What moral attitude should we take toward Globalism?
From the American workers view the positive side of Globalism is that many workers worldwide in very poor countries will experience a significant increase in their standard of living because the manufacturing of certain products that were manufactured in America are manufactured in their country.
From the American workers view the negative side of Globalism is that the standard of living of many Americans will decline significantly because of the work that has gone to poor countries.
From the American capital owning and financial brokerage view Globalism is the best thing since sliced bread.
What moral judgment should all Americans take toward Globalism? I have no answers to this very difficult question. This is the type of question that leads some people, like me, to duck their moral principles.
I suspect that Americans with capital will reap great advantage from Globalism but working Americans will be net losers. The workers and the capital owning citizens in poor countries will be large net winners.
Full Version: What moral attitude should we take toward Globalism?
What any person succumbs to is what one believes is greater than their own potential.
Too many of the American people have become lazy and dependent on large manufacturers. The children have become spoiled by their parents who are addicted to the dream of being taken care of.
I used to belong the Aerospace Union when I worked for Boeing, and what I saw was that the Unions are a club that protects its own. The Union is more intent on keeping the Union alive, than it is in connecting the workers to the company. The more workers the more union dues.
When contract renewal between the workers and the Company came about, there was always the need to take more from the company to make it easier for the workers to take more from the system that was difficult to participate in if you weren't making a high wage.
Free dental, medical, vacations, sick leave, profit sharing, retirement programs, guaranteed employment and an ever increasing wage to keep the pace with inflation.
When I left the hourly payroll 12 years ago I was making $25.00 an hour and I wasn't at the top of my pay scale for my job description; that was closer to $30. That was 12 years ago. To some who make more than that it doesn't seem much, but to those that only make minimum wage it is a lot.
I was often working in an amongst other workers who were doing the minimum during the day, they would do just enough to look like they were keeping busy.
I'll always remember one woman who would get her cup of coffee and say out loud, "I aint gonna do a fuckin' thing today and no one can make me." She was a black woman who had threatened a supervisor with harassment when he told her to get to work. Being a minority in a time when the entire country was supersensitive about sexual and racial harassment, she was able to get the union to come to her rescue and leave her for the time, untouchable by supervision. So she could not be approached by anyone without her screaming to high heavens about discrimination and harassment.
There was another guy I knew who would grab a bicycle and disappear somewhere between the walls and materials of some back forty warehouse to sleep for a few hours before coming back for lunch or to clock out.
Employees who had seniority and had hired in before drug screening became mandatory for employment came to work High. Sometimes on psychedelics. One guy I worked with used to prop tool drawings against his tool box to hide his 3" portable TV that he watched with one eye while he used his other eye to watch for the supervisors.
I'm not saying that all people are lazy but I would say when I worked at Boeing a good percentage held quite an attitude against the company for failing to meet them in their expectations of being taken care of. They acted like spoiled children and took more from the company then they gave in effort to make the company profitable.
When the company began to outsource their work in the 70's and 80's the workers took on even more of an attitude and instead of working to keep jobs in house they did less forcing the company to find other means to stay profitable.
What I see is just the tip of the economic iceberg in greed and ignorance. Some of the U.S. people carry a false pride that extends from their egoic expectations rather than any serious accomplishment that they can be taken seriously for. In the little community where I live there are a great number of Mexican workers who do most of the service work. They work harder than I ever did, and I have an admiration for their humility and their drive. They are friendly and unlike most Americans who are too self absorbed in their own lives, willing to stop and help each other to make it through life.
The educational system is not achieving a good reputation for turning out smarter and more energetic people who are excited about creating jobs here in the country. Nor are the parents doing much to change their habits of ignoring the system, in hopes that they will deal with what they can't seem to control since discipline creates grounds for social cases of child abuse and the splitting up of families.
Do the kids today have any greater moral capacity to see beyond their own greed than their parents have in the last 4 decades?
I think all have potential but I also think there is something happening that has to happen, so that we do not become so lazy and addicted to expectations of being entertained at the cost of separating ourselves from humanity.
Too many of the American people have become lazy and dependent on large manufacturers. The children have become spoiled by their parents who are addicted to the dream of being taken care of.
