Fw: [Peace-discuss] socializing an industry -- good but also bad
unionyes
unionyes at ameritech.net
Wed Dec 10 23:06:13 CST 2008
----- Original Message -----
From: unionyes
To: E. Wayne Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] socializing an industry -- good but also bad
Well,
Obviously you are not aware of all of the riots and labor unrest in China in the last several years. This is WELL documented.
Or the fact that Chinese workers cannot get access to health care or even education for their children without paying for it. Not to mention the jailing and murdering of political dissidents by the government.
That is NOT progress !
And yes, I do have a problem with prison SLAVE Labor, especially when it puts American workers out of a job and trans-national corporations profit from it.
This system is what existed in NAZI GERMANY.
I also have Libertarian beliefs, HOWEVER, mine are social Libertarian beliefs, that is, that the State should not interfere in people's privacy and personal liberties ( ie. drug use, prostitution, gambling, etc. ).
But the Libertarian " principles " you seem to advocate are basicly a " dog eat dog " economic model that does nothing to help and in fact destroys the Common Good.
In other words ; " I have mine, fuck the rest of you " !
David Johnson
----- Original Message -----
From: E. Wayne Johnson
To: unionyes
Cc: Peace-discuss List
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] socializing an industry -- good but also bad
"Jing di wa."
I have spent a fair amount of time walking down dirt roads in China and in its cities working and
living just like the Chinese do, to the point that some of them were thinking that was sort of Chinese minority
from Xinjiang rather than a "lao wai" or "guillou".
There is no doubt that the Chinese people are better off than they used to be.
(I do have a resident expert here at home that I can consult on this.)
Hardly any of the Chinese think that they are working for "The Man", but rather generally enjoy
their work. Work really is more fun than fun, you know.
I would not say that the Chinese are insecure. Their government does not send itself around
the world in search of new monsters to thwart, and therefore their people have no
reason to fear blowback from the evil deeds of its military as we do.
I am not sure why it is that the use of labour in Chinese prisons is held up as evil
while here we spend thousands of dollars per head to incarcerate people who sit around
and do not much of anything that is productive as far as I know. The US has by far
the largest prison population in the world and the highest incarceration rate per capita.
I don't find any occasion for us to be throwing rocks at what China does prisoner-wise.
*
In 1989 I was told that manufacturing ("Widgets" they called it) was "dead" in Illinois, and that there was
a near zero chance of getting an operating loan for a new manufacturing facility in Illinois
that a group of farmers here wanted to start. Seeing how that Agriculture is the
the largest business sector in the state of Illinois and how it is that our Agriculture is
still competitive world-wide, it might have done the Illinois bureaucrats well to encourage
farmers to run a factory....
*
I am not sure that I would dare to say that Social Security is working considering the gaping hole
that the program has. It is a bit like those cartoons where the character runs off the cliff
and then notices that there is nothing below him but air. I dont think that the administration
is going to run back to terra firma on thin air like Bugs Bunny, no matter how hard they
try to fill the money hole by running the "printing machine".
Government ownership is not quite so much a problem of tyranny as it is stupidity, but I
would also agree that large corporations are oft bureaucratic and stoopid too which is
why when they get to that point on the Sigmoid curve, we just need to let them die.
*
A lot of the problem of import and export and US jobs is due to the currency
exchange rate. In the year 2000, 1 (one) RMB yuan would buy as much or more in China
as 1 (one) US dollar would buy in ChampaignUrbana. But one could take that
same US dollar and exchange it for 8.26 yuan at the Bank of China and perhaps
10 yuan on the "grey" market. So in real economic terms, the RMB was greatly undervalued
relative to the US dollar, and it should be easy to understand why goods would flow
in the direction of the higher valued (and overvalued) American currency.
*
The health care system in the US is dependent upon government regulations to stymie competition.
Americans think they need insurance what they really need is "good health". Big difference. I am not sure where
you start because I am pretty sure that most of the folks entrained into the system are quite unwilling to listen
any more. They dont even respond when you wave the truth in front of them, they just keep marching,
that is if you dont offend them to the point that they kick you.
the bottom line that I believe we all can agree on is that citizens in this country and in most places around the world have lost control of their governments.
Absolutely!
...and the only thing that they are going to understand is if the people of this country hit the government
where it hurts, which is in the pocketbook. Write letters, carry signs, make t-shirts and bumperstickers,
vote, scream, holler, chain yerselves to the sidewalks and doorsteps and columns, spray paint their walls,
disrupt their meetings.... They don't care about any of that...(It's just the 'ground noise'...)
unionyes wrote:
The problem with your example of China, is that it is NOT a success story for Chinese Working people.
It is a success for trans-national corporations and Chinese government bureaucrats as well as their cronies, but not for the average person.
In fact the Chinese people have the worst of both systems ; the totalitarian control of state capitalism ( ie. communism... NOT socialism ) and the insecurity / poverty of capitalism.
The so called " success story " of China has also lowered the standard of living of the average working person in the U.S..
It is difficult for U.S. companies to compete with 20 cents an hour wages and Chinese prison slave labor as well.
In effect, the U.S. government under Clinton and Bush have encouraged this de-industrialization of our country with their corporate capitalist masters.
