GlobalEconomyForTheUSA

GLOBAL ECONOMY FOR THE USA:

IS IT GOOD FOR YOU?

OR,

YOU WANT FRENCH FRIES WITH THAT?

    It was about 1990. I was watching president Daddy Bush waving a bony finger in the air while exclaiming: “Global! Global! we gotta go global!” He spoke of the “New World Order”: that the world was shifting to a global economy, and that we, (the U.S.A.) had no choice but to go along. It dovetailed well with what he and others told us during the Reagan administration (and beyond): that the United States would turn from a manufacturing and design economy (don’t worry, you won’t be without a job, since we’ll turn in ) to a “service” economy. There he stood, with all the trappings of the presidency, describing, in frighteningly evocative phraseology, a “New World Order” (remember the “New Order”?) that would shift the bedrock of the American middle class’s economic foundation. I expected a huge outcry the very next day. It didn’t happen. Was I the only one who got it?
    Just what sort of jobs would this “service” economy provide? (and) how could he be so prescient about that being our ultimate function in the world? To answer those questions, let us first define, (in New World Order terms) a “service” job:

a.) a “service” job is a job that needs to be done for you where your are, such as: mowing your lawn, fixing your boiler, preparing your burger and French fries, wiring your telephone service, rides at an amusement park, delivering mail or packages, mixing up a can of paint, or over-the-counter retail sales in general.

These are all examples of “service” jobs, that is, services provided directly to individuals or businesses. A more succinct definition would be:

b.) any job that cannot be done for you from a remote location solely through communications, in other words, a job that cannot be outsourced.

    How could he (Daddy Bush) be so prescient about our new role? Because he is a major player in the realm of international capitalism, and that was(is) their plan.

    But why? Before answering that, let us first take a moment to describe what is not a “service” job:

a.) Any design, manufacturing or informational, job, such as designing and manufacturing automobiles, cameras, T.V.’s , radios, computers, DVD players, software, advertising, or product support and repair.

A more germane definition would be:

b.) Any product or service that can be provided to you from a remote location solely through communications, in other words. a job that can be outsourced.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND....

    What was it that made America great? Democracy? Free elections and the secret ballot? Government by the consent of the governed? Freedom of the press? It was all of this, and more....specifically what all that engendered....the great “middle class” or, hope. America was the first country born of a three-class society. You could come here with nothing, literally nothing; and not only end up well to do, but in on the ground floor of the new aristocracy. Most of the rest of the world was not quite so lucky. Yes, under feudalism, a small middle class developed, but if you were a peasant, it was almost as impossible to join as the aristocracy. It consisted mostly of tradesmen, (watchmakers, bakers, carpenters, artists,) etc., in a way, the “service” sector of it’s day. Then, land, more than currency, equalled wealth, and the aristocracy held title to the land. The concept of “working your way up” simply did not exist. Most folks were peasants; landless, trade less and devoid of wealth. Your lot was to eek out a meagre existence, as say, a tenant farmer. Since I do not want to get into a treatise on the rise of the middle class, the important thing to remember about all of this is that: Europe was essentially a two-class society; the aristocracy that owned the land and therefore controlled all the wealth, with virtually everyone else as peasants.
    To get the idea of where big capitalism wants to go, all we need do is to look back at where it has been. Big capitalism’s perfect model is the sweatshop. Here in America, it’s heyday was basically the last half of the 19th century to the very beginning of the 20th. For those unfamiliar with the term, “sweatshop” refers to factories characterised by:

a. long hours: twelve or sixteen hour days were the norm. So were seven day work weeks.
b. harsh conditions: i.e. few, if any bathroom or food breaks and standing all day.
c: unhealthy conditions: little or no heat or ventilation produced conditions ripe for the spread of disease.
d. dangerous conditions: such as: poor machine safety and no emergency exits.
e. below subsistence wages: how does $3 per week sound?
f. child labour: being seven was good enough, plus, they were kids. You could pay them less...

