[PEN-L:759] Re: The Political Consequences of Bhoddi

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

		To whom...,



	The question is not one of capitulating to the multinationals, but
of simply realizing that they are a fact of life, and so is the modern
industrial economy.  The question is not buying foreign floor wax for dirt
floors but building, for example, factories that process local woods to
make modern laminate flooring instead of selling raw logs.  The East Asian
"tiger"  economies didn't capitulate to the West, but Toyota didn't start
out in the luxury car business either.  You don't go into businesses -
like soft drinks - where you are simply trying to do direct substitution.
Coke is good at what they do.  Let them do it and let developing economies
find other things to do.

	Import substitution is just bad economics.  Who would council
anyone to go into the wheat business right now (or corn or soybeans for
that matter)?  Of course there has to be some local agriculture but
developing countries don't need to learn to crawl when they can already
run industrial factories.  Why is it that capitalists can open modern
factories in developing nations but well-meaning leftists want to improve
peasant farming techniques.  You can improve peasant farming until it's
perfect but you're putting a silk hat on a pig.  Peasant farming sucks.
It's a miserable life and no reasonable person who is not looking for
asceticism wants to engage in it.

	What we produce *obviously* determines a very large part of our
relations with the rest of the world.  Right now the working people are
alienated from that intercourse.  That doesn't mean Coca-Cola the soft
drink is evil - or the way it's produced, or the people who produce it.
The corporation is evil, but that is an entirely different issue.

	What I am saying fundamentally is that leftists have to stop this
absolute association of commerce with capitalism.




	peace