Heretical Ideas’ Alex Knapp has come up with some “fun questions for anti-globalization activists.” He writes:
Are you bored? Attending a global economic forum? Want to pass the time by mocking the ignorance of white, middle-class college activists? Then why not ask them one or more of these following questions. Their answers will astound and amaze you!
1. What is a corporation?
2. If you’re opposed to the oil companies, does that mean you oppose the use of plastic?
3. If you’re in favor of protectionist trading policies and are opposed to the free-market system, why haven’t you moved to North Korea?
4. If economic sanctions mean that citizens in Iraq, for example, are impoverished and starving, doesn’t that mean you support free trade with poor nations?
5. Isn’t it awful that the organic food industry is making use of grass-roots political organizations in order to discredit their competition (ie GM foods) so they can make more money?
6. Would you like to sign this petition to force the EU to recognize the sovereignty of the nations of Europe and forbid their economic and political integration?
7. Would you like to sign this petition to condemn Palestinian terrorists for the deliberate targeting of Israeli civillians?
8. Do you know how many trees your flyers have killed?
Samizdata’s Perry De Havilland then follows up with a few more:
9. If some people in El Salvador want to sell their fruit in a market in your town, should we make it more expensive with tariffs so that less people buy it?
10. If some people in El Salvador want to buy a tractor from an American company, should their government make it for more expensive by adding tariffs?
11. Why do you all dress like complete losers?
12. Would you like the 9mm in the heart or between the eyes?
I’ll just add one:
13. Is that a puppet on your head, or are you just glad to see me…?
14) Are you aware that if by some strange miracle you actually managed to put McDonalds out of business you probably wouldn’t be able to get a job once Mommy and Daddy get tired of subsidizing your rump and you discovered that a degree in underwater basket weaving doesn’t get you very far?
Myria
Is globalization really a conservative issue? The U.S. just lost a lawsuit brought by the EU (under the aegis of the WTO) preventing us from giving tax breaks to our corporations. Globalization means we have to play by the other guy’s rules. Globalization means that multi-nationals can sue AMERICAN companies who refuse to sell their products, even if they’re deemed harmful or undesirable by OUR STANDARDS. Globalization means that our freedom both as a country and as individuals is subject to the judgments of a WORLD BODY. You think the UN is bad wait till we are faced with all-powerful nationless corporations who CONTROL OUR LIVES. Sounds like the flip side of the Leftist Dream! Corporate Stalinism! And as Pat Buchanan, A REAL AMERICAN, rightly points out, US corporations have NO ALLEGIANCE TO AMERICA, BUT ONLY TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR SHAREHOLDERS–they have left for cheaper land and labor betraying their loyal employees, including WAR VETERANS, throwing them into the bread lines. Is that AMERICA, or is that GLOBALIZATION. Globalization threatens American sovereignty!! No more nations, just companies! ONE WORLD ORDER. Is that the world we want? Wake up, conservatives! FIght for American jobs. GOD BLESS PAT BUCHANAN!!!!
Wow. Talk about spoonfed by the media. I really doubt the author has seen a sweatshop or even understands what the term means.
Incidentally protectionism, in the form of import substitution industrialization was how this country and many others became successful as they are.
I’m glad Myria used the example of McDonald’s, because it points out the same ignorance as De Havilland’s pathetic and obnoxious remark of “where would you like the bullet, in the heart or between the eyes.” Several years ago a fellow in Scotland by the name of McDonald (a popular name in Scotland) opened a small local restaurant called McDonald’s. The other McDonald’s–you know, the one that will employ you when you graduate with that useless degree–sued Mr. McDonald for copyright infringement, angering a whole lot of people who didn’t understand why a company born in San Diego USA should be able to tell a man in a small Scotland town that he can’t have a little eatery with his own name on it. That’s globalization too, folks. And just yesterday it was in the news that McDonald’s has brought a million dollar lawsuit against a Chilean woman who said publicly that her child got sick from a McDonald’s hamburger. You know, great American leaders from Jefferson to Lincoln to T.R. to Woodrow Wilson all warned of the importance of keeping an eye on the power of corporations and aggregate wealth. And as far as protectionism goes, I don’t believe in protectionism just for the sake of protecting American jobs but I do believe that as Americans we should aspire to some standards beyond the bottom line, meaning that if an American company leaves the US to build a sweatshop in Asia, levying tariffs would be appropriate as a statement against what we as a nation of conscience hold to be immoral practices. After all we hold nations accountable for human rights violations, don’t we? Then it should be the same with business. Jesus might have been a socialist but I don’t mind applying good Christian values of compassion in business rather than sacrificing our human decency at the altar of the Almighty Buck. I’m not sure why people on this page are so gung-ho about globalization, since they otherwise claim to be such America-firsters. Eddie, though enamored of a racist who was rejected by the Republican party, is quite right when he says that we as private citizens and as Americans are in danger of being subsumed by a corporate plutocracy. McDonald’s is one example of an extremely powerful entity going after ordinary humble citizens with an ugly vengeance, and I for one could understand why that farmer in France dismantled a nearby McDonald’s in protest of what it was doing to the local economy. Nowhere in the Constitution and nowhere in the writings of the framers and founders is this mania for exporting unfettered capitalism to the four corners of the globe to be seen–precisely because they were wise enough to know that such unchecked proliferation and growth would eventually come back to undermine the very freedoms and individual rights that so many have fought and died for!
