Mexico and Free Trade

the standard of living for working and poor people in mexico has fallen dramatically in the past five years. jons' Reaganite smarmy talk of "rising boats" doesn't change this elementary fact.
one of the things "free market" bufoons like jon can't grasp is that collective action has, throughout history, improved conditions for waged-workers and the poor. of course, collective action -- in the form of strikes, land-invasions, outright expropriations etc etc -- goes against the free market credo which demands that humans passively except, and conform themselves to, capital's plan.
in September of this year, the New York Times reported on the conclusion of a week and a half ong wildcat strike of 12,000 VW workers in Mexico which won the workers a 10% raise and other benefits. the power of the working class faced off against the power of capital and the former made modest gains. nowhere near sufficient, of course, as the auto workers in mexico are still underpaid, and exploited, but it's the class war in action. i'm wondering: if jon was an observor of this strike who'd he be rooting for, and why?
as to this new minimum wage gain, there are two things: the capitalist state in mexico is notorious for not enforcing laws that don't directly benefit the rich, so there is every reason to believe that for millions these new laws will have no impact. the other thing is that millions and millions of mexicans are unemployed -- with more becoming so everyday -- so minimum wage laws, enforced or not, don't make much difference.

I own a business in Mexico, and I'm one of MANY Mexicans who have the decency to pay far more than the miserable "minimum wage". This increase is garbage, and is only on par with simple Labor Economics 101--as jobs become scarce, wages will rise (regardless of gov't intervention or not). The REAL issue here is the fucking Wal-Marts and maquiladoras opening up all over the country because of the neo-liberal NAFTA. It's taking out local business and replacing it with cheap-labor products made in Asia while people lose their jobs in many sectors and start to take miserable "minimum wage" jobs in places like maquiladoras.

Having hacienda-owners like Vicente Fox as president doesn't help either, with his white-supremacist spanish/creole mentality that it's okay for the working class to be making the miserable "minimum" and living crammed in houses with two or three families in them.

As aaron points out, will this even be enforced? Even if so, it fall far from actually helping out the situation in Mexico. The country is on a wave of conservatism right now supporting Fox and his neo-liberal policies, but they'll realize soon enough they're following the same path as the Peronista government under Menem in Argentina--which lead to the current situation.

pace, amore, liberta, vinceremo!!

Jon, you really have the audacity to say that free trade trickles down?! Jon, I'm beginning to think that you have never worked an honest day of work in your entire life.

Jon conditions in Mexico have gotten worse over the last 20 years. Within Mexican society i don't think this even a debate. From your previous posts i gather that Vincente Fox is your type of guy-- so by your logic Mexico should be similiar to the East Asian " tigers" over the next few years. If i'm wrong about this assertion clarify yourself.

aaron, i'm well aware of what collective action is and i don't view labor unions as being outside the bounds of the market.

there is some evidence of anti-market collusion and cartels among the maquiladora management, and to that end i support free labor unionization as a counterweight.

free markets also means free mobility for labor and labor's ability to sell their wages on a market, not cartel basis.

marselo: please present evidence that mexico has lost jobs in the past 7 years, and furthermore break it down into regions. you make rather grandiose claims that require this info.

as for walmarts: you do understand that the appeal of walmart is that it sells goods at a far cheaper price then small business owners. does this hurt small business? yes. but that extra income caused by those price savings don't evaporate, but rather sent into other aspects of the economy. the net benefit is positive even though there is sectoral downturns.

trek: on the contrary things have gotten substantially better in mexico. in an earlier post i linked to the UN Development Program's Human Development Report that indexes progress to the human development indicator, a statistic that includes living standard, education, health care, as well as the more traditional per capita GDP. contrary to popular belief, this index has risen considerably across vast segments of the world, even including the occassional economic downturn.

i can't post the exact numbers now b/c there's something wrong with the website (http://www.undp.org/hdro/) however the statistics for mexico will fall in line with the general trend

ok, i found some data from the world bank's website
http://devdata.worldbank.org/data-query/

actually a great site since you can pull info on country data for a wide range of info like infant mortality, food production, foreign debt, GDP, etc. etc.

unfortunately the data is less filled out as compared to the UNDP's, however infant mortality does show a general downward trend post-NAFTA. this is a good indicator that things are improving in mexico since infant mortality is oftentimes used a baseline when judging the living standards of a country.

should also be noted that mexico's infanty mortality (roughly 30 for every 1,000 live births) is fairly good for a developing nation, especially when compared to the horrors of africa (130+ sometimes)

Even the World Bank acknowledges conditions are getting worse:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/jornada/091999.html

