General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Since Free Traders believe America should lower its standard of living to help the rest of the world [View all]Zorra
(27,670 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 11:37 PM - Edit history (1)
economic and political interests of the 1% laissez faire economic globalists throughout the world.
"Standard of living" is relative to respective cultures/societies and is not measured by capitalist imperialist cultures by degree of happiness, but (sarcastically speaking) by how many TV's a household possesses. It is generally a measure of possessions and the laissez faire capitalist idea of what constitutes western defined beneficial goods and services, and the availability of these goods and services. A family may, thanks to global imperialism, now have a few bucks and a tv, but have literally lost the farm, cultural identity, and the parents may be drinking too much cheap imported vodka.
But they don't have necessarily have more happiness, although many people that live in western cultures, and who are not happy, for some reason equate the number of possessions with degrees of happiness.
Quality of life might be a better measurement of the general health of individuals, families, and a population.
A family that has enough buffalo, salmon and camas bulbs to last through the winter, who live a relatively stress free existence, and have a great deal of leisure time, might be much happier than the family of a banker that has lots of possessions, stress, and little leisure time. The film American Beauty exemplifies this condition to some degree.
"My young men shall never work," said he with a wave of the hand, including numerous imaginary Indians, as well as the two seated near by. " Men who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us in dreams."
" But your young men have to work hard during the fishing season to get food for winter."
---
"We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant's fingers harm its mother's breast. But the white man tears up large tracts of land, runs deep ditches, cuts down forests, and changes the whole face of the earth. You know very well this is not right. Every honest man,'" said he, looking at me searchingly, "knows in his heart that this is all wrong. But the white men are so greedy they do not consider these things."
http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Reading%20Room%20Documents/smohalla_1891.htm
And, as illustrated above, some folks feel that a good quality of life is dependent on the health of their environment. They have to consider the unbalanced, rampant, unhindered destruction of the planet caused by greedy, irresponsible laissez faire globalist free traders who deliberately move their companies to countries where there are few regulations to protect the environment, and where they can freely control and exploit the natives, including children, as a cheap labor commodity and another captive body of "consumers" for their goods.
(Neoliberalism as a puzzle: the useless global unity which fragments and destroys nations)
Modern globalization, neoliberalism as a global system, should be understood as a new war of conquest for territories.
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html
definitions and descriptions
Characteristics
The underdevelopment of the third world is marked by a number of common traits; distorted and highly dependent economies devoted to producing primary products for the developed world and to provide markets for their finished goods; traditional, rural social structures; high population growth; and widespread poverty. Nevertheless, the third world is sharply differentiated, for it includes countries on various levels of economic development. And despite the poverty of the countryside and the urban shantytowns, the ruling elites of most third world countries are wealthy.
This combination of conditions in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America is linked to the absorption of the third world into the international capitalist economy, by way of conquest or indirect domination. The main economic consequence of Western domination was the creation, for the first time in history, of a world market. By setting up throughout the third world sub-economies linked to the West, and by introducing other modern institutions, industrial capitalism disrupted traditional economies and, indeed, societies. This disruption led to underdevelopment.
Because the economies of underdeveloped countries have been geared to the needs of industrialized countries, they often comprise only a few modern economic activities, such as mining or the cultivation of plantation crops. Control over these activities has often remained in the hands of large foreign firms. The prices of third world products are usually determined by large buyers in the economically dominant countries of the West, and trade with the West provides almost all the third world's income. Throughout the colonial period, outright exploitation severely limited the accumulation of capital within the foreign-dominated countries. Even after decolonization (in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, the economies of the third world developed slowly, or not at all, owing largely to the deterioration of the "terms of trade"-the relation between the cost of the goods a nation must import from abroad and its income from the exports it sends to foreign countries. Terms of trade are said to deteriorate when the cost of imports rises faster than income from exports. Since buyers in the industrialized countries determined the prices of most products involved in international trade, the worsening position of the third world was scarcely surprising. Only the oil-producing countries (after 1973) succeeded in escaping the effects of Western, domination of the world economy.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/ThirdWorld_def.html
Yes, of course, the world has changed, and continues to change, but it is changing primarily according to the needs and dictates of a relatively small percentage of the population - laissez faire globalist free traders - generally known today as the 1%. They try to tell us they are benefiting all of us, but of course, they own most of the media, and most of what they tell us is just a bunch of self serving profit related bullshit.
Rather than continue the destructive ways of the globalist free traders, it would be wise to create a much more equitable system based on a wider sense of human community and collective environmental responsibility. The first step is to eliminate the control of the 1%.
People and planet are more important than profit.
☮ccupy