Why is it, Marco, that the globalization debate breaks down this way: on one side, <a href=”http://www.creatical.com/weblog/archives/00000250.shtml”> non-partisan evidence</a> suggesting that global free trade remedies poverty; on the other side, homilies about Old Scotsmen wronged? For the Golden Arches to sue the Scotsman is ridiculous, I’ll grant. Years ago, Sony Corporation sued a woman named Sony who ran an Asian food stand in a mall in Baltimore called “Sony’s Wrappings”—also ridiculous (I mean, will folks confuse crabmeat wrapped in seaweed for camcorders? doubtful).
But that’s not really the debate. You can be FOR globalization and against certain of its more assinine practices. Bottom line—isolationism in the era of free trade has brought poverty to those countries who’ve opted for it. And before you go putting puppets on your head and repeating breathless tales of Old McDonald, perhaps you should come to grips with history.
Jeff G., the Scot story is an example meant to illustrate the larger phenomenon of corporations gaining inordinate power over average citizens–just as many of us feel about the government. I certainly never said anything about isolationism. Read carefully and you’ll see that I merely advocate tariffs placed on products that are produced under conditions that America would not permit within her own borders. As Buster said, the world of sweatshops isn’t pretty. Anyway tariffs are not exactly a blockade. Sure, let’s have free trade, but with some limits and standards for heavens sake. I want to be proud of my country for defending human rights around the world. Which is far different from being isolationist. As for putting a puppet on my head and coming to grips with history, you lost me there, both with your tone and your content.
Marco–
You write “Read carefully and you’ll see that I merely advocate tariffs placed on products that are produced under conditions that America would not permit within her own borders.” That sounds laudable, if indeed this was a suggestion that could be advocated with a “merely.” Using this same logic, other countries could claim the same right , and the Great Satan Hegemon US— with its Mania for Exporting Unfettered Capitalism to the Four Corners of the Globe—would find its wares unwelcome by countries that find, say, Christianity, impermissable (China springs to mind), or the death penalty a “human rights violation” (most of Europe springs to mind), etc. Sanctions against Iraq, bad; sanctions against China, good? Trade promotes national wealth, which promotes social change, which promotes higher standards of living, which promote cleaner air, healthier populations, greater stability, and on and on. I’m of the opinion that fewer restrictions will bring about desired change—and bring it about more quickly than bureaucratic intervention.
For the record, dismantling a McDonalds is just plain silly.
Sorry if you took the “puppet heads” remark the wrong way; I was simply using it as a convenient referent to a host of earlier posts on the WEF protests. The allusion to history, similarly, referred to an earlier post (one referenced in my previous comment)—namely, the study by the NBER (1820-the present). My invoking a desire for historical awareness on the part of those participating in this debate wasn’t intended to carry with it any insult. I was speaking generally.
Jeff G., The “merely” was referring to tariffs as opposed to a total ban, the tariffs being “mere” in comparison. I agree that free trade can lead to many good things but again, I think we must also be vigilant about the growth and power of corporations just as we should be vigilant about the growth and power of government. Because sometimes what starts off as free trade becomes something that is forced upon consumers, I think Eddie was referring to a case in California where the Dutch Royal Company (or something like that, I might have it wrong) put a noxious additive in gasoline that people objected to but were forced to accept because of trade agreements. There comes a point sometimes when things are forced upon people under the guise of free trade and that’s what we need to be careful of too. Free speech, free society, free trade–all freedom requires reasonable limits and the application of values that favor, one hopes, basic human rights. Marco
Marco–
We can agree on most of these things. But I prefer to err on the side of deregulation. Regulations—once codified—become impossible to remove. I’m far more concerned with abuses by non-profit groups pushing for regulation than I am about corporations, who are held in check by the competition from an open market.
If you don’t like the fact that the corporation pays sweat shop wages in a third world country, don’t buy the product. Branding is the consumers best friend, because you know exactly who to go to when you have a problem with the good or service. Should enough consumers react adversely to a policy of a multinational, profits will evaporate and they will change or go out of business.
I thought that Old McDonald had a farm. I’m lost.