RE: Jonathan Swift returns

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Jonathan Swift's satire was aimed at preaching to the non-converted. This
one doesn't end up that way, since it rapidly gets into leftist jargon
(e.g., "core" and "periphery"). (Besides, a lot of this proposal has already
come true, as with folks in Guatemala giving blood that ends up in the U.S.)

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Murray [mailto:seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 4:47 PM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:24551] Jonathan Swift returns
>
>
> < http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/579/op10.htm >
> Comparative advantages
> Inspired by the Monterrey conference, M Shahid Alam* suggests
> new and efficient uses for the surplus
> bodies of the underdeveloped world
>
>
> '... it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide
> for them [Irish children] in such a
> manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the
> parish, or wanting food and raiment
> for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary
> contribute to the feeding, and partly to the
> clothing, of many thousands.' -- Jonathan Swift, A Modest
> Proposal (1729)
>
> The world has never shown a greater, more deeply felt
> solicitude for the wretched of the earth --
> the hundreds of millions who die miserable deaths on less
> than a dollar a day -- as it has in the
> six months since 11 September. These concerns were showcased
> at the Conference on Financing
> Development underway last week in Monterrey, Mexico, where
> the heads of the richest, most powerful
> nations appended their signatures to a "consensus" on how to
> eradicate global poverty in our
> lifetime.
>
> It is indeed gratifying that the core countries, so soon
> after the dastardly attacks of 11
> September, have recovered their sense of the great civilising
> mission inaugurated by Christopher
> Columbus, and are once again fully seized of the few
> remaining tasks that still demand their
> attention. In the first aftermath of the 11 September
> attacks, it had appeared that the righteous
> anger of the American public -- which never fails to produce
> great consequences when it is unjustly
> provoked -- would incinerate any country even remotely
> connected to the hijackers. Thankfully,
> President Bush was fully apprised of the need to placate this
> great Moloch. Having accomplished this
> task quickly and brilliantly -- by scattering Al-Qa'eda and
> their Taliban hosts to the four winds --
> he has now joined his war against terrorism with a war on poverty.
>
> In case my reference to America's anger is misconstrued, I
> wish to make it clear that I consider
> this response justified in the fullest measure. This anger
> was justified because of all the burdens
> the United States has carried in the past, the most important
> has been advancing the West's
> universal project of civilising the rest of the world. We
> have intervened repeatedly, by force of
> arms as well as stealth, to make the world safe for
> capitalism. No great power in the recorded
> history of mankind has dedicated itself so selflessly -- and,
> may I add, ceaselessly -- to
> propagating freedom; but unlike romantics, anarchists, and
> other muddle-heads, we have never pursued
> these goals in reckless disregard of the native conditions
> which sustain free institutions. American
> presidents have never lost sight of the fundamental principle
> that the lesser breeds will never be
> ready for freedom until they can first embrace free markets,
> free trade, and free mobility of
> capital across national frontiers.
>
> In the pursuit of these great goals, the United States has
> waged a relentless campaign since the
> start of the 20th century to rid the world of its chief
> scourges: in succession, these have included
> fascism, communism, and a hundred insidious chauvinisms.
> Having engineered the collapse of Soviet
> Union in 1990, and finally established the firm foundations
> on which the world could build a
> millennium of prosperity, the least the US could expect from
> the rest of the world was gratitude,
> and a vote of thanks for establishing an epoch of
> unprecedented prosperity based on irreversible
> globalisation.
>
> So when the terrorists struck on 11 September, bringing down
> the twin symbols of the world's
> financial capital and the military headquarters that make the
> world safe for capitalism, Americans
> were understandably in deep shock. They were dismayed,
> discomfited and disoriented. Those who
> understand their inconsolable sorrow could scarcely blame
> Americans if they responded with a sense
> of outrage, or if their demand for justice occasionally
> sounded like a call for vengeance.
>
> After this clarification, I wish to return to the subject of
> the Monterrey Consensus. On my first
> reading of this historic document, I was moved to tears by
> the grand vision of its framers; and
> every one of its 11 printed pages carries stains to prove the
> depth of my gratitude. Each one of the
> goals of this consensus -- "to eradicate poverty, achieve
> sustained growth and promote sustainable
> development as we advance to a fully inclusive and equitable
> economic system" -- deserves to be
> inscribed permanently in laser lights on the night sky so
> that it may be read in all quarters of the
> world.
>
> More incredibly, each one of these goals is faithfully
> translated into a stunning array of policy
> recommendations. Space prevents me from listing all; but each
> one deserves our attention. The
> Monterrey Consensus calls for "collaboration among all
> stakeholders," and "national and global
> economic systems based on the principles of justice, equity,
> democracy, participation, transparency,
> accountability, and inclusion." It urges corporations "to
> take into account not only the economic
> and financial but also the developmental, social, gender and
> environmental implications of their
> undertakings." It welcomes the "WTO's decisions to place the
> needs and interests of developing
> countries at the heart of the WTO Work Programme." It calls
> on developed countries "to provide
> duty-free and quota-free access for all LDC [least- developed
> country] exports." It demands that
> "immediate attention should go to strengthening and ensuring
> the meaningful and full participation
> of developing countries, especially the LDCs, in multilateral
> negotiations." Finally, amongst many
> other equally weighty recommendations, the consensus urges
> "developed countries ... to make concrete
> efforts toward the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP as ODA [aid]
> to developing countries."
