[jaws]

And all interventions in trade are ultimately bad for the population of the countries involved. Trade is conducted because actors in the trade find mutual benefit. If they didn't why would they go through the hassle of conducting trade? Government laws restricting trade only make people poorer.

This links very nicely to your second question, which is why sweatshops existed in 19th century England. The liberal economists had just started demonstrating why the plethora of government restrictions on trade and free enterprise were creating the massive unemployment and pauperism in England and everywhere in Europe. The workers in sweatshops were actually liberated by this work because their only alternative was being homeless and surviving as thieves and beggars. The old medieval system had nothing to offer them. They were outcasts. In time the factories became increasingly more productive through innovation and capital accumulation, and the wages of the workers rose significantly to the point where their status was envied by those who had remained part of the agricultural class.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'A')nd all interventions in trade are ultimately bad for the population of the countries involved. Trade is conducted because actors in the trade find mutual benefit. If they didn't why would they go through the hassle of conducting trade? Government laws restricting trade only make people poorer.

This links very nicely to your second question, which is why sweatshops existed in 19th century England. The liberal economists had just started demonstrating why the plethora of government restrictions on trade and free enterprise were creating the massive unemployment and pauperism in England and everywhere in Europe. The workers in sweatshops were actually liberated by this work because their only alternative was being homeless and surviving as thieves and beggars. The old medieval system had nothing to offer them. They were outcasts. In time the factories became increasingly more productive through innovation and capital accumulation, and the wages of the workers rose significantly to the point where their status was envied by those who had remained part of the agricultural class.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'O')f course I can. I've told you many times before it has to do with the basics required for markets to function effectively. Openess, transparency and information.

[rogerhb]

I think all car adverts on TV should be required to contain information useful to the consumer:

So while you have the background music and la-de-da images of a car zooming on an empty road you have the mpg for town-use and mpg for open road emblazoned on the screen in orange letters, then once the girl has got out of the car and received the bunch of flowers or what ever the image was about, you show the last 10 seconds of a crash-test at 70mph for that particular model.

That should make all the capitalists happy!

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', '
')What are your feelings on capital accumulation vs. capital investment in an industrializing country? I've oft heard the argument that because so much of our own economic growth came 'from within', there was a sense of ownership and pride instilled in the capitalist citizens of a community, a sense of ownership not found in sweatshops plopped down by foreign capitalists on faraway lands. I think the notion has credence, especially when you consider how multinational corporations make business decisions (i.e., 20,000 jobs cut) vs. how local businesses make decisions. There's more than profits at play in this situation.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'W')hat escapes most people is that the sweatshops in foreign lands are owned by local entrepreneurs! What does an Nike executive in New York know about running a business in China? Absolutely nothing. He needs a partner entrepreneur in China to operate there. These entrepreneurs build factories and hire labor at the market price to produce items for their multinational business partners. It is these small, local businesses that the anti-globalization crowd complains the loudest about. It is these small local businessmen who are responsible for possible abuse of rights in their workplace. Not the multinationals. The multinationals just do what everyone else does, go looking for the market partner offering the best deal.

[MrBill]

<There are plenty of problems in Africa, a major one being that national boundaries are set on the leftovers of European colonisation and not on tribal boundaries.>

Not to change the topic, but this is an oft repeated line of reasoning with little or not basis in facts that matter. Other former colonial countries were freed from the yoke of their masters and have thrived not languished. Some in Asia for example. Secondly, in many of these said countries, they are markedly poorer now than in say, 1965, when many of them were liberated in one way or another. Also, over the past 40-years African leaders have had enough chances to change those artificial borders along tribal lines. Have they? Well, a lot of civil wars have been fought in any case.

That is not to belittle real problems, but these arguments deflect blame away from African leaders who should be addressing them. Instead they support thugs like Mugabe who has turned a middle income country into a desperately poor country under just 25-years of black rule. For shame on leaders like him, so no need to blame just the west or just the Europeans or just others who manage their economies better.

