Gay Marriage

[Chaerophon]

How do we stop exploitation? Well, stop allowing yourself to be exploited. We have all known people who continuously allow other people to walk all over them. So, yeah, sometimes that means you have to be willing to fight or die for what you believe is right.

Your Americo-centric elitism is showing here. America was possessed of ideal socioeconomic conditions to facilitate revolution, and let's face it, a large part of the revolution concerned the right of the American bourgeois to expand ownership control over domestic resources. No such domestic industrial infrastructure exists, for example, in the Phillipines. Whereas Americans were previously British subjects and thus attributed some freedom in capacity building, Phillipinos are a cheap source of labour. That's all.

It's hard to critique your solutions however, as you offer no opinion other than to denigrate mine.

I'm not sure that I have solutions. Concrete theoretical solutions from a given rational perspective are overrated. However, understanding the way in which power structures and political agents function and exploit is key to debunking certain other concrete ideological perspectives, and only through the mass dispersal of such knowledge is the toppling of the neoliberal propaganda machine a possibility. Just so you know, I'm not a Communist. I do, however, believe that the purpose of the state should be to protect the quality of life of its citizenry rather than solely to facilitate capitalist interest. Contrary to globalist claims, if we really want to make efforts toward the utopian goal of the spread of social justice, peace and equality worldwide, I would argue that the nation state must be the fundamental unit of analysis from within which domestic parties may make claims for social change. Capacity building takes place as a function of groups obtaining a political voice within the context of the nation-state. As current neoliberal trade frameworks currently stand in the periphery/semi-periphery, internal voices are constrained by executive committments made at a supranational level and democracy is hampered all along the way by threats of alienation from the so-called "big fish".

So... can these people do it for themselves? I would say no, they need a fundamental shift in attitude from the Western world for that pipe dream to become a reality. Is that likely? Not at all; thus, my opinion that there really aren't any immediate solutions that pop to mind. Talking about it is sure fun though.

Unfortunately, we only have one historical example to review in 20/20 hindsight, that of a "Keynesian demand-side" post world war construction boon culminating in "supply-side Reaganomics". I imagine that other economic policy possibilities may have also been successful.

Well, other economic public policy possibilities didn't eventuate because they weren't as much to the benefit of domestic industry as was the public funding of industry/capacity building. Besides which, that's a little bit beside the point. Now that there is such a gap in terms of capital and technology between the "big fish" and 'developing' "little fish", Keynesianism is a tool that has outlived its use. Cheap labour abounds, and all one need do is cross the ocean to get it. Diminishing returns is a partial myth. While it is, logistically speaking, true, the nature of capitalist investment in the third world is transitory and external, meaning that it is not domestic "capacity building" as such, but rather, providing them with the tools by which to supply the western world with cheap goods. Because it does little to improve their own capital stock, it does little to improve their social conditions, and so there is, as of yet, very little in the way of a "catch-up" effect. In fact, apart from the case of the "Asian Tigers", where domestic protectionism provided them a little bit of leeway in the pre-neoliberal reality of the modern era, the cheap labour of the third world has benefitted the global North far more than the South, and the gap has widened rather than shrunk between us.

What is appealing to me about libertarianism is that each individual takes responsibility for their own success, and expects that the State will not overly impede them and similiarly does not expect State sponsored handouts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for personal responsibility. However, what is unappealing about libertarianism to me is that it drags individualist rhetoric into a world of power relations over which the average lone individual, or even an assemblage of such individuals holds little to no control. The reality of what I call the Libertarian vision is that through its prioritization of property rights over any other societally determined rights, it would facilitate the continued control of dominant groups and individuals while robbing the rest of society of its voice. Ideological Libertarianism is a reductionist neoliberal protective sham, disguising exploitation and the status quo in the garb of 'personal responsibility' or 'individualism'. It would do nothing to protect the hard working; rather, it would reward the lucky and the powerful while robbing the rest of society of their right to appeal on the basis of collective shared sentiment.

Natural selection has no place in a world of inheritances and dynasties.

A society as wealthy as the US can afford to put in place some social safety nets to cushion those who fail, and help them get back into the game. I'm ok with that as long as those safety nets aren't hammocks.

I hate to point it out, but the US loses out far more every year from the wealthy few cheating on their taxes than it does from those who would use welfare as a 'hammock'.

If I do find this book I will read it, but I'm a bit too skeptical to just be guided by one academic elitists opinion. Neo-liberal Globalism And It's Challengers : Sustainability In The Semi-periphery

Good idea, Laxer is brilliant.

Just a hunch on my part, but I would expect that NAFTA has had a dramatic effect on the price of automobiles in Canada.

I would rather pay a bit more for cars and have retained the jobs, identificatory institutions (i.e. health care, our right to cultural protection a la UNESCO) and domestic control that we have lost or will soon lose under NAFTA.

Your economic evidence will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then...