>
> For hours after reading the consensus I was ecstatic,
> overwhelmed by visions of the new global
> economy it would help to create. But being a realist, I had
> to pull myself together. While the
> consensus will always be remembered as a testament to the
> vision of its signatories, I know that
> this vision will unfold only slowly, and not because there
> are forces that will obstruct the
> progress of the poor countries. I have to acknowledge that
> this progress, as in the past, will be
> hindered by the refractory cultures -- still struggling to
> cope with modernity -- that continue to
> clog the wheels of progress in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
>
> This retreat from euphoria, however, does not lead to
> pessimism. On the contrary, I rest confident
> in the thought that the new wave of globalisation that began
> in the 1990s is more inclusive and more
> durable than any we have seen in the past. It is more durable
> because it is managed by multilateral
> institutions -- the IMF, the World Bank, and WTO -- rather
> than a gaggle of great powers. In turn,
> these institutions derive their legitimacy from the US, as
> benign a hegemon as there ever existed in
> the annals of human history.
>
> It is this global economy that has created the prospect for a
> new international division of labour,
> one that, I hope to demonstrate, will reverse the
> marginalisation of the periphery. At this point,
> the orthodox economist is likely to yawn since this is what
> his theory of international trade has
> always predicted. That is not a prediction that anyone would
> contest lightly, since orthodox
> economics always takes great care to choose assumptions which
> guarantee its results. My concern at
> the moment, however, is with the real world. And though this
> concern is not valid in the eyes of
> orthodox economists -- and rightly so, since their function
> is to provide impenetrable
> justifications for the world as it is -- this writer feels
> that we may be allowed occasional
> glimpses of the real world, especially when it is thrust upon
> us violently, as it was by the
> suicidal hijackers of 11 September.
>
> Now while the arguments favouring free trade remain
> unassailable -- and I cannot emphasise this
> enough -- some countries on the periphery have perversely
> failed to benefit from the global economy.
> There are two reasons for this, quite unrelated to any
> asymmetries in the workings of the global
> system. Rather, driven by irrational fears, their xenophobic
> leaders have chosen to shut off their
> people from energising contacts with foreign capital. But
> even when free trade was thrust upon them
> by European powers -- motivated only by Christian altruism --
> their response has been sluggish at
> best. As Sir Arthur Lewis has so brilliantly explained, they
> could derive no benefits from their
> primary exports because they failed to raise their
> productivity in food.
>
> The countries of the periphery have paid dearly for their
> failures. Starting from positions of near
> parity in 1800, they have been falling behind the core
> countries ever since, so that in 1999 the gap
> between high-income and low-income countries stood at 63 to
> one. It is testimony to global
> capitalism's power to generate unremitting growth -- a power
> that Karl Marx glimpsed quite early
> on -- that the owners of dogs and cats in the core countries
> spend considerably more on their pets
> than most parents in the periphery can spend on their
> children. These disparities offer a sobering
> measure of the opportunities for growth squandered by the periphery.
>
> But all is not lost for the periphery. Global capitalism does
> not consign sinners to eternal
> perdition: it is continuously creating new opportunities and
> inviting past sinners to make a fresh
> start. When the core countries first prospered in the 18th
> century, this created demand for the
> periphery's sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa and tobacco. Later,
> when the industrial revolution got
> underway, this translated into a massive demand for wheat,
> cotton, jute, sisal, and vegetable oils.
> Even some core countries organised to meet this demand. This
> created a huge demand for workers in
> the periphery; most notably, millions of underemployed
> Africans found themselves permanently
> employed in the plantations of the United States and the
> Caribbean. Finally, as the core countries
> accelerated their growth in the 1950s, they generously let go
> of their most labour- intensive
> industries. Those countries that embraced this opportunity
> with laissez-faire policies are now the
> miracle economies of East Asia. Thus, growth in the core
> countries has never failed to transmit its
> dynamic impulse to the periphery.
>
> And now a variety of developments in the core have converged
> to create vast new opportunities for a
> new international division of labour. First I will draw your
> attention to advances in the medical
> field that have made organ transplants safe, and that are
> generating drugs and cosmetic products
> derived from foetal tissues and body waste. This has created
> growing demand for a variety of body
> parts and body waste (BPWs). At present, the body parts in
> greatest demand include heart valves,
> livers, kidneys, corneas, skin, ova, sperm, bone marrow, and
> muscle tissue. A variety of body wastes
> are also in growing demand, including foetuses, brain cells,
> umbilical cords, foreskins, placentas
> and infected cells. As the core countries get richer, as
> their incomes become more skewed, and as
> their population ages, we can safely predict a sustained
> growth in the global demand for BPWs.
>
> This growing demand for BPWs carries an enormous -- and I
> would hasten to add, unprecedented --
> opportunity for growth in the poorest of the poor countries.
