Hi Wim!
ROG wrote:
Huh
WIM:
My mother taught me never to react in such a way. 'It sounds stupid and is
not very respectful.'
ROG:
Further proof of the lack of culture, manners and refinement in America.
Sorry, blame it on our frontier spirit.
WIM:
You also wrote about 'the fact that some significant factions involved in
this crisis actually DON’T WANT PEACE. They want supremacy.'
I pin my hopes on another 'fact': that nobody wants something completely
autonomous. People's wants are interdependent, they form patterns that
change. You don't need to kill a man to change his wants.
ROG:
I seem to remember a hollocaust survivor stating that the lesson he learned
from the tragedy was that "when someone says they want to kill you, BELIEVE
THEM." (I am not sure what my point is with this response, but it just seems
appropriate)
WIM:
More immigration is not a solution of course. We should feel obliged to
create better paying jobs and opportunities for free enterprise in the South
however.
ROG:
It is quite a stretch to categorize restricting immigration as exploitation.
In my opinion.
I agree that it would be prudent to help/encourage/show emerging nations how
to create a better environment for wealth/job/opportunity creation.
ROG wrote:
'Correct me if I am wrong, but macro-economically (in a free,
market-prevailing environment), relative wages are directly proportionate to
relative productivity.'
WIM:
You can also
borrow from Marx...Then relative
wage-levels are primarily determined by relative political and legal power
of capital owners versus wage laborers and 'productivity' is a meaningless
variable, because all that is produced is produced exclusively by labor,
can therefore only be measured objectively in terms of its labor content
and all other income than wages is not the result of the 'productivity' of
other production factors but of expropriation.
So, in short, I dispute your idea that macro-economics disproves my
association of injustice with international differences in wage-levels.
Macro-economics cannot prove (for several reasons, indicated above) that
relative wages are exclusively justified by relative productivity, even if
the global labor market would be free (which it is least of all supposed
'markets' for 'production factors' because of immigration restrictions).
ROG:
What an evasive answer! Data clearly shows that cross-country productivity
and wages are highly correlated. Specifically, economists suggest that
productivity explains from 70 to 90 percent of the variation in wages between
countries. The trends are obvious when plotting productivity and wages
between countries, and they are crystal clear when looking at productivity
and wage changes over time within countries. Correlation doesn't prove
causation, and it certainly doesn't suggest "exclusive" causation, but the
evidence overwhelmingly leads to the common sense solution that one of the
best ways to raise wages is to raise productivity of the workers and the
infrastructure which they work in and depend upon.
The Marxist perspective is particularly absurd. No wonder communist
countries were/are so screwed up. Dismissing quality, efficiency, division
of labor, economies of scale, desirability, technology etc in one's view of
productivity because these values aren't "objective" may be the poster case
for SOM silliness. There is a lot more to economics than labor and
expropriation.
In fairness to your position, the correlation between productivity and wages
doesn't necessarily disprove your concern with injustice. After all, it
could be that foriegn exploitation contributed to lower productivity. I
suggest that the yoke of exploitation has indeed held men down and limited
progress. However, the exploitation today comes primarily from within and
not from other nations. Free trade and voluntary employment offers only occur
when both parties stand to benefit from the relationship. If anything,
globalization offers freedom from local exploitation.
WIM:
Why do you wrongly construe my plea against a Dutch 'disproportionate share
of world resources like oil, natural gas and mining products' as a plea
against 'purchas[ing] resources from undeveloped nations'?
ROG:"
Because of the words you use. When you write of "injustice,"
"disproportionate shares" and "dependen[ce] on cheap labor" and "sell[ing]
know-how dearly to those who get less than a proportionate share", I assume
you are leaning toward more proportionate distribution and leaning away from
supposedly unjust dependence. If you are not leaning in these directions,
please let me know.
I view countries that engage in commerce as being interdependent, and I view
voluntary cooperation, trade and division of labor as a win/win solution.
Exploitation doesn't happen when we buy their natural resources, or when we
hire them to make shoes, it occurs when we exclude them from participating.
WIM:
If they were
wealthy enough, they would need these resources themselves. World trade in
raw materials in general and natural resources in particular is not the most
effective way of making 'undeveloped' nations more wealthy. The production
capacity of raw materials, needing relatively little technology and
infrastructure, is usually so large compared to the demand for it, that
world market prices only allow for a very meager remuneration of labor.
Because of the large scale concentrated way of extraction of most natural
resources, often by foreign owned companies, purchasing them doesn't help
populations that 'starve to death' a lot. More often than not it rather
supports exploitative elites.
ROG:
Here you do it again. You don't actually suggest not buying raw materials
from them, but you certainly disparage the process. The point is that --
despite any comments on relative ineffectiveness, "meager remuneration,"
starvation and exploitive elites -- undeveloped nations do benefit from the
production and sale of raw materials to wealthy countries. It is a start in
the right direction. It is a stepping stone toward higher productivity,
higher wages and wealth. There is nothing shameful about acknowledging this,
and you don't have to apologize for buying what is nice to have rather than
what you need to have. Global trade isn't evil -- it is good. Relax and
embrace it!
As for Israel...
WIM:
I agree that 'no border ... is defensible against all ... advanced
weaponry.' So why put so much energy in defending borders at all, with the
side effect of creating more hostility between those on both sides of the
border? Why not make it one state with one police force that can deal with
violence between different groups?
ROG:
These people don't get along. They don't play well together. They are not
very cooperative. They don't trust each other.
You can't build a society without cooperation and trust.
WIM:
"Peace has rarely been solved by forcing incompatible people and cultures to
live together', as you wrote. Neither has it been reached by forcing peoples
that have each other in a stranglehold to separate and by giving them each
an own state with which they can threaten each other even more seriously.
Whichever is the best solution has to be reached voluntarily or it is no
solution at all.
ROG:
Actually, when people are in a stranglehold, separation is exactly what they
need. Otherwise they strangle each other. And if you want the solution to be
voluntary, how long are you willing to wait? How long will you put up with
Israeli control or with Palestinian murder?
WIM:
Yes, 'they all can’t just get along'. The tragedy is that they just have to
and that having separate sovereign states (even if they both could be led to
agree on how to create them) won't help them to get along. Israel would
still be able to keep this Palestinian state in an economic stranglehold and
the Palestinians would have additional (military) means to threaten the
Israelis.
ROG:
Soveriegn states know how to co-exist beside each other -- even in unfriendly
climates. Palestine could bond with Jordan and has no shortage of support in
the neighborhood. To be honest, your suggestion makes no sense at all to me.
It makes me wonder if you are actually suggesting this for reasons
independent of the Mideast. Do you oppose statehood or nations as a basic
principle?
Sorry if I continue to jump to conclusions...
Rog
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:19 BST