I used to belong the Aerospace Union when I worked for Boeing, and what I saw was that the Unions are a club that protects its own. The Union is more intent on keeping the Union alive, than it is in connecting the workers to the company. The more workers the more union dues.
When contract renewal between the workers and the Company came about, there was always the need to take more from the company to make it easier for the workers to take more from the system that was difficult to participate in if you weren't making a high wage.
Free dental, medical, vacations, sick leave, profit sharing, retirement programs, guaranteed employment and an ever increasing wage to keep the pace with inflation.
When I left the hourly payroll 12 years ago I was making $25.00 an hour and I wasn't at the top of my pay scale for my job description; that was closer to $30. That was 12 years ago. To some who make more than that it doesn't seem much, but to those that only make minimum wage it is a lot.
I was often working in an amongst other workers who were doing the minimum during the day, they would do just enough to look like they were keeping busy.
I'll always remember one woman who would get her cup of coffee and say out loud, "I aint gonna do a fuckin' thing today and no one can make me." She was a black woman who had threatened a supervisor with harassment when he told her to get to work. Being a minority in a time when the entire country was supersensitive about sexual and racial harassment, she was able to get the union to come to her rescue and leave her for the time, untouchable by supervision. So she could not be approached by anyone without her screaming to high heavens about discrimination and harassment.
There was another guy I knew who would grab a bicycle and disappear somewhere between the walls and materials of some back forty warehouse to sleep for a few hours before coming back for lunch or to clock out.
Employees who had seniority and had hired in before drug screening became mandatory for employment came to work High. Sometimes on psychedelics. One guy I worked with used to prop tool drawings against his tool box to hide his 3" portable TV that he watched with one eye while he used his other eye to watch for the supervisors.
I'm not saying that all people are lazy but I would say when I worked at Boeing a good percentage held quite an attitude against the company for failing to meet them in their expectations of being taken care of. They acted like spoiled children and took more from the company then they gave in effort to make the company profitable.
When the company began to outsource their work in the 70's and 80's the workers took on even more of an attitude and instead of working to keep jobs in house they did less forcing the company to find other means to stay profitable.
What I see is just the tip of the economic iceberg in greed and ignorance. Some of the U.S. people carry a false pride that extends from their egoic expectations rather than any serious accomplishment that they can be taken seriously for. In the little community where I live there are a great number of Mexican workers who do most of the service work. They work harder than I ever did, and I have an admiration for their humility and their drive. They are friendly and unlike most Americans who are too self absorbed in their own lives, willing to stop and help each other to make it through life.
The educational system is not achieving a good reputation for turning out smarter and more energetic people who are excited about creating jobs here in the country. Nor are the parents doing much to change their habits of ignoring the system, in hopes that they will deal with what they can't seem to control since discipline creates grounds for social cases of child abuse and the splitting up of families.
Do the kids today have any greater moral capacity to see beyond their own greed than their parents have in the last 4 decades?
I think all have potential but I also think there is something happening that has to happen, so that we do not become so lazy and addicted to expectations of being entertained at the cost of separating ourselves from humanity.
My own view is that we should embrace globalism because it introduces more healthy competition. The people who are against globalism more often than not fear that their jobs will be taken over seas to foreign workers who will work for less or more efficiently. Naturally, lazy americans will be against globalism because that might mean they will actually have to start doing work to get paid.
What is globalism & globalization?
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2392
Joe Nye, former Dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, informs us: Globalism describes the existence of various forms of networks that interconnect multi-continental distances while globalization describes the degree of globalism. In short, Nye considers “Globalism as the underlying basic network, while globalization refers to the dynamic shrinking of distance on a large scale”… globalization is the process by which globalism becomes increasingly thick and/or intense.
There are four distinct dimensions of globalism: economic, which is the flow of goods and services; environmental, which is the effect upon the worlds environment and health; social, which is the flow of ideas and the effect of those ideas and ideologies upon the worlds cultures; and of course, there is the military dimension where power is displayed world wise by all cultures with such power.
Sailing a ship around on the ocean is amoral. When you pirate another ship then that action is immoral. Such is the same with the actions of corporations except most of those things that a corporation does that are immoral are generally legal.