I am all for free enterprise ( small businesses ), but I hate capitalism.
Democracy and citizen control is the key. It doesn't matter what percentage of your economy is in the public sector or the private sector, the bottom line is democracy. Let the people deceide !
We have seen in this country what a disaster private corporate ; health care, the media and utilities are.
And of course we have seen what a real success ; Unemployment Compensation, Social Security, and Medicare are, despite attempts to sabotoge it via funding cuts.
On the other hand, I don't think it would be a good idea if the government made and sold clothing and shoes.
So my point is that there is nothing inherent in government ownership and participation in the economy being equal to " tyranny ".
Many countries in Europe that are a LOT more democratic than the U.S. have a significant amount of the economy in the public sector, which works extremely well for it's citizens in terms of efficiency, access, and avoiding the tyranny of too much corporate control.
The old Soviet Union on the other hand was a total state run economy ( which is communism, NOT socialism ) with a brutal totalitarian government. And then we had the free market paradise of Pinochet's Chile, which was a brutal Fascist military dictatorship.
So public / private sector economics does NOT determine democracy, citizen control determines democracy.
I know we have gotten away from the main purpose of this list serve with this thread, but since we are on the subject, I felt compelled to contribute.
But maybe this is not such a bad thing, because ambiguous words like ; " Socialism ", are used by the corporate media and the politicians to try to divide us.
Regardless if I think it is tyranny for corporations to own a communities water and power supply, or if Wayne thinks it is tyranny for the government to own anything,
the bottom line that I believe we all can agree on is that citizens in this country and in most places around the world have lost control of their governments.
If the citizens of this country had control of our government and it's elected officials, and the corporate media I might add, we would NEVER have invaded Iraq or Afganistan, or at the very least, we would have by now withdrawn ALL U.S. troops in Iraq and begun the process of ending the war in Afganistan.
David Johnson
----- Original Message -----
From: E. Wayne Johnson
To: Brussel Morton K.
Cc: Peace-discuss
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] socializing an industry -- good but also bad
I really cant find anything good to say about the government bailout of industry. People have
short memories and don't seem to do their history homework. The heavy hand of government
control led to genuine disaster and widespread starvation in China in the 1960's and 1970's,
and since adapting a more capitalist
model they can truly say "Ming tian geng hao!" Tomorrow will be even better.
Socialism and its closely allied doctrine have been very sadly discredited. Even
sadder is the notion that it should be tried here since it has been already found
to be a horrible idea with horrific consequences.
Liberty has worked well for us here. We should go back to it.
Suggested reading--- Bastiat, "The Law"
http://www.fee.org/library/books/thelaw.asp
Brussel Morton K. wrote:
Comment below.
On Dec 10, 2008, at 3:05 AM, John W. wrote:
On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 12:36 AM, Karen Medina <kmedina at illinois.edu> wrote:
Peace-discuss,
I would like to discuss the US taking over an industry.
Let us take the postal service as an example. The postal service has always been
tied to the federal government. And has done well.
But as an institution, it was extremely sexist and racist clear into the 1980s. I
blame this on the fact that it was tied to the federal government. For a very long
time, the postal service did not have to abide by OSHA's safety guidelines, again
because it was a government institution. The postal service used to be one of
the highest stress occupations -- again because it was run by the government
and was managed top-down and so very close to the way the military was run
that many ex-military people were employed by the postal service.
I am not saying that I think the postal service should be privatized, I am just
saying that when the government runs an industry, it tends to overlook human
dignity issues and is slow to change -- and it makes us all guilty for the human
rights abuses done by the institution.
It is good sometimes to be able to point to a CEO and say that person is bad,
but it is really hard for the public to turn and look at the way the public is
running an industry and say "we are bad".
-karen medina
I guess I'd like to take the opposite view.
While I have heard about the stress involved in working for the post office (particularly at "the Plant"), I doubt that it's any worse than working for some private-sector corporation, most of which are also managed in a top-down style.
Historically, government institutions like the military and the post office have been among the LEAST racist and sexist employers in America. In the black community of the 1940s and 1950s, having a job at the post office was about the best job that one could hope for. Teaching was also a viable and desirable option in the black community. The police and fire departments proved more difficult to integrate.
An irony of history is that, because of the way the law has evolved, public-sector unions have been for the past 30 years FAR stronger than private-sector unions, providing public employees with far greater job protections. Of course, it also helps that government jobs can't be exported overseas.
Again, due to the peculiar nature of our labor laws, the government is in a position to mandate things like affirmative action, a living wage, etc. not only in its own employment practices but in instances where it contracts with private-sector vendors. Legally, we have not seen fit to extend the same level of government-mandated worker protections to private-sector employers who do not do business with government.
There are pros and cons both ways, of course. But on balance, I would MUCH prefer to work for the government, and I think that basic industries having to do with food, energy, and essential services should be nationalized for purposes of national security and the public good.
John Wason
Amen to all that!, and I'd add to the list "food, energy and essential services" health insurance, the railroads. The profit motive (capitalism) in "essential institutions or industries" is not one which can be trusted to lead to the best and most efficient services for all the people, and which will lead to a sustainable society. --mkb
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