Okay I understand. I don't see a distinction between inequitable trade in this example and theft. Theft for me is a general catch all. Slavery is theft, child labor is theft, polution is theft, etc. I hope I am making sense.
But to me those are structural problems with capitalism, not human faults. It'd be like saying pork-barrel spending is theft, rather than the natural conclusion of giving discretionary spending to legislators. If you have capitalism, somewhere, somehow, you're going to have child labor - even here in the US, where we legislate against child labor. Calling them theft makes it seem like it's people that are the problem, not the system.
People created the system. Therefore any structural fault is a human fault. I mean I'm not disagreeing with you. Rather, calling those faults theft merely points them out as issues to be solved and/or regulated . Nothing more and nothing less. Truthfully, I think you are going out of your way to pick a fight with me on something that we agree on.
A similar article appeared on Alternet a few weeks ago. This went a bit further back into history. Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule America http://www.alternet.org/story/15607...stocrats_have_come_to_rule_america?paging=off Some of the more interesting bits:
Lee Wang goes to work at his Foxconn labor camp and a Bruce Lee (or Bruce Li) movie breaks out! HONG KONG (CNNMoney) -- A large-scale incident involving some 2,000 Foxconn Technology Group factory workers has forced the closure of one of the tech supplier's plants in China, the company confirmed Monday... ...The incident, which a worker at the scene described as a "riot," took place in Taiyuan, a city in central China. Foxconn employs 79,000 workers at the facility. Production at the plant has been halted, but Foxconn said in a second statement that the factory will resume activity on Tuesday. http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/24/technology/foxconn-workers-brawl/index.html?iid=HP_LN
It's a very interesting article and argument. I think the writer tries to prove too much, though. There's aLOT to nitpick. To give you a taste of where the conclusions get ahead of the data IMO Still, I think the article is definitely worth reading, if only so y'all can think about which parts of the argument you can refute, and how you would refute them.
Hells now riots are going to break up in Europe and the USA with all those people waiting in line for their Iphone 5. (Yes I know Ipad vs Iphone but the joke worked better with the Iphone).
Eventually, once they're done with rebuilding all the schools in Afghanistan and Iraq, they'll get on about renovating and rebuilding the Indian Schools that they've been neglecting for the past 50 years. I'm sure of it.
I read that China story with interest. Inconceivable to imagine that occurring in the States. Ironic that a "communist" government treats labor so badly. By no means surprising, mind you, but ironic.
I'm even more surprised they didn't summarily execute hundreds of "troublemakers" and replace them with some more faceless carbon blobs. China's quite good at that historically too.
Definitely. She tackles a lot for such a short article. But the main argument is fairly compelling. And as someone that's lived in Texas for the majority of his life, it has also helped explain one of the major head scratchers for me: why are there so few rich liberal whites down here compared to, well, everywhere else.
Revisiting this issue, I think both you and Matt seem to forget that international trade involves many actors and that inequalities can be created or ignored by many of those actors. From trade barriers and subsidized products to unregulated labor or mining, international trade usually leaves a lot of losers and creates tons of collateral damage not only in terms of money, but in more untangible ways like environmental damage and human exploitation. You might think that it is "fair trade" but when an American or European multinational (that in plenty of cases get subsidies from their home countries) goes to another land and strips mine or extract their resources not only not paying fair market values, but involving in questionable labor, environmental and legal practices, it is not...