New Int'l Division of Labor?

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

        Thanks to Henry Liu for continuing a discussion of
        balance of payments, exports, and the future of labor
        and nationalism in the next millenium.

        Henry spoke the unspeakable:  One man, one vote.
        One man, one dollar.

        I'm sure he would be happy if in a thousand years we
        have as the end of "one man, one vote" a culture that
        has arrived at "one man, one economically independent
        person -- no man's wage slave, no man's master, but
        probably no man's equal -- (each individual enjoying
        wealth enough, but some with a helluva lot more than
        others.)

        Not that great disparity in wealth is necessary or good,
        in my opinion;  but it may have a favorable effect, as a
        counterweight to political charisma.  And it may be a
        lot easier to leave disparity and envy alone, rather than
        worry about it.

        As I have said before, some of us sing or dance
        better than others. I'm certainly not in favor of gene
        therapy to improve my voice, throwing arm, or bank
        balance.  A rational world would tolerate inequality,
        if only it were tamed.

        I'll demur to any reader who won't accept the above.
        It's far too remote for passionate debate.  What I'm
        more interested  in, is Henry's remarks as follows:

        "Although Greenspan/Rubin/Summers never actually
         said so, in their scheme is the inevitable evolutionary
         obsolensce of the American worker, through a new
         international division of labor."

        Here I cannot agree.  If the gentlemen above want to
        see a global middle class to protect democratic
        impulses -- wherein so many people have a stake in
        domestic tranquility, they tend to avoid radical calls
        for war and misadventure, (and I do think that is their
        aim), then there is no need to extrapolate their aims
        to a logical possibility that would demand a nuclear
        truce to avoid conventional war.

        For if we had no blue collar workers, we would have
        no conventional army and navy. We would be
        something out of science fiction -- an evil empire of
        sorts, asking the world to do our laundry and heavy
        lifting but warning them that the muscle they gained
        thereby would be crushed if they had a mind to use
        it against us.

        The future of the new world order must see many
        continental nations with a normal distribution of
        brains and brawn.  How else explain the love of
        physical sports?  The love of using your hands?

        If for a while we are exporting some blue collar
        work, it is because the current system is mindless
        -- not because it is planned.

        When a plan is finally demanded by the voters,
        because they notice how much damage to them
        mindless markets are doing, they will opt for a
        negotiated balance -- whereunder, as I previously
        wrote, we lend other nations their legitimate needs
        and stop reducing our middle class to beggars.

        John Gelles
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