    Well, fixing those problems costs money. Money that would ultimately be deducted from profits. Oh, well. So much for that idea.
    To summarise, sweatshops extracted the maximum amount of work for the lowest possible wage from each employee, while running with minimal overhead. They were exploitative, but fantastic profit generators. No rules, no limits, no conscience. They also spawned the labour movement here in America and elsewhere.
    Big capitalism was quick to denounce these socialistic organisations, (that is, the labour unions and movement) both here and world wide. Socialism scared, and still scares, Big Capitalists. It’s an idea they would rather the common folk never got into their heads. Now you can understand why we “fought” the “Cold” War. The economic system the average Russian functioned in could not possibly affect the economy of Main Street, U.S.A., but it was a market and labour pool Big Capitalism could not access. (and) was a living reminder to the people of the world that other economic systems are indeed possible. Big Capitalism was lucky the Communists botched it up so badly. Who in their right mind would want to live under such a system, and with Joe Stalin, too? Communism dug it’s own grave, and with it’s fall, the time for full globalization had finally come. To all this, add a little deregulation: markets and labour pools started opening up world-wide. Corporations moved their plants overseas to places where sweatshops were still legal. Your job? Oh, don’t worry. Of course you’ll have a job. Yes, there’s a little re-training. It’s easy. Memorise this line: “you want French fries with that ?”.
    Now it’s time to add up those twos and twos. To Big Capitalism, “going global” means the opportunity to access new markets, and exploit new labour, at will. What’s in it for you? A junk job at less than 10% of your former pay, and cheaper imports which you will now be unable to afford. What’s in it for them? The ability to fluidly access the new markets and cheap labour that keep profits maximised at all times. The fact that they may decimate whole towns, counties or even a big part of a state is of no consequence to them. That Americans by the tens of thousands are transferred to poverty when jobs are sent overseas is not a consideration. That severe damage can be done to the United States itself by these practices is not on the agenda for discussion. Pursuing and maximising profits is the only concern.
    Big Capitalism detests the middle class. To them it’s a re-distribution of wealth that is rightfully theirs, a misappropriation of funds they consider their own. They want a two-class society, that is, very rich and very poor. Guess which one they have in mind for you!
    So, do we really “gotta” go global? It is presented to us as an irrefutable fact, not open to debate or question. This is the new economy, not to go along unquestioningly is to be left in the dust. Not recognising this, as such, is being too dumb to come in out of the rain. That’s the propagandistic presentation: tell them there is only one choice, and that will be the choice they will make. If that one choice is no choice, so much the better. Yeah, propaganda is like that.
    Now let’s get back to that forbidden question: Do we really “gotta” go global? Let me begin the answer with yet another question: remember Adolf Hitler and why he lost World War II? Yes, he opened a two-front war by attacking Russia, (a stupid move), but we had a two-front war also: Japan. Let’s see: we had a massive army and...he had a massive army. We had brilliant scientists and engineers and...he had brilliant scientists and engineers. We had aircraft carriers, submarines, bombers tanks and other essential war material, and... he had aircraft carriers, submarines, bombers, tanks and other essential war material. We had the petroleum reserves and refineries (within our own territory )necessary to run the war, and.... he had long, tenuous and vulnerable supply lines which could easily be, and ultimately were, attacked and disrupted....Oops! The plain fact? Germany had/has no petroleum, and old Adolf was the first guy to experience what we would later call an “energy crunch”. He ran out of gas, and his war machine ground to a halt. Think for a second. Is there a lesson to be learned here? We had everything we needed to fight and win World War II right here in the "good old U.S.A." .We had all the raw materials, refineries, resources, brain power and factories needed to do what was necessary. Yet let us imagine for a moment what it might have been like if we had not. What if a critical industry had been “outsourced”, some time before World War II? An example? Let’s use a part of the electronics industry. One of the many reasons that World War II is regarded as the first truly modern war was it’s heavy reliance on electronics. What if we had outsourced the manufacturing of the vacuum tubes needed to run the electronics of that day? What if all the people who used to make tubes had been asking “do you want French fries with that” for 15 years and knew nothing of the latest improvements? If the old tube factories were all either decrepit or bulldozed, with the train tracks ripped up. If tubes were now all manufactured in the country that ultimately did become the world’s source of electronic innovation: Japan.