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2392
Joe Nye, former Dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, informs us: Globalism describes the existence of various forms of networks that interconnect multi-continental distances while globalization describes the degree of globalism. In short, Nye considers “Globalism as the underlying basic network, while globalization refers to the dynamic shrinking of distance on a large scale”… globalization is the process by which globalism becomes increasingly thick and/or intense.
There are four distinct dimensions of globalism: economic, which is the flow of goods and services; environmental, which is the effect upon the worlds environment and health; social, which is the flow of ideas and the effect of those ideas and ideologies upon the worlds cultures; and of course, there is the military dimension where power is displayed world wise by all cultures with such power.
Sailing a ship around on the ocean is amoral. When you pirate another ship then that action is immoral. Such is the same with the actions of corporations except most of those things that a corporation does that are immoral are generally legal.
QUOTE
Such is the same with the actions of corporations except most of those things that a corporation does that are immoral are generally legal.
And sometimes politically motivated, toward the achievement of breaking down the rights and freedoms of the people, to increase not only profit but control and power.
QUOTE(coberst @ Nov 01, 2007, 02:13 AM) 
What moral attitude should we take toward Globalism?
...What moral judgment should all Americans take toward Globalism? I have no answers to this very difficult question. This is the type of question that leads some people, like me, to duck their moral principles.
Reading your comments three questions come to my mind:
Are moral principles something we can choose to duck?
In the face of moral issues, is it possible to be ammoral?
Are you asking if it is immoral to be an active globalist and support globalism?
GLOBALISM
IMO, globalism is a fact of life. It has been with us since our first ancestors began to travel, for whatever reason, to places beyond their horizon. How can modern people avoid being globalists? I suppose anyone who likes to travel and to buy things not made locally is a globalist. This makes me a globalist. Accepting this I need to ask myself: What kind of globalist do I choose to be? The answer to this question brings forth the moral issues having to do with the kind of justice which leads to lasting peace. It is said that, "bread (the stuff of life) for myself is a material question; bread for my fellow human beings is a spiritual, moral and ethical one."
GLOBALIZATION
What's new in the modern era is the rapid rate that globalization--the proliferation of globalism--is taking place.
From the complete article on globalization given below comes this interesting quote:
QUOTE
Writing in 1839, an English journalist commented on the implications of rail travel by anxiously postulating that as distance was €œannihilated, the surface of our country would, as it were, shrivel in size until it became not much bigger than one immense city€ (Harvey, 1996: 242). A few years later, Heinrich Heine, the émigré German-Jewish poet, captured this same experience when he noted: €œspace is killed by the railways. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea's breakers are rolling against my door€ (Schivelbusch, 1978: 34).
Reminds me of what the Marshall McLuhan, Canadian professor at the University of Toronto described in his book, Understanding Media... as, "The Global Village" (1964). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/
DEFINITION
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#Definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#Definition
QUOTE
Globalization can be defined as the worldwide integration of economic, cultural, political, religious, and social systems.
It should not be narrowly confused with economic globalization, which is only one aspect. While some scholars and observers of globalization stress convergence of patterns of production and consumption and a resulting homogenization of culture, others stress that globalization has the potential to take many diverse forms. In economics, globalization is the convergence of prices, products, wages, rates of interest and profits towards developed country norms.
Globalization of the economy depends on the role of human migration, international trade, movement of capital, and integration of financial markets. The International Monetary Fund notes the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions, free international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology. Theodore Levitt is usually credited with globalization's first use in an economic context.
It should not be narrowly confused with economic globalization, which is only one aspect. While some scholars and observers of globalization stress convergence of patterns of production and consumption and a resulting homogenization of culture, others stress that globalization has the potential to take many diverse forms. In economics, globalization is the convergence of prices, products, wages, rates of interest and profits towards developed country norms.
Globalization of the economy depends on the role of human migration, international trade, movement of capital, and integration of financial markets. The International Monetary Fund notes the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions, free international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology. Theodore Levitt is usually credited with globalization's first use in an economic context.
lindsay
I think that morality is very much a matter of choice. Some of us have been raised in a family where moral considerations are always uppermost and such individuals have a constant moral imperative staring them in the face. However, such families, I think, are rare and when we find them I suspect they have very absolutist and dogmatic forms of good and bad.
