Labor, Greed, & the Adequate Idea ( in response)

(BlogBlond asked some good questions on the previous post and I thought the response deserved a post of its own. Here goes. My head hasn’t been too clear of late, so please forgive the disjointed ramblings.)

Firstly, it is obvious that Mexicans benefit from coming to US to work. I have no complaint about Mexican labor other than the fact that a large supply of cheap labor drives down the wages of the workforce overall. That is a solid rule of economics called the Iron Rule of Labor Supply. I begrudge the Mexican, Chinese, Hindu, or Polish worker nothing. They work hard and good do work. Problem is, there isn’t enough work and Americans are having to work for less or finding current job markets flooded.

Working in the USA does provide better income than even the best factory jobs in Mexico. A recent study found that Mexican laborers in American-owned factories (in Mexico) did not have any significant increase in standard of living. In fact, some of them are experiencing the same troubles that Wal-mart’s Chinese workforce must endure. The cost of the product doesn’t go down for the consumer either, so where are the profits going? Certainly not to those who do the actual work. The low wage workers of Mexico still cannot afford the products they produce for American markets (many Americans can't either now.)

The Mexican government still operates as did most Latin American regimes until very recently. These governments portray themselves as quasi-socialist, but in fact are nothing more than fronts for the Euro-Anglo aristocracy that has ruled since Cortez. Much of American foreign policy in Latin America is designed to keep these corporate-friendly families in power. Vincente Fox is Irish-Spanish, with no native Mexican blood running through his veins. He is also not a socialist, but a member of the PAN, which is the political equilavant of the American Neocons. Thus, the close ties with GW Bush and Fox’s reluctance to stem immigration.

When one considers the incessant corporate American hatred for Castro, one begins to understand why that animosity runs so deep. Castro, by overthrowing the puppet Battista, defeated the American corporate interests that backed that horrible and abusive regime. We hear the same rhetoric today coming from the right wing regarding presidents Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. It is amazing what gets said when the white-Euros are suddenly no longer in charge. Castro remains the model for the new Latin America; a Latin America that sees through the lies and the exploitative politics of the Pinochets, Allendes, and Noreigas of yesteryear.

As to the Puritans, they seemed to have fared as well as other early colonists, so I’m not going to question their survival skills. The fact that they were required to survive made them survive. I don’t think the British government cared one bit if they made it or not. Either way, they were happy to be rid of them. Always send a crazy or desperate man to blaze a new trail. Rational people are too cautious for that sort of adventure.

The matter of upgrading skills is an important one. I find it insensitive of others who are doing well to point fingers at those who aren’t doing so well and expect them to endure undue hardship in order to achieve something. I find particularly distasteful when those same people, whilst enjoying the profits earned by someone else’s hard work, expect that worker to pay his bills, raise his children, pay his taxes, and then after all that, somehow find the time and resources to provide himself with an education. This becomes even more difficult when wages stagnate, jobs leave the country, and the cost of basic necessities and education continue to rise. One also has to consider the social difference between those who do and those who do not. The narrow-minded don’t take much into account when passing judgments on others in dire straits. The man who has never 'walked a mile in his shoes' now expects other men to run marathons while barefoot. It is crucial to recognize that times and circumstances change.

There is nothing humanitarian about forcing another human being into a difficult position for your own profit. That logic was applied by slave owners who felt that blacks couldn’t function on their own or were too savage to live freely and that slavery was, in their minds, a humanitarian effort to civilize the Africans. The Europeans felt the same way about colonoizing Africa and so did the Americans and Spanish regarding the ‘savages’ of the New World. History has already shown us the real reasons behind colonization. (Hint: It was shiny and metallic.) What could be so wrong with making life a little easier for everyone? It seems to me that the only persons who demand hard work are those who don’t perform it and stand to profit the most form other’s productivity. I see virtue in honest effort, but I find no merit in slaving for others. The logical end of capitalism is not economic freedom for everyone, for there would be no workers, but slavery; the most work for the lowest wage possible to increase profits.

Lastly, the unseen hand that wishes to remain unseen in all things is the hand that acts passively. To abet a criminal all I have to do is nothing. If I do that nothing from a safe distance, and I have no contact with the obvious perpetrators of said crime, then who is know that I am involved? This is quite a good plan until someone actually thinks about it. We charge absentee parents with abuse via neglect all the time. So too, should be be blaming the government for permitting anarachy at our borders. One has to ask why they would allow anarchy. I follow the money. Greed has a way of making people do very evil things in the world around them. Greedy people live without regard for others, as does anyone else whose addictions to sex, power, drugs, or gambling obscure the existence or well being of anyone who gets in their way. Greed is an illness that creates sociopaths. They truly believe that they are entitled by some divine right or principle to exploit others for profit.

One of my coworkers once wisely said “The price of freedom is that you will have to put up with all kinds of crooks trying to hustle you out of your dollar.” That’s a fact of life. The lovers of money didn’t create freedom. Freedom and liberty simply unleashed the money lovers onto everyone else. Capitalism didn’t create the freeedom, the freedom created capitalism as a side effect of allowing people to freely deal in goods, ideas, and services. In a rational society, that innate greed is not praised or envied, rather it is carefully regulated to assure that the inevitable abuses do not occur. We regulate many vices and greed should be no different.

Spinoza defined ‘intuition’ as the ability to use adeqaute ideas to see things for what they really are. He also doubted that many people were endowed with this ability and that those who don’t have it will, out of their own passions, staunchly defend any façade that serves their own interests. The modern-day capitalist relies on slick marketing and pseudo-philosophy to keep us all very busy on his behalf. To quote John Maynard Keynes, "Capitalism is the amazing notion that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the benefit of everyone."

Rant over for now.

Kol Tuv