    Bad news: we would have been struggling to re-invent the wheel, while our enemies, (the Axis powers) would have been in possession of all the latest electronic tracking, communications, intelligence and spying equipment, hitting us hard, enabled by all the advantages of the newest technology that we couldn’t get. We would have been waging World War II with technology from World War I. For the enemy, the strategy would be simple and devastatingly effective: Use this technological advantage to defeat us before we catch up. Speaking of catching up, think further for a second about what happens in the time after an industry has been outsourced. As the years speed by, the people who had the skills for those medium to highly skilled jobs die off or migrate to low or no skill “service” jobs. Since there are no longer any opportunities for employment in those fields, no new people are trained for them. When an emergency (such as a war) arises, cutting us off from overseas venues, we find ourselves desperately seeking highly skilled workers from an incompetent, untrained and un-educated populace whose only skill is asking: “you want French fries with that?”
    But remember; Big Capitalism does not respect, care about or concern itself with any sort of nationalistic or patriotic thoughts. It matters not who wins or loses. The global economy gives them the ability to change countries like underwear. For them “My Country” is replaced by “My Profits”.
    Yet there is one more place we need to explore before leaving this subject. There’s a revolution coming. Most likely, not a single shot will be fired. There’ll be no “roadside bombs”, armies or suicide bombers. It will not happen on a single day or even month. It doesn’t need to start, it’s already begun. The final phase began the day the banner of de-regulation was rased. The first skirmish was the breakup of the Bell System. That went badly for Big Capitalism, but that’s all it took for them to realise that this seemingly pro-consumer doctrine could easily be inverted and perverted to become their greatest liberator. Other milestones were the collapse of the Soviet Union, N.A.F.T.A., etc, the Supreme Court’s New London decision, weakening of bankruptcy protections and on and on. Yet no one I can think of has mentioned the fact that as we loose jobs by the ten thousands at a time, as whole regions sink into an economic morass, as our county becomes totally dependent on foreign trade and unable to produce on it’s own, as unemployment goes up or high-paying jobs get replaced by minimum and near-minimum wage jobs, government inexorably receives less taxes. As it receives less money, government will become weaker, as Big Capitalism becomes ever stronger. Government will become weaker yet as it is forced to borrow and incur greater debt, (guess who the money will be owed to). At one inevitable point, Big Capitalism will be able to ignore the rule of law, as a weak, eviscerated government finds itself wholly unable to enforce it. Most of us won’t know until that day that a revolution was ever even in the making.
    But wait, you say. How could this be enforced? How could Big Capitalism or even individual corporations set up the Gestapo-like organisation that would be needed to enforce corporate rule? One answer is that government wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop them. Let’s see if you can guess the other. Some hints: It’s basically a tool. It’s something we all eagerly embrace, indeed, can’t get enough of. It’s something we are told is invariably good, and better than all that’s come before it. Have you guessed yet? No? It’s something whose potential for evil eclipses it’s potential for good, something you probably don’t go for more than an hour without using...Give up? It’s digital technology. Nothing in the history of humanity has ever had more potential to restore the chains of slavery (virtual as well as real) to the masses, then the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent digital monster we are now eagerly creating.
    Do you doubt me? Then think about: face-recognition technology, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips inserted into your body, “security” cameras everywhere, government and corporate databases and profiles on everyone, “E-Z” pass, GPS , and the staggering amount of personal information asked of you by stores and other businesses... I am writing this in July 2006. All the things I have just mentioned have already been done, Yes, including the human implants. We are entering the era of 100% surveillance. Any digital device whose output can eventually find it’s way to the Internet, (such as a picture from a digital camera or something you typed out on a word processor) or that can communicate via RF with some other system, (such as GPS or RFID ) can put you under surveillance. This does not mean that today’s version of your digi-widget II is spying on you, what it does mean is that the capability, (either in future units or via upgrades) is just a few lines of code in the op sys (operating system) away. Every time we convert something to a digital process, every time we go out and buy some new digital goodie, we feed the monster that will ultimately enslave us all.

26 July 2006, copyright, Pirate Joe.

NEXT: IN A CORPTATORSHIP, THERE IS NO CONSTITUTION...

-30-