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What there isn't consensus upon is the other part of the debate, that where the proposed slavery is not directly enforced by physical means (as with developing world workers who theoretically can get another job, though I'm sure you'll find that in some cases they are 'persuaded' with implied force not to do so)

Yeah, this is well documented isn't it - Coca-Cola in Mexico springs to mind - if workers are being terrorized by their employer then that is slavery in no uncertain terms.

but you will find huge lobbying within the World Bank etc on behalf of corporations etc, such that they're all very mixed up. Politics and corporate business are often, if not one and the same, hugely intertwined. The IMF etc create conditions that provide fertile soil for multinationals to thrive/destroy local businesses

 

[vimothy]

Wolfowitz was a Bush crony. He probably had the enlightened souls at the WB in conniptions every time he came near the building.

 

[craner]

Wolfowitz resigned from the world bank because of a dodgy pay deal he arranged for Shaha Riza, his then girlfriend.

And there, right on cue, like a comet in the sky, goes the smear.

 

[luka]

smear? craner, leave us alone youre boring. ask my sister about this stuff if youre interested.

 

[craner]

Boring? What have I done to be boring?

 

[droid]

And there, right on cue, like a comet in the sky, goes the smear.

Uh-huh. The innocent, naive, morally unimpeachable and crusading Wolfowitz was cruelly entrapped by evil World Bank officials out to stymie his reforming attempts to end their perfidious and corrupt reign.

You know it's 2011 dont you? You dont have to keep on defending your favourite warmongers.