Literature - Starting a Thread

[David Banks]

OK, OK, I confess. I read a book, maybe once a year, maybe less, maybe more now that I'm sort of retired!

I have two O-level Englishes - the second one was for failing the Higher level. Thankyou to the teachers at THS for trying.

Even if I do start a thread, I should wait until I've at least finished the book. I shouldn't let myself get so caught up by a book as to start a thread when I am only halfway through the stupid thing.

Does anybody else around here feel a bit of a twit. at times?

[John Little]

Well I don't think you are a twit. If a book catches your imagination so that you want to start a thread and tell people about it, then I say good for you!

There's also the point that as you progress further through the books your perceptions, interpretations and images change - and could make for good discussion. I am reading a biography right now; I started by disliking the man for his reputation. Then I liked the man for his industry and organisation. At the moment I pity him because he's being naive....

I don't think he's worth a thread but that's just me.

O levels schmo-levels... a good book needs no qualifications...

Do I ever feel a twit? Sometimes but rarely - I'm too old to get into twit situations these days.

[David Banks]

Well I don't think you are a twit. If a book catches your imagination so that you want to start a thread and tell people about it, then I say good for you!

There's also the point that as you progress further through the books your perceptions, interpretations and images change - and could make for good discussion. I am reading a biography right now; I started by disliking the man for his reputation. Then I liked the man for his industry and organisation. At the moment I pity him because he's being naive....

I don't think he's worth a thread but that's just me.

O levels schmo-levels... a good book needs no qualifications...

Do I ever feel a twit? Sometimes but rarely - I'm too old to get into twit situations these days.

Thanks John for all you said.
I've finished the book in question - see thread "The Shock Doctrine."
I must admit that the early parts of the book really got my attention - got my dander up so to speak - and left me wondering where all the lawsuits were in that litigious country to the south of Canada.
Instead, maybe this is what they call free speech? If I was a citizen of the US, this book would certainly have got me riled-up and good; alternatively I would have seen it as just part of the left-right blue-red battle of idealogies.

[John Little]

I have not read the book but it sounds like some of the Chomsky I've pored over. My wife and I have just switched over to the Co-op bank for our account because they refuse to invest in what they see as unethical business. And they also get top ratings in Which reports for customer satisfaction too.

I have no problem with Capitalism as such; we owe it a lot. But what Ted Heath called its unacceptable face I do object to. Exploitation and sweated labour; and globalisation that causes people in this country to lose jobs as their corporations switch to China- they annoy me.

I can never forget that James Dyson closed his UK factory at the cost of over 600 british jobs and moved his whole concern to China- and I will not buy one of his machines, no matter how good they are.
Sure - it's good business for him, but capitalism does not exist in a vacuum. Responsible capitalists know that they are using the infrastructure and skills of the societies they live in to make their money, and- as I see it- it is incumbent on them to pay a bit back to ensure the continued health of those societies.

To sack workers and debase our manufacturing industries for the sake of balance books, causing unemployment, over reliance on financial dealings in our economies, and lack of opportunities for our new generations, to me is wrong. So is shipping in cheap foreign labou because they don't want to pay british labour costs. The labourer is worthy of his hire.

What is the solution to Globalisation?

Depends on what the purpose of industry/capital is. Is it to create richer and healthier societies with increasing standards of living? Or to line the pockets of people who already have a lot of money?

[David Banks]

I’ve heard of Chomsky, but have not read any of his works. I see he was born in 1928, and wonder if he has written anything recently. I liked Shock Doctrine because it is about the recent world I only glanced at from the news whilst I was being a bit of a workaholic. I found it enlightening to have even one person’s views about what she thought had really been going on in various South American countries, Indonesia, China, Poland, Russia and South Africa (to mention a few); also her view that, during the recent G. W. Bush years, any government activity that could be done by a profit-making company should be done by such companies eg: in the new Homeland Security “Industry.” Thereby turning government into an almost empty shell.

I admire your choice to give your banking needs to an ethical organization. I tend to listen to my kids (in their 20’s and 30’s) about stores, coffee shops, and other organizations who act ethically in the rest of the world, but I should give it more consideration.

In Shock Doctrine, the problem was for governments, who needed financing, being forced by the World Bank or the IMF that they had to first institute laissez-faire capitalist policies into law before loans would be approved. And they were provided by economists trained in the philosophy of Milton Friedman from Chicago.

I’m in the middle of watching a series of lectures (from The Teaching Company) (here I go again, not having finished something) entitled “Thinking about capitalism.” Even the Scotsman Adam Smith, who wrote the Wealth of Nations, had warnings about capitalism when uncontrolled by governments. People will pursue their own self-interest wherever it takes them.
Quote:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Unquote.