Much of our life is amoral. These parts of our life that have moral content can often be easily rationalized to suit our self-interest. We all probably have some moral forces working on us but we also have ego centric and social centric forces of equal or often stronger force.
I am primarily wishing to bring to the consciousness of the reader that globalization has a massive moral aspect to it. I am trying to elevate the consciousness of the average reader to the comprehension that much thought must be given to this matter and that much must be learned about it if we do accept that morality is an important aspect of all public policy.
Personally I think that reason cannot take us to the mode of stewardship that will save our civilization from self-destruction. I think that somehow we must integrate stewardship into the three major religions if we hope to save our species and our planet.
I think that morality is very much a matter of choice. Some of us have been raised in a family where moral considerations are always uppermost and such individuals have a constant moral imperative staring them in the face. However, such families, I think, are rare and when we find them I suspect they have very absolutist and dogmatic forms of good and bad.
Much of our life is amoral. These parts of our life that have moral content can often be easily rationalized to suit our self-interest. We all probably have some moral forces working on us but we also have ego centric and social centric forces of equal or often stronger force.
I am primarily wishing to bring to the consciousness of the reader that globalization has a massive moral aspect to it. I am trying to elevate the consciousness of the average reader to the comprehension that much thought must be given to this matter and that much must be learned about it if we do accept that morality is an important aspect of all public policy.
Personally I think that reason cannot take us to the mode of stewardship that will save our civilization from self-destruction. I think that somehow we must integrate stewardship into the three major religions if we hope to save our species and our planet.
QUOTE(lucid_dream @ Nov 01, 2007, 08:26 PM)
My own view is that we should embrace globalism because it introduces more healthy competition. The people who are against globalism more often than not fear that their jobs will be taken over seas to foreign workers who will work for less or more efficiently. Naturally, lazy americans will be against globalism because that might mean they will actually have to start doing work to get paid.
A board of directors would have to be very foolish not to consider moving an American factory overseas. The benefits include:
1. Weak or nonexistent environmental laws. No pollution control costs! Sure, mercury, lead, and dioxin poisoning and particulate-caused emphysema and lung cancer will decrease the healthy worker population slightly, but there will always be willing workers. They have no choice: work or starve.
2. Weak or nonexistent child labor laws. Really cheap labor!
3. Some countries even have really cheap prison labor available!
4. No labor unions! Hooray! The government just sends out the army and shoots the strikers! They get back in line really quickly.
It's a corporate paradise over there. America needs to become just like them to compete.
QUOTE(Rick @ Nov 05, 2007, 05:30 PM)
...It's a corporate paradise over there. America needs to become just like them to compete.
One international company (DOSCO) owned the iron ore mines. As there were no strikes, there was no need to shoot anyone. The shooting came in 1939 when our island was attacked twice by enemy submarines. They sank four iron ore carriers at anchor in our harbour and sixty-nine young merchant seamen lost their lives. Ironically, WW II, in which some of our youth did lose their lives, brought a kind of prosperity. Mining was considered like being in the armed forces. I earned enough money to get a start on getting an education.
Good, I had hoped it would be recognized as satire. The sacrifices of labor organizers of past generations led to a better life for many. In the Pullman strike, Illinois, in the 19th century, the US government sided with the company and used the Army to shoot strikers. I'm sure the stock holders were very pleased.
Rick, I read somewhere that satire is the favourite literary device of writers who are very angry--perhaps justifiably so--about what is going on in society around them.
Questions: Is this true? If so, what angers you, most? Maybe you could give us a list--in order of importance.
BTW, the NT indicates that Jesus was very angry, betimes.
Questions: Is this true? If so, what angers you, most? Maybe you could give us a list--in order of importance.
BTW, the NT indicates that Jesus was very angry, betimes.
QUOTE(Lindsay @ Nov 06, 2007, 03:38 PM)
Rick, I read somewhere that satire is the favourite literary device of writers who are very angry--perhaps justifiably so--about what is going on in society around them.