> A simple application of the standard
> theory of international trade would suggest that the
> production of BPWs will occur in the poorest
> countries of the periphery. The logic is quite transparent.
> The production of BPWs, since these are
> harvested from the bodies of workers, is a very strongly
> labour-intensive activity; and since labour
> is cheapest in the poorest countries, the global markets will
> ensure that their production is
> concentrated in the these countries.
>
> Quite apart from its tremendous economic advantages, this
> international division of labour, once
> established, will create a hitherto inconceivable organic
> bond between global centre and periphery.
> When the populations at the centre -- the men, women and
> children -- realise that some of their body
> parts are imported from the periphery, one hopes that this
> will finally erode the age-old racisms
> that have poisoned relations between the world's peoples.
>
> I am aware that there is some work to be done before this new
> division of labour can be implemented.
> We will have to work out a legal framework, including
> property rights, to foster this trade in BPWs.
> I will not trouble you with the details of these legal
> questions, since I am confident that the WTO
> can be trusted to work out both the legal framework and the
> standards that will govern this trade. I
> have been warned of the inevitable objections that some
> humanitarians and other busybodies will
> raise concerning the morality of trade in BPWs. Economists
> will quickly lay such objections to rest.
> Clearly, the economic benefits to humanity from these
> exchanges exceed by a wide margin their moral
> costs to a few finicky humanitarians.
>
> If the assorted humanitarians, ethicists and anarchists in
> the core countries should succeed in
> erecting barriers to this trade, I am confident that they
> will be quickly circumvented. Instead of
> importing the BPWs, the consumers will simply move to the
> periphery. The core country patients will
> now travel to the periphery, creating a new transplant
> tourism; and the pharmaceutical companies
> will sub-contract their research to the periphery. All this
> may not be such a bad thing. The
> periphery can now add tourist dollars to the revenues from
> the sale of BPWs.
>
> I should have ended this essay at this point -- since I have
> already made a most capital suggestion
> for improving human welfare in the periphery. But once I had
> started upon this exciting train of
> thought, I was ineluctably drawn to several related
> proposals. And since I am convinced of the great
> advantages they will confer on the poor and the meek, I think
> it would be criminal if I held them
> close to my chest for too long. But I promise to be brief,
> since I know that the reader could be
> better employed examining a variety of perceptive proposals
> for extending the war on terrorism.
>
> In recent years, pharmaceutical producers in the core
> countries have encountered growing
> difficulties in finding human subjects for testing their
> drugs; it is those ethicists again.
> Needless to say, the delays this causes in marketing new
> drugs have cost lives, lowered people's
> beauty coefficients, and, most importantly, cost billions of
> dollars in lost profits. These losses
> can now be remedied by testing the new drugs in the
> periphery. Once again, the moralists -- if there
> are any -- will be quickly answered by the economists. Since
> markets value life much more highly in
> the core than in the periphery, it is efficient to allocate
> the human costs of developing drugs
> where life is cheapest.
>
> The disposal of toxic waste, too, has become a serious
> problem in the core countries: they are now
> producing 300 to 500 million tons of toxic waste annually. As
> the environmentalists gain strength, a
> growing number of districts in the core countries have
> prohibited the dumping of toxic waste.
> Providentially, this is opening up a vast new trade
> opportunity for the periphery: a few island
> economies are already specialising as dumping sites for toxic
> waste. I do not have accurate figures
> for the price the markets will fix for such dumping, but
> assuming a price of $100 for each ton of
> waste, this has the potential of generating a revenue of $30
> to $50 billion annually for the
> periphery -- a bonanza for many.
>
> I must admit, though, that Lawrence H Summers brilliantly
> anticipated the potential for this trade
> in toxic waste in December 1991 when he was chief economist
> for the World Bank. As he explained,
> water and air quality, especially in Africa, are at levels
> that are "vastly inefficiently" high.
> Clearly, this is an unconscionable waste. The high water and
> air quality of the periphery should be
> reduced by encouraging the dumping of toxic wastes.
>
> I have one final proposal in my bag; and, though some might
> consider this outlandish, I believe it
> can stand on its economic merits. There also exists now a
> modest opportunity for promoting sex
> tourism for paedophiles. It appears from the growing
> incidence of child abuse cases that sexual
> tastes in the core countries are slowly shifting towards
> paedophilia. Given their superabundance in
> children, I should think that the poorest countries could
> promote themselves as a paradise for
> paedophiles -- the alliteration sounds inviting. Those who
> would shrink from such a degradation of
> children only need to be reminded that this may be the only
> alternative that some children in the
> periphery have to certain death. Let them choose between
> abuse and death.
>
> I launch these proposals for a new international division of
> labour in the firm conviction that this
> is not some utopian project. Five centuries of global
> capitalism have produced a superabundance of
> bodies in the periphery, but now, at last, the same forces
> promise to process these bodies for the
> enrichment of the periphery. This is the latest, most cunning
> twist in the dialectics of capitalist
> development.
>
> * The writer is professor of economics at Northeastern
> University in Boston, US.
>
>