Kicking global wealth out of the driving seat.

Part One, Background

The wealth sponsored ideas otherwise know as the ‘free market’ or ‘laissez faire’ doctrine, dictate that wages are a matter of supply and demand, so high wages are in less demand than low wages.

And in a financially globalised world we are told a worker in the US or Europe is in compete with the lowest paid worker on the planet.

The threat being that if ‘expensive’ western workers did not cut their wages then the ‘free market’ dictated that companies and the work would go elsewhere.

At the same time right wing politicians of the free market attacked other ‘handicaps’ on western economies in the same way, healthcare systems, welfare systems, social programmes even education systems we’ve been told have to be ‘competitive’ in a global economy.

Hinting that our societies would have to be able to ‘compete’ with places employees threaten to move to that had very rudimentary systems or none at all.

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The thing is that people and workers fought for their wages and social benefits in a long, bitter and often dangerous struggle.

(For an American perspective on that struggle try – Who built America (two volumes) by the American Social History Project)

Wage rates and social programmes are part economic but they are also political, the actions of workers and people have forced systems to be more distributive and equal. Made them tax the rich, pay decent wages and protect people from exploitation.

We have laws against child labour but they make no sense from a purely economic viewpoint, why not exploit a labour force that might make up a third or more of a country’s population.

The thing is many of the places that wealth claims we should compete with have been denied those wage levels and social benefits (so in many child labour is exploited because it can be).

What is worse is that in many cases that situation is the direct result of the actions of US and western foreign and economic policies imposed on them by the same plutocratic forces that have wrecked havoc recently in the US and around the world.

For example communist ideas have always been strongly opposed by US and European wealth but in the US it was able to get a lot more government backing for the position especially after WWII when a sham-communist Russia was the US’s main opponent to global hegemony sparking the Cold War.

As in most wars the first casualty was truth and many times things that were only slightly left of centre reforms were portrayed as acts of Stalinists. In that way popular movements that wanted to go someway toward gaining the social and economic benefits fought for by Europeans and Americans workers and people, were simply painted as communists and overthrown. And these actions also seemed to help US business.

For example the overthrow of the democratic governments of Arbenz in Guatemala (helping US fruit companies), Mossadegh in Iran (assisting US oil concerns) and Allende in Chile (to the advantage of US mining operations)

Later when neo-liberal doctrine became established in America the world received the ‘Washington consensus’ that imposed right wing free market ideas, forcing ‘economic shock treatment’ on a large number of countries around the world with usually disastrous results (at least for the middle class and below).

(Try reading ‘Globalisation and its discontents’ by Joseph Stiglitz, ‘The shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein)

All this has brought about a deeply divided and unequal world, a hierarch of worth that always gives the advantage to the wealthiest.

To me this all seems backwards and ultimately disastrous why should things be ordered so as to maximise the profits of a few rather than the many and taken to its logical conclusion if their ideas were followed no-one but a few would ultimately be able to afford anything.

 

Part Two, What might be done?

If people everywhere around the globe are to have decent jobs with decent wages bringing comfortable and fulfilling live not only for them but for us, then I believe that things have to change.

For as James K Galbriath has painted out -

In other words a policy that only tries to drive wages and social benefits down only serves wealth, no one else.

To achieve this people will have to ignore the distraction that will inevitably be put up by global wealth and their stooges in the right wing or nationalistic political party’s and concentrate on resting control from them.

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The US needs to abandon the plutocratic influenced foreign policy it has been pursuing for over fifty years, that tried to impose its form of capitalist doctrine on the world. And first lead to the suppression of left wing socio-economic ideas and then to the imposing of free market doctrine.

It needs to start doing the reverse.

The ideas of the left need to be championed, New Dealesque, Keynesian and even socialist policies should be encouraged worldwide.

In other words it needs to encourage redistributive politics with the tenacity which it once spent on suppressing it.

A good place to start would be the encouragement of trade unionism around the globe.

Unions have always been opposed by wealth and in all the places ‘free market’ ideas or US foreign policy has had a strong influence, union workers have been harassed or worse with thousands being murdered in Latin American countries over the years.

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The international systems forced into place by the US at Bretton Wood (in a foolish and doomed attempt to bring about US hegemony) should be scrapped and a tweaked version of Keynes’ original ideas be adopted

Clearing Up This Mess : John Maynard Keynes had the answer to the crisis we’re now facing; but it was blocked and then forgotten.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/11/18/clearing-up-this-mess/


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The power of wealth needs to be hemmed in and controlled the best way to do this, as has been done in the past is through taxation and regulation. But since wealth has gone global this means the solutions must be global, international agreements, bodies and institutions need to be established for it to be effective.

A good first step would be the closing down of all tax havens.

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2

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And above all we have to start taking the idea of global democracy seriously. Because the world is, like or not, globalised and if we the people of the world don’t take charge someone else will, so far wealth has been to a large extent in the driving seat and has been steering a course in is own narrow and profitable interests. We need to take the wheel and head of in a different direction.

 

wow u scare me. while i would like to counter everything that is wrong with this i wont because it would just take way to long. if that were all point by point maybe but countering all that would jsut take forever. maybe ill try to do point by point but it will probably be messy. honestly the problem is ur logic is so wacked i just dont know where to start.

 

Does global democracy mean democracy around the world for everyone or the idea of world federalism?

