Forum Post: Why Tea Party types should support the OWS agenda - common threat of multinationals/globalized production
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 13, 2011, 7:40 p.m. EST by Publius1981
(22)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Multinational corporations could not care less about anyone's ideology or interests. And they couldn't care less about the United States or its citizens either - we're just a high-end market place for goods/services produced wherever it's cheapest to do so.
Multinationals look for the lowest cost labor possible, locate production wherever raw materials/labor is cheapest, and sell wherever the profit margin is the highest. Impose immigration laws that force American companies to hire high price, mixed-skilled workers born in that country? You think they'll hire you instead? It's easy for a multinational to relocate production/services overseas and to fire the US managers that used to work there in the process. Not only is management in Bangalore, but so is the entire workforce. There are more than enough workers with the same education and skill level who will accept next to nothing in wages abroad. And there are more than enough consumers in this country who will gladly buy goods/consume services at a very slight discount no matter where they're made.
I think it should be a job of the government to have retailers and other sellers of foreign goods to mark the external costs associated with a product next to the price tag... so that the buyer knows how much of their tax dollars are bringing that slightly cheaper product to them...
I agree with you message... the original tea party and OWS should go hand in hand.
So long as people are willing to forgo caring where something is made, so long as it costs less, you won't solve this problem. Consumers hold all the power in this gambit.
That's a choice. Intelligent tarrifs would change the equation. I know you're philosophically opposed and I don't want to have that debate with you, but it is a choice that all the responsibility is placed on the clueless consumer.
Any why shouldn't all responsibility be placed on the person spending the money? Do they not have a right to spend their money as they see fit? Why are we even considering restricting that freedom?
Because consumers are people at their basest. You don't shop your values. You do vote your values though. Higher ideals come into play. We think about the big picture and the world we want to live in when we vote. When we shop, we think about what we want in our stomach or how badly we want to get laid.
Citizens should be in charge, not consumers.
Consumers will buy the last redwood table. Citizens will protect the redwoods.
Except that citizens and consumers are one of the same, and are inseperable. You can't deal with them as two separate entities. You have to deal with them as one. If citizens want to tax imports, fine. But I do believe most would find that against their self interest.
Right, leave it to the voters on voting day, not the shoppers on shopping day. We are different in the two situations, we think differently.
What you just said goes against your initial blanket ruling out of any government action. Yes, let's put it to a vote.
Government is our forum for projecting our values into the public sphere, not shopping.
My point was that I personally don't believe in putting any restrictions on my choice of goods. And I don't think that I'm in the minority.
Shopping in this day and age is almost more vital a tool to project our values than government. We can get further by making better buying decisions than voting decisions. If everything is ruled by the dollar, use it to your advantage.
"Shopping in this day and age is almost more vital a tool to project our values than government"
That, again, is a choice reflective of the currently dominant (neoliberal) philosophy of government. We don't have to accept it. I do not.
Whether you accept it or not does not change that it may very well be. I think we first need to determine if it is, and if it is, how to use it to create a better world.
If it is, it's is only because we have chosen it to be by becoming a nation of inveterate capitalists, free market radicals, mindless consumers. That is my point.
Well, I mean you CAN make a policy to manipulate something that doesn't exist, but I'm not sure how successful you'll be. The idea is to work with what you got to get where you want to go. Not make rules that affect something that doesn't exist.
And I'm not interested in a less laissez faire society myself. But hey that's just me.
True. But we don't make policy based on conditions we would like to exist, we make policy based off what does exist.
I don't think that's true. We should have a vision for our policies, or else there's no point. My personal vision is something closer to the golden years of the 40s-70s, and I therefore know it's achievable, but we have to get over our obsession with free trade and the like...
Our government can play a much more intelligent game and protect our national interests (the people) while still maintaining us as a valued trading partner to the nations of the world. Other nations do. We're the only one that has a policy of unilateral disarmament on trade deals. This has been going on for 30 years, and the outcome is the decline of the middle class. there are other factors but they all have similar causes: this renewed obsession with laissez faire.
And therein lies the root of the problem; the consumer looking for cheap goods whatever the cost to the country as a whole. That's why I, for one, will start buying American and buying local whenever possible, even if it cost a bit more. I think it's worth it to try to get this country back on track.
I'm pleased with the discussion that came out of this comment. I'll be forthright and say that most of what I wear or own is either second hand (Goodwill supports the local economy and provides work to homeless people reintegrating into society) or, sadly, Wal*Mart and made for pennies by 3rd world workers. What's the alternative right now?
I've always been a firm believer in thrift stores, garage sales, etc.Glad to see there are others that feel the same way. I usually won't replace something until it's no longer usable. Hopefully some day you'll be able to excise yourself from the need to shop Wal-Mart, since they are definitely one of the worst offenders:
http://www.laborrights.org/creating-a-sweatfree-world/wal-mart-campaign/news/11587
[Removed]