Of course, high fuel prices hurt the poorest the most. That is a truism not an insight.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'A')s I've mentionned before there is no such thing as an ideal capitalist society. Capitalism is only a principle meaning private property and free trade. The alternative to capitalism is socialism, meaning government property and government monopoly. A capitalist market can coexist with a socialist enterprise, but there is no third way.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'W')ell, we've all heard of the deals that Wal-Mart cuts with its suppliers - hardly fair. Every year the product must have either more features or WM will cut the price they're willing to pay for the product. It's in part why we have 10 different flavors of toothpaste for sale now, amongst other garbage. By doing this, WM ensures that the local sweatshop owners won't have any additional incentive to raise worker pay or eliminate child labor. WM is hardly an innocent bystander in the process. And to suggest that the sweatshop could begin selling to Target or Sears or whatever is ludicrous. WM's stranglehold on the market ensures that they will be served with ever-cheapening labor costs on goods made in Asia, as many of those sweatshops can't afford not to sell their goods to WM.

[Macsporan]

What they actually do is use their superior mobility to move to the country that offers the worst wages and conditions to its workers.

Its called the race to the bottom.

This is what Jaws calls progress.

Perhaps he should put his money where his mouth in and work in one of these sweatshops for three months or so.

This might knock the shine off his admiration for capitalist bestiality.

[jaws]

Macsporan why would a company move from a country where wages are at subsistence level to another country where wages are at subsistence level? There are significant capital expenditures involved in doing so. It's a loss-maker for sure.

The only explanation is that the country they left has experienced significant wage increases resulting from capital accumulation. In this case there isn't a race to the bottom, there is a race to the top! That's exactly what happened in the past 50 years in South Korea, Taiwan, Honk Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. They were all cheap labor havens once. Now they are major players in the world economy.

[Lehyina]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '
')
The only explanation is that the country they left has experienced significant wage increases resulting from capital accumulation. In this case there isn't a race to the bottom, there is a race to the top! That's exactly what happened in the past 50 years in South Korea, Taiwan, Honk Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. They were all cheap labor havens once. Now they are major players in the world economy.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lehyina', 'D')uring the same transition the per capita oil consumptions of each of these nations (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia) increased of the order 10 to 15 times. The ability to fuel their race to the top on cheap, abundant oil was a huge advantage.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'I')f cheap fuel was what it took to become wealthy then every country would have become wealthy in the early 20th century. The causation goes the other way. You have to become wealthy to afford the fuel that you want to use.

[jaws]

Conclusion 3.

All the thieves were lurking around the rich neighborhoods because thieving in a poor neighborhood is a waste of time.

[Lehyina]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lehyina', 'D')uring the same transition the per capita oil consumptions of each of these nations (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia) increased of the order 10 to 15 times. The ability to fuel their race to the top on cheap, abundant oil was a huge advantage.

[Starvid]

Excerpt:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ith oil prices hitting record levels of US$70 per barrel in recent weeks, major energy consuming countries are engaging in an increasingly heated competition for energy resources on the world stage. Nowhere is this more evident than between the United States and China, the world's first and second largest energy consuming countries respectively. In the contest for energy resources, numerous "stages" of competition are emerging, including the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, and the East and South China Seas. However, Africa is fast emerging as one of the most volatile stages of Sino-U.S. energy competition, given its vast reserves of energy resources and concentration of internal security crises.

[NTBKtrader]

The fuel crisis has driven South Africa's economy to its knees, the Automobile Association said on Friday, as the major transport artery between Cape Town and Johannesburg became jammed at Beaufort West.

AA spokesman Gary Ronald blamed the fuel industry for "bringing the economy to a standstill".
link

[Falconoffury]

Interesting article, but I would advise that you do not use "SA" as an abbreviation for "South Africa" because it is commonly used on these message boards to abbreviate Saudi Arabia.

[advancedatheist]

Has anyone documented in a systematic way the swath of destruction Peak Oil has already started to cause in the world's weaker countries? I'd like to see some effort going into this comparable to the project to monitor the progress of "bird flu" around the world.