The moral implications of cheap crap at Walmart are many and disturbing.
The historic crime represented by the fraud we refer to as "free trade" is slowly revealing itself and the picture is not a pretty one. As if we humans had not made enough of a hell of the paradise we have been given here on Earth for our short and wonderful lives, we chose in the last 30 years or so to return to law of the jungle and deregulate, privatize, exploit, leverage, arbitrage, fold, spindle, mutilate and otherwise manipulate anything that was there for the manipulating that would cherry up the bottom line of some company, somewhere, no matter the cost or the consequences to others. This is crystallized most powerfully in the malignant and perverse free trade discourse brought to us courtesy of the Masters of the Universe and their Chicago School, neocon, supply-side, tax-cutting, deregulating, monetarist minions. The broad principle that corporate hegemons throughout the world, but principally in the USA and Europe, bribed their captive governments to adopt was the "free movement of labor, goods, and capital across borders." This was sold as some sort of enlightened, humanistic, forward-looking way to put international capitalism on steroids and max out the benefits of capitalism for all -- especially the poor of the Earth.. And the biggest selling point of all was the benevolent, progressive, and decent character of the Our Brave Corporate State and the Rugged Individualists who command it. Lots of our pampered and overpaid public servants, elected and unelected, went along with a straight face, and a few got impressive amounts of chump change for doing so. And as we all know now, it has not quite worked out so well for everyone but the corporations.
We have been educated, propagandized, intimidated, pressured, call it what you will, into accepting as facts of life things like the explosion of public and private debt, the institutionalization of the destabilizing boom-bubble-bust cycle in all the sectors of the world economy, the shuttering of American factories and the evaporation of the American manufacturing and skills base, the shrinking American middle class, the evisceration of labor unions, the starvation of state and local budgets, outsourcing of work, job exporting, cross-border employment migrations, the degradation of the public infrastructure, the accelerated despoliation of the commons, the most extreme and sudden concentration of wealth ever in American history, the almost complete deregulation of big business and the hegemony of the corporate class above the law and the broad masses who constitute the population of the planet. And more. And this has happened in a relatively short time.
Corporations are increasingly free to move anywhere around the world to evade taxes, which has impoverished governments everywhere. And to move wealth, and the multiplier effects that go with wealth, hither and yon as the fancy moves them, without regard to the destabilizing effect this has on societies.
Corporations are increasingly free to move around the world to evade environmental regulations, which amounts to a license to pollute and waste resources all over the planet.
Corporations are increasingly free to put prospective host governments in competition with each other to offer the least meaningful and least intrusive legal regulation in terms of workplace safety, union organizing, child labor, sexual exploitation, and any other humane framework of imposition of the public authority onto the private. This degrades all humanity, enables organized crime, and cultivates legitimate public rage and radicalization.
But all these things, toxic as they are, are not the truly hypnotic attraction of free trade to the Masters of the Universe. The real incitement to move factories and jobs around the world is low wages and the possibility of creating a vicious cycle of low-wage competition that will over time drastically reduce wages worldwide and ultimately gut anything like Social Democracy and reduce the global working population to a debilitated, helpless serf status. Something like the return of feudal privilege is what the Masters of the Universe are after. Desperate,hopeless people who know they are trapped in the "race to the bottom" make compliant, cheap, grateful employees who do not make trouble. And that is truly what this free trade disgrace is about.
If ever a tail wagged a dog, this is it.
One very famous and revealing outrage about free trade involves Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff and the garment companies of the Mariana Islands [CNMI]. According to Democratic Underground of April 5, 2005:
So how did this play out in the Mariana Islands? After years of reports of corruption and abuse, an undercover Interior Dept investigation brought 400 reports from CNMI workers to the halls of Congress. Among the “free market” practices of the Mariana Islands was the ability to label garments “Made in the USA” and ship them to the US, duty free, while dispensing with all US immigration, minimum wage and labor standards. Unscrupulous manufacturers brought Chinese workers into the CNMI and kept them under harrowing conditions. The Chinese workers were lured into signing contracts that promised them work, housing and health care in the US, many paid $5,000 - $7,000 fees for the privilege. The contracts also stated they would be deported if they complained of working conditions, practiced their religions, engaged in political activity, became pregnant or even got married. Underage girls in nude clubs, forced prostitution and coerced abortions were routine. Even after a 3 year investigation, Tom Delay continued to hail the “free market” of the CNMI and said “the United States should establish an identical “guest worker” program ‘where particular companies can bring Mexican workers in.’ The Mexicans would be paid ‘at whatever wage the market will bear.’”
Imagine that: this report to Congress occurred during the Bush administration. How bad must it have been to embarrass Bush?
This is one instance that we know about. It is typical. It is the tip of the iceberg. Unquestionably, it is still happening, all over the world, every day, worse than ever. And all because some greedy corporate zombies bought enough influence to stand above any oversight, law, regulation or scruple between a respectable profit and one dollar more. As long as we practice free trade, we are stuck with it. Sweatshops for prosperity. Brothels for democracy. Rape, pillage and plunder as national policy and an expression of what we stand for. Do we really think this is not going to blow back on us? Do we really think we are getting rich this way? Do we really think we do not have blood on our hands over this? Do the mercenary hoodlums at Blackwater in Iraq or the vicious pimps and overseers in the sweatshops really represent what we must tolerate in order to have our precious video games, SUVs, and MacMansions, or is it just easier to not argue about it? Is this really how we want to live? Are we proud of this? Is this the best we can do?
On all the planet, there is no more dangerous and destructive force -- none -- than the depraved indifference to ordinary standards of human decency displayed by the international corporate hegemon and codified in the degenerate, twisted and fascistic abortion known as "free trade."
A heavy and serious moral burden rests with the decent people of the world to use the force of law and government to stop this, peacefully and civilily.
It is said that the Dutch bought the island of Manhattan from the Canarsee Delaware Indians for a handful of pretty beads. Free trade is a similar swindle. The cheap and shiny crap from Walmart may well, in the long run, prove very expensive indeed.
This is not what the American Revolution was about. And one way or another, the moral arc of the Universe will respond.
No comments:
Post a Comment