Questions: Is this true? If so, what angers you, most? Maybe you could give us a list--in order of importance.
BTW, the NT indicates that Jesus was very angry, betimes.
Indeed, Jesus virtually signed his own death warrant when he, in a fit of anger, upset the commerce within the temple. Expressing anger with satire is much more socially acceptable.
So I did a bit of satire on the need for coroporations to exploit unfortumate people in the never-ending quest for profit. One expects corporations to push the limits of morality in pursuit of profit. That's what their shareholders pay their CEOs to do. It's the job of justice-loving people everywhere to set the limits (by law) of what the corporations can get away with.
We don't like lead in our children's toys, so we have a law against that. Republicans don't like regulations, so they have slacked off on enforcing that particular law. Now it has the public's attention, so we can see a righteously angry backlash. People like to have their hard-won laws enforced. Remember this when you vote a year from now (in the USA), and vote Democratic for law and justice!
So here is my little bit of satire: What we sheeple need is to be governed by a pack of white wolves; the black wolves have had their turn. 
BTW, Canadian wolves are mostly gray.
BTW, Canadian wolves are mostly gray.
I agree with whoever said it--was it McLuhan?: It is important to think globally while remembering that we must always act locally.
BTW, this is one of the reasons why, IMO and as an intuitive economist, I feel it is crucial for us to understand what money is and how it functions. Perhaps we will then understand that in economic transactions, especially those we do locally, it is not necessary for us to use national currencies, exclusively. National currencies have their use but they are not the only way to do business. In thingking about this just ask yourself the question:
Should any one person or group be given the exclusive right to define the nature and function of money? What about the matter of the supply and control of the American and Canadian currency systems? From started to finish, how do our currencies get created and into circulation?
I PRESUME THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY AN EXPERT
IMPORTANT STUFF BY PROFESSOR BERNARD LIETAER,
economist and expert on central banking. Graduate of MIT.
===========================================
http://www.transaction.net/money/national/
BTW, this is one of the reasons why, IMO and as an intuitive economist, I feel it is crucial for us to understand what money is and how it functions. Perhaps we will then understand that in economic transactions, especially those we do locally, it is not necessary for us to use national currencies, exclusively. National currencies have their use but they are not the only way to do business. In thingking about this just ask yourself the question:
Should any one person or group be given the exclusive right to define the nature and function of money? What about the matter of the supply and control of the American and Canadian currency systems? From started to finish, how do our currencies get created and into circulation?
I PRESUME THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY AN EXPERT
QUOTE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency
In most cases, each country has monopoly control over the supply and production of its own currency. Member countries of the European Union's Economic and Monetary Union are a notable exception to this rule, as they have ceded control of monetary policy to the European Central Bank.
In cases where a country does have control of its own currency, that control is exercised either by a central bank or by a Ministry of Finance. In either case, the institution that has control of monetary policy is referred to as the monetary authority.
Monetary authorities have varying degrees of autonomy from the governments that create them. In the United States, the Federal Reserve System operates without direct interference from the legislative or executive branches.
It is important to note that a monetary authority is created and supported by its sponsoring government, so independence can be reduced or revoked by the legislative or executive authority that creates it. However, in practical terms, the revocation of authority is not likely.
In most cases, each country has monopoly control over the supply and production of its own currency. Member countries of the European Union's Economic and Monetary Union are a notable exception to this rule, as they have ceded control of monetary policy to the European Central Bank.
In cases where a country does have control of its own currency, that control is exercised either by a central bank or by a Ministry of Finance. In either case, the institution that has control of monetary policy is referred to as the monetary authority.
Monetary authorities have varying degrees of autonomy from the governments that create them. In the United States, the Federal Reserve System operates without direct interference from the legislative or executive branches.
It is important to note that a monetary authority is created and supported by its sponsoring government, so independence can be reduced or revoked by the legislative or executive authority that creates it. However, in practical terms, the revocation of authority is not likely.
IMPORTANT STUFF BY PROFESSOR BERNARD LIETAER,
economist and expert on central banking. Graduate of MIT.
===========================================
http://www.transaction.net/money/national/
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