The US' stellar performance in Mexico that jon will never allude to because he lives in an ahistorical fog:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/slope/section1.html#intro

And finally, a little more info on jon's shangra-la, i mean, mexico:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/slope/section3.html

Go Wal-Mart!

that first link didn't work, try this:

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/jornada091999.html

the first link:

here's what is relevant:
=======
"Even more troubling" the report signaled, "is the fact that the proportion of poor people in Mexico has increased since 1989, despite [the country's] rapid economic growth. While the impressive economic recuperation during the period 1997 to 1998 has probably reduced the proportion of poor people, the gains obtained in the area of poverty-reduction since the mid-1980's were erased by the banking crisis of 1995 and have not since resurfaced.
==============

what it says is that one of the most devastating financial crises in modern history has set mexico back by quite some time. pray tell, how does that disprove the market? the Great Depression for example wiped out all of the gains of the 1920's, however america is a far more prosperous country on the long run b/c of capitalism. again, capitalism is unfortunately cyclical, with a net gain after every cycle. so, to merely look at one portion of an economic cycle, and then start crying wolf, is completely dishonest. as the latter half of the paragraph mentions, mexico is again posting real gains in the post NAFTA era.

also, please refer to the old data that i had posted up. unfortunately a lot of it is in big .pdf files, and acrobat oftentimes chokes up my computer when the files are bigger then 100k. however, if you look at all indicators for mexico over a 40 year period, especially the human development index, you'll find that its grown impressively. again, i refer you to all of the data i posted in a thread several weeks ago disproving the old myth that the third world is getting poorer. that is simply not true.

the third article:
nothing particularly relevant to the effects of NAFTA until footnote 13:
===========
Two thirds of the economically active population of 34.1 million live below poverty. The number living in extreme poverty rose from 14 million in 1988 to 22 million today.13
===============

data from the worldwatch institute. unfortunately, gross numbers tell nothing, only relative. the numbers do not factor in population growth, something that is incredibly important especially considering that the poor oftentimes have far more children then the well-off. so, the mere fact taht there are more people in poverty tells nothing. what matters is if the proportion of people living in poverty has grown, and more importantly what the general long-term trend is. again, as i've stated many times, this trend is upwards

there's also a section on the end of land reform and the current plight of the small farmer. tragic yes, but also ultimately beneficial. GX tries to write off the benefits by saying that the cheaper food prices only effect the middle-class. this quite simply is a lie. cheap food prices primarily help the urban poor, or who far more sensitive to the price of bread (or tortilla) then the well-off. in the US for example, the small farmer is on the way out, however in the process the price of food has dropped from taking up an average of 1/3 of a person's income to only 12%. this benefits everyone, most especially the poor.

as for an end to self-sufficiency, so what?
self-sufficiency is inefficient, and inefficiency ultimately means deprivation. take daily life for example. people specialize. a farmer specializes in food, someone else specializes in manufacturing. it is far more efficiency for the farmer to trade his surplus with the manufacturers, rather then having one person both farm and manufacture.

anyways, go to the UNDP or WB site and start pulling data on mexico. you'll be pleasantly surprised. i'd post it here but damnable adobe just crashed on me while i was trying to fetch a file

Jon, I'm not going to quote everything you said. Replying to everything with, "so? its efficient" is not an answer. You are acting not out of rationality, but a severe irrationality which is called faith in the market. The market has given us no reason to put our faith in it.

Do not tell us that something is okay because in the "long-term" it will be such-and-such. You don't know what is better for Mexican farmers, just as you do not know what is best for American farmers, or any working person since you are obviously not one. Just because a fat, rich board of economists decides something is "efficient" does not make it so either.

Allow me to introduce you to the concept of democracy. It is this strange idea that people who are living their lives know what is best for their lives and their communities, not a far-off small board of managers. You are making capitalism sound more like communism --- a small band of IMF economists get to rule on what is and is not efficient, and somehow it mysteriously benefits their class to enormous wealth while tens of thousands starve?

Your arguments are desperate and betray your obvious naivete and lack of understanding of what the IMF and World Bank does.

How much do YOU make an hour?

efficiency isn't some vague term which just means higher profits. efficiency means among other things a decent standard of living. if you have X amount of resources availible to you, you want to squeeze as much utility out of those resources as possible. to be less then optimal means that someone somewhere is going to be deprived. the fact that you cannot see this, and attempt to cast efficiency as another of of those "evil" economist terms is just another indication of your ability to not think straight, not mine.

as for democracy, markets, IMF, and what not. again, the argentina's if they choose to can turn their backs to the IMF and washington consensus. however, if they choose to do so it must be a well-informed decision with knowledge of what the consequences will be. simple rabble-rousing and hot-headed finger pointing will not lead to a betterment of argentinian lives.

as for your last question: around eight bucks an hour, however my exact salary is rather irrelevant since i'm a student being supported by my parents.

