🚀 go-pugleaf

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:

> Guess what, there is the trade nowadys is more free than it was for a
> very long time and "they" are free to compete in our markets.  Some
> nations which used to be third world countries are prosperous nowadays
> (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, to name but a few) and their prosperity
> is based on global trade.  Of course they also have stable governments
> which support business, not kleptocracies, which may have something to
> do with their success.
> 

This sadly depends very much on your definition of prosperous, if you
mean that buisness feels confident enough to build big shiny buildings
then sure, but for the vast majority of the workers in many of these
countries they still live under kleptocracies (nice phrase by the way!)
because they are still viciously exploited by the "fat cats". When we
euphemisticaly use phrases such as "Such and such a country is doing
realy well 'cause it's kept it's labour costs down" we must look at what
we're really saying, in many cases it means "Big buisness in such and
such a country is really efficiently screwing most of the people in that
country to make a fast buck.". And just because a government is 'stable'
doesn't in itself mean anything, it could be stable because most people
are too shit-scared to do anything incase they find themselves with
electrodes on their nipples. People should realy stop using the word
free as if it is always positive. Free trade is not necessarily fair or
usefull trade in terms of the quality of the lives tied up in it.

Well that was my halfpenny worth


James:)

(By the way what has this to do with science and the internet?)