Reply #121: continued [View All]

[lostinacause]

“Businesses exist to make a fucking profit. We cannot fault them for oppressing and abusing anyone they can to generate higher numbers, so long as it is legal.”

Businesses are not oppressors. Any time someone has a job they are better off because it. They have made this choice understanding the benefits and costs of working the job so if they knowingly enter the job market they benefit from it. If anything the government is the oppressor. However, who is in the government is decided by the people. So if people are being oppressed it is ultimately their own fault.

“However, it is the governments that are to blame for not regulating trade to protect jobs and worker's rights.”

Protecting jobs is a very dangerous game to play and often the efforts only prove to be harmful to the economy and the workers. Protecting jobs should not be the goal of any government. The goal should be to create an atmosphere where jobs are there for the people and people are adequately trained to take these jobs. Progress is happening too fast to have certain sectors protected.

“As you say, the problem is not that the market isn't adjusting to "free" trade in numerical terms, but it is WHERE labor is being reallocated to. Highly accessible, decent paying jobs are a thing of the past in this country (I'm talking about in general terms here, so please don't tell me about your mother's brother's cousin who has a good manufacturing job). They're never coming back. This is a fact. Regardless of your view on government in society, America is supposed to be a democracy. Markets are inherently anti-democratic (regardless of what Friedman says about the essence of democracy). I am not arguing that capitalism (and, therefore, the innovations associated with a market system and modernity) is not the best system, so please don't pigenhole me as a raving Marxist communist. However, I am saying that government should be the mediary between the necessary evil of an inherently anti-democratic economic system in a democratic society. Government should be friendly to business, as it always has, but it should recognize that labor and corporations often have competing interests, and should therefore balance the two. There has been little balance.”

An economic system is used to accomplish societal goals. It does not have to be democratic is just has to accomplish the desired goals. I do agree with the idea of somewhat rebalancing the system. Personally I believe we have to work on optimizing our goals (equality and efficiency), as mush as we worry about them individually.

“I know there is depth to this issue, but it is very frustrating to see a market fundamentalist, in effect, defending the destruction of social responsibility to workers. This more than just this issue of free-trade; it is whether or not the neo-liberal political ideology that has had a stranglehold on American politics for the past 25 years is taking us down the right path.”

Unfortunately given the current reality, businesses cannot compete unless they do things such as outsource. It is up to individuals and governments to choose how to respond to this new reality. Most of this will need to be done through government action of some sort or another and cultural shifts regarding attitudes towards education and employment.

“And, because of the dominance of neo-liberalism over the past quarter-century, I would say that Marx's view of universally dichtomous class and the idea of base-superstructure are very relevant today. Do you have a team of lobbyists? Do you have enough money to pour into an economic think tank? No? Well, don't expect this type of democracy to work for you. Look at the tax code in this country. Look at how it has changed over the past 40-50 years. It's fucking criminal. Read Perfectly Legal for some rather eye-opening evidence as to what I'm talking about.

The erosion of the industrial base and the New Deal safety net is about unchecked corporate power and its threat to democracy and human rights. It is about business elites making policies with no influence from the masses (have you SEEN the fucking public opinion data regarding NAFTA and CAFTA?) and campaign financing. This is a much larger isssue.”

I believe that the New Deal policies are outdated and people need to look for better solutions to pursue equality given the global economy. Marxist policies are only an exaggeration of those beliefs and they weren’t even solutions. Many of the problems that you speak of and others that you don’t know of would be fixed through responsible growth policies. I don’t see the possibility of conservatives implementing such policies so they have to come from liberals. Unfortunately liberals generally do not have the background in economics to solve these problems.