“Responsible Capitalists” first responsibility is to their shareholders. Their communities and wider society get only what is imposed upon companies by governments, as I see it. One place where I think individual consumers can have an impact is in the purchase of locally produced and organic food products. This avoids many negative effects, including the costs of long distance transportation and the use of illegal workers to gather the crops at very low wages e.g.: in the southern US.

It seems to me that companies moved to globalization long before governments recognized that it was unfair trade to allow competition by foreign “sweat shop” companies who did not have to meet similar employee benefits, environmental and sustainability regulations.
To be honest, I think governments did know that the trade deals they were signing were for unfair trade, but that lobbying from the likes of the Walmarts of this world swayed the legislators to let it pass.

Good thing I’m not a cynic.

[John Little]

David; I am at work and busy so will answer you in detail tonight. Chomsky I saw lecture a few years ago and was very impressed; as far as I know he is still very much active- an acerbic observer of world events;

http://www.chomsky.info/books.htm

[John Little]

Now I have a certain amount of leisure though I do have some work to do - I classify this as leisure time because I do it for enjoyment. I look forward 18 months because I am going to retire from my current job, take a pension and start a new career - I hope to write books for I have three of them buzzing round in my head. It may be that no-one will read them but what the hell- it's what I want to do.,,,

Anyway- I think it's more than just corporations. I think it dawned on the leaders of the west during WW2 that you can control outcomes on this planet far more effectively than by conquering countries or by having your soldiers occupy other lands- you use cash to do it. The meetings at Dumbarton Oaks and Bretton Woods in 1944 set up the world bank and the International monetary fund - and they hold the strings of the purse in the international finance system If you are outside it then you are stuffed! It's actually neo-colonialism.

I remember reading a document penned by Paul Nitze, the author of NSC8, that the US currently (1948) controls 85% of the world's raw materials. 'We must bend every effort, regardless of principle, to ensure the continuance of this situation..." Which made quite an impression on me.

And of course it's why the US has to control the UN. The US president cannot declare war unless the US is attacked- but can be requested to intervene by the UN if it passes a resolution calling for the use of force against a country.... Since the UN is nothing more than a massive back scratching organisation it follows that the country capable of scratching most backs dominates the organisation.

The revolutionary Hamilcar Cabral, when he was fighting against Portugal in the 70s for the freedom of Guinea-Bissau told his followers that life would be better when he was president because he would not sell their cacao to chocolate companies for below a fair price. When he became president he tried it and found that the Chocolate companies would not pay his price and went elsewhere. They set the price - and in the end he had to accept it- so although Guinea-Bissau was no longer controlled by Europeans they still had to toe the line.

So it ain't just Walmart. What motivated the US to do this in the 1940s was fear of the return of the Depression as 12.5 million servicepeople came home. They wanted to stay in power- to avoid revolution - and the best way of doing it was exploitation.


Ernest Bevin was far more open. In the British Cabinet in 1946 he proposed an alliance of European states with African empires - they would exploit Africa ruthlessly to rebuild war-torn Europe. But in the end the economists prevailed, countries got their independence- but western capitalism pulled the strings.

I don't think it has changed very much- we are well insulated from the reality of it and tut-tut any suggestions of sweated labour in the developing world - but our high standards of living depend on it.

Should we grumble?

[David Banks]

You must be close to my age - I was born in Jabuary '47.

You have three books buzzing around in your head? - for one, I'll read them - promise!

The source of the idealogy behind the Shock Doctrine was not the (US) corporations per se, but the post-Keynesian, laissez-faire economic philosophy of Milton Friedman - which spread to economists he trained and hence to IMF, World Bank and students from e.g.: South America (as I understand Klein's thesis).

[John Little]

I may get around to reading it one day - it sounds interesting. I am not an economist, but post Keynesianism laissez faire puts my hackles up. It harks back to old Liberalism and it implies lack of responsibility - or rather denial of it. If Capitalism is not responsible in the societies it operates in, then it just becomes greed. Laissez faire economics operate for the benefit of the few - and if they exploit the mass of people too much they cause social upheaval and revolution.
Responsible capitalism knows this and puts back into the community. Robert Owen had it right at New Lanark- an example that deserves resurrection.

I was born in 53 - my wife in 47- so yes we are near in age.

My three books are not yet written- but I'll let you know when the first one is ready. I doubt it will interest you much. I intend to read old newspapers in Somerset and tell the stories of local heroes long forgotten.