 

That's some nice spin, but high wages aren't a matter of demand but of supply. No one doesn't want a high wage. But not everyone can get one.

*nods*

It gets interesting...

It all comes down to coercion. Whether the motivation be that of a higher moral imperative, or a self-interested person who honestly thinks their own lot and that of many others would be improved by organizing society in a more socialist, collectivist, "egalitarian" manner. If you claim to be on the moral high ground, from where did you draw your standards? If you are a self-interested socialist, you are essentially no different from a self-interested capitalist. You just have different ideas of "self-interest" which is to say everyone has different ideas of self-interest.

Back to coercion: Might makes right? Maybe, but right can also make might. Most of the most basic human moral instincts exist because they were beneficial, in evolutionary terms. Therefore, what we perceive as what is right, happens to be perceived as such because it aided the evolutionary success of our species. You are fighting coercion and exploitation, but if you were willing to use these same tactics to achieve your ends, what are you fighting for?

Child labour is not "purely economic." Nothing is, economic and social facts constantly intertwine. The decision is ultimately that of the family. Perhaps some unfortunate souls will be so destitute as to have no choice but to send their child into the workforce. Is that a sad thought? Yea. Is it likely to be a common occurrence nationally? No. First of all, your economic simplification assumes that "one third or more of [the] country's population" is capable of doing the work requested. There are a lot of jobs children may be physically incapable of doing. There's even more they are incapable of doing because they have yet to receive all the training required, ie: education.

Specific examples, nice. I don't disagree with anything I've read here, although I am slightly offended by your tone. The way you demonize your opposition says that you are used to preaching to the choir. My original point about the samples though, that's what I'd like to see more of, in any discussion: solid examples, things that can quickly and easily be looked up and understood. It not only makes your argument stronger, but makes for better and more informative reading by your real audience: everybody else.

I like that you plug a lot of books, but I think your posts would be improved by more specific examples, perhaps cited from a book. You should include a "Further Reading" list if you are so inclined, but doing so in the midst of an argument makes it sound like you are brushing off the objections and essentially relying on someone else to refute them.

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

That is true and despicable, but only discredit the hypocritical politicians who claim to espouse "free market" ideals, but are still willing to intervene. In this case, by making preventing workers from unionizing.

I started reading that, it's very interesting. I will finish it later.

Historically "the wealth" have controlled the government, and used it to advance their own interests. Who saw that one coming?! How to you propose to wrest the government from them, and who can it be trusted with?

Honestly, that Keynesian "world bank" idea scares the crap out of me. I do not believe that a single entity is capable of managing / regulating the global economy. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. They say they will exchange their universal currency for national currencies at a fixed rate. Where does the rate come from? Who fixes it, and how? What happens if one or a group of nations wishes to abandon the system?

 

Were you high? I've never seen a post like this from you before. hope by part two you have it together.

 

it really is all over the place but if u look at it close enough i think ull get what hes saying. its just a bad idea tho.

 

Reading through there doesn’t seem to be any really counter arguments – oh a can see some people dislike but they don’t seem to be able to articulate them into anything or substance.

 

Do you ever get lonely up there on your high horse, Balbus?

 

This works well in theory, but how do you propose we get there? The wealthy elite aren't just gonna relinquish their power for the good of the world, nor are the politicians they own.

I would add Howard Zinn's "A People's History of The United States" to the reading list, a good account of the class wars we've been fighting since the beginning. Call me a skeptic, but we haven't made much progress in hundreds of years.

 

DroneLone

Have you read the articule yet?

Shadow

Have you any rational counter arguments?

Drew

Well…you never have any rational arguments…if fact you don’t really have anything of any worth to say.

Earthmother

Can you defend your free market ideas?

Mellow Yellow

I agree Zinn’s history of the US is always a good read.

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you reailze earthmother and i have been defending the free market idea for a while now. but ur only responses its to basically say the wealthy will take over when that is clearly not true if it is a true free market. in a true free market as i have said before the government should not have any ability to interfere with business. this means that even if people become wealthy it will not help them to pay off politicians as politicians can not make laws to help the businesses. its very simple really but u continuously say that it is idealistic. i say its only idealistic because people have misinterpreted the commerce clause. (in the US obviously) If we removed the ability for government to get involved with business a free market economy would work just fine Balbus.

 

I don't need to.

 

Shadow

No you’ve been promoting it, but you’ve not been defending it you haven’t actually addressed any of the criticisms you’ve just been ignoring them and saying – yes but.

For example you admit

You then began claiming the free market would be great – if you just ignored the many problems there seem to be with it.

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And as I’ve pointed out wealth would take over a long time before the mythical ‘true free market’ could ever be achieved

Free market = plutocratic tyranny.
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353336&f=36

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In a true free market?

Well in a perfect world everything would be perfect, it is a real pity we have to live in the real world.

 

But again all this is is you pointing to something else you said somewhere else that is still just your opinion, not proof of anything.

 

I’ve put up criticisms of the free marketeers position you can ignore it but that doesn’t mean the criticisms go away. It would just mean the seeming gaps in the free market argument would remain and that free marketeers like yourself have no answers to them.

 

But your criticisms are much more RIGHT than anyone else's. Of course. I forgot. So sorry.

 

I agree. In a true free market, the parasites on wall street and in the health insurance, defense, and oil industries would have to get real jobs.