"efficiency isn't some vague term which just means higher profits. efficiency means among other things a decent standard of living. if you have X amount of resources availible to you, you want to squeeze as much utility out of those resources as possible"

No, it really is a vague term. Standard of living for whom? Is spying and infiltrating socialist organizations something that is done to maintain "standard of living"? Or how about Giuliani's "quality of life" laws, are those also what we are talking about (i.e. harrassment of poor people)? And of course social services have to go, because those degrade the "quality of life" for rich people who have to pay taxes. How is a balance struck between these competing rights? Is classism and many times racism a factor in who is able to make those decisions? Are those decisions backed up by US-trained death squads, to maintain optimum market efficiecny? So before you adopt your condescending tone about who does and does not know the definition of "efficiency," consider that the term has more meaning than just some definition in your college textbook.

"as for your last question: around eight bucks an hour, however my exact salary is rather irrelevant since i'm a student being supported by my parents."

It is impressive that you are honest, but I have to wonder why you so eagerly adopt the stereotype of the college kid supported by his parents who thinks he knows everything? So many arguments degenerate into you saying you are "just looking" into what is being talked about, but that doesnt stop you from being a total dick before it gets to that point. Here's a hint: wealthy American college kids should have a little humility, the narrow viewpoint you have of the world is distorted by your privilege and your status as a benefactor of the toil and exploitation of people all over the globe.

NAFTA has so devestated the Mexican economy that it's difficult to say where to begin. I'll start with the peso devaluation 5 years ago. When that happened, in line with neo-liberal "free market" orthodoxy, the Mexican middle class was basically wiped out in one fell swoop. Suddenly the pesos which would provide for some modest property and security against future economic shocks, which are very common in Mexico, were turned into worthless digits on a balance sheet.

Mexico City is over 30 million people now and is about to meet up with Puebla, the second largest city in Mexico to form the largest metropolitan area in the history of the world. All this in 30 years. Why?

Capitalism is destroying the ability of the people to support themselves from the land. Mexico's historic agricultural base is being swamped with cheap imports from North American agribusiness. The US enjoys not just superior crop lands, but fully mechanized agriculture. And, if you were to cruise through California's Central Valley or even the grainfields of Nebraska, you would see displaced Mexican camesinos now working for sub-minimum wages on US owned factory farms.

To Jon, this may be the invisible hand of the market lifting the backward from their stupor. But to any honest observer, it fits into a long history of shamelss imperialism on the part of the US. When the cultural continuity of a people are destoyed, they are turned into nothing but producers and consumers. Joyless it is.

To Jon, it isn't just capitalism that made the US rich. Capitalism can create tremendous wealth and development, no honest observer of today's reality can dispute that. But the fabulous wealth spread unevenly in the US comes mainly from extreme exploitation of foreign workers and resources. In the same way that all American's can't really be middle class, all nations can't be imperialist. It requires a base of exploitation. And that is what Mexico is reduced to by the current trade agreements signed into law by a corrupt government that by all accounts stole the election. In the US, we got two candidates who supported NAFTA even when all polls said that the majority of North Americans (and Mexicans) opposed the treaty.

For Jon, capitalism IS democracy. How else to explain his disregard for the facts on the ground?

NAFTA has so devestated the Mexican economy that it's difficult to say where to begin. I'll start with the peso devaluation 5 years ago. When that happened, in line with neo-liberal "free market" orthodoxy, the Mexican middle class was basically wiped out in one fell swoop. Suddenly the pesos which would provide for some modest property and security against future economic shocks, which are very common in Mexico, were turned into worthless digits on a balance sheet.

Mexico City is over 30 million people now and is about to meet up with Puebla, the second largest city in Mexico to form the largest metropolitan area in the history of the world. All this in 30 years. Why?

Capitalism is destroying the ability of the people to support themselves from the land. Mexico's historic agricultural base is being swamped with cheap imports from North American agribusiness. The US enjoys not just superior crop lands, but fully mechanized agriculture. And, if you were to cruise through California's Central Valley or even the grainfields of Nebraska, you would see displaced Mexican camesinos now working for sub-minimum wages on US owned factory farms.

To Jon, this may be the invisible hand of the market lifting the backward from their stupor. But to any honest observer, it fits into a long history of shamelss imperialism on the part of the US. When the cultural continuity of a people are destoyed, they are turned into nothing but producers and consumers. Joyless it is.

To Jon, it isn't just capitalism that made the US rich. Capitalism can create tremendous wealth and development, no honest observer of today's reality can dispute that. But the fabulous wealth spread unevenly in the US comes mainly from extreme exploitation of foreign workers and resources. In the same way that all American's can't really be middle class, all nations can't be imperialist. It requires a base of exploitation. And that is what Mexico is reduced to by the current trade agreements signed into law by a corrupt government that by all accounts stole the election. In the US, we got two candidates who supported NAFTA even when all polls said that the majority of North Americans (and Mexicans) opposed the treaty.

For Jon, capitalism IS democracy. How else to explain his disregard for the facts on the ground?

Come on people, the evidence is in. Capitalism is not good for the majority of humanity. By any measure. Even if it were to succeed magically everywhere and for all people, which by its very nature it can't, it would than consume the resources of the world and leave it a scab. If everyone drove a car (which in the US we HAVE TO), or had a refrigerator, or ate the amount of beef North American's do – the world would simply be a heap of used shit.

Jon is basically saying this:
Capitalism has been good enough for me (with my limited imagination), so it MUST be good for everyone even if all evidence is to the contrary.

Do you have a fridge? Do you like it?
Do you have a computer? Do you like it?
Do you have dependable electricity? Do you like it?
Do you have a car? Do you like it?
Do you have a stereo? Do you like it?
Do you have a T.V.? Do you like it?
Do you have running water? Do you like it?
Do you like the fact that you can buy a 2 day old organic tangerine flown in from Australia?

Just so ya know, no anarchistic commune ever invented any of the above products. Individuals and corporations did, backed by CAPITAL, which you seem to hate so much.

I tell you what. Lets do an experiment. Take 100 Phd's in electrical engineering and computer science . Give them food, computers, a beautiful villa, everything they want, except money. Tell them the following:

1) Your job is to design and build a microchip that generates unlimited power for mankind and has enough computational ability to cure cancer within one day. Theories strongly indicate that such a device is possible to build.
2) You may use any community and governmental resources from any nation to build this microchip
3) You may not use money in any form to build this microchip. Barter is acceptable.

How long do you think it will take the team to complete the microchip?

Just so ya know, no anarchistic commune ever invented any of the above products. Individuals and corporations did, backed by CAPITAL, which you seem to hate so much.
-----

Actually, you couldnt be more wrong. For instance, this website is running on FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL and PHP, all of which were developed by anarchistic engineering collectives.

The protocol and network software using TCP/IP is also programmed by anarchistic collectives.

Apache is the #1 webserver software on the internet, beating out the offering by the multinational conglomerate Microsoft. Its "anarchistic engineering" is far superior to the capitalist offering.

Oh, and one finally thing: Albert Einstein was a socialist.

Just so ya know, no anarchistic commune ever invented any of the above products. Individuals and corporations did, backed by CAPITAL, which you seem to hate so much.
-----

Actually, you couldnt be more wrong. For instance, this website is running on FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL and PHP, all of which were developed by anarchistic engineering collectives.

The protocol and network software using TCP/IP is also programmed by anarchistic collectives.

Apache is the #1 webserver software on the internet, beating out the offering by the multinational conglomerate Microsoft. Its "anarchistic engineering" is far superior to the capitalist offering.

Oh, and one finally thing: Albert Einstein was a socialist.

uuu = 1

kn = 0

I sincerely respect that you were willing to divulge the fact that you're being supported by your parents. Kudos to you.

I want to be careful not to use this information opportunistically, but I think that if you worked 40 hours a week for five years straight even at wages considerably higher than you now make, your attitude -- if not your politics -- would change. I've known reactionary workers -- shit there are quite a few, especially in these days of red white and blue delirium -- but I've NEVER met a worker who shares your sanguine views on the economy. Literally -- never.

The fundamental difference that lies between our world-views lies in what we believe to be possible. You believe that because it's possible to discern improvement in certain indicators in certain places over the past 50 years that that vindicates capitalism. (This may sound gratutious, but Stalinists made similar arguements which they supported with data showing life expectancy, infant mortality etc -- like you they dismissed the ecological destruction and massive loss of life required to put into effect the plans they espoused.) But this whole line of reasoning, dressed up in the language of realism, is an apology for exploitation and human misery. Marxists -- not that i'd call myself one exactly -- have never denied capitalism's productive capacity. Marx himself was awestruck by capital's capacity to reshape the world in its image. He didn't argue that every alteration that capital made upon the world was negative -- far from it. But like radical socialists and anarchists today, he rejected the proposition that the mediocrity, alienation, and misery capitalism produces was the highest form of human evolution. In my view, only someone with a pronounced lack of imagination and vision could argