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From: barry@ames-lm.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whither Are We Drifting?
Message-ID: <384@ames-lm.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jul-84 17:44:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames-lm.384
Posted: Thu Jul  5 17:44:33 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jul-84 01:39:12 EDT
References: <1005@ihuxq.UUCP> <88700003@hpfclk.UUCP>, <2294@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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> You're forgetting one very vital aspect of capitalism, namely IMPERIALISM.
> There may indeed be political freedoms in the advanced industrial
> capitalist countries, but we are only able to maintain our high
> standards of living by keeping the third world in the state of fascist
> slave labor that you claim to detest [viz. Central America, South
> Africa].
> 	These countries supply us with raw materials and cheap labor,
> while we supply them with weapons so that their governments may continue
> to keep their populations docile in the face of widespread hunger and
> poverty.

	While I would not disagree that the US has been (and is still)
guilty of the sort of economic imperialism you describe, I would argue
that it is not a necessary component of capitalism any longer. Just as
slavery (literal slavery, not the economic kind) disappeared when slave
labor was no longer competitive with machine labor, so, too, is the subtler
kind of 'slave labor' you describe becoming obsolete. If political/
economic/military domination of the rest of the world is so rewarding,
why are Japan and W. Germany outcompeting the US? The fact is, our attempts
to bully small countries costs us more than it gains us. A few industries
that are still heavily dependent on unskilled labor (e.g. fruit companies)
may still benefit from this, but it's no longer the basis of the wealth
of nations.
	Fact is the big competition now is for markets. Automation of
production makes it ever cheaper to make things, and the more of 'em
you make, the cheaper it gets. Far from needing a cheap labor pool overseas,
the present need is for an ever larger middle class who can afford to
buy our goods. We pay stiff prices for our overseas purchases of things
like oil, but we can well afford to do so, as long as the folks we buy
from are also buying from us in like quantity.
	Closing complaint: yeah, we're screwing up Central America, but
blaming us for South Africa is absurd. Whatever its faults, South Africa
has a modern industrial economy, and is not dependent on our support
for their repressive regime. If they can't get weapons from us, they
can buy 'em elsewhere, or build their own. Whatever the faults of our
foreign policy (which is often not only immoral, but stupidly counter
to our own best interests, as well), blaming all the world's problems
on it is at least as silly as blaming every evil thing in the world on
Soviet Communism.

        [The opinions expressed herein are my own foolishness, and do not
necessarily reflect the views of anyone that matters.]

                                                Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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