🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <339D7490.41C67EA6@apphys.hull.ac.uk>, "J.D.Hoyland" <J.D.Hoyland@apphys.hull.ac.uk> writes:
>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.". 

Therefore we should judge that since "big business in Zaire (or 
whatever the hell it is called now) is not really efficiently screwing 
most of the people in this country" then people there must be better 
off than in, say, South Korea.  But, that doesn't seem to be the case. 
Estimates based on the assumption that economy is a zero sum game 
don't work too well.

>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. 

Stability is a necessery condition for prosperous economy, without 
which human rights and all the other nice things we're used to in the 
first world can't hold long.  It is not a sufficient condition, I 
agree.  But it doesn't mean that it is worth nothing.  It is like 
saying that having drinking water "doesn't in itself mean anything" 
since you may have it and still starve to death.  You may.  But, in 
its absence you'll die for sure.

>(By the way what has this to do with science and the internet?)
>
Not much.

Mati Meron                      | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu         |  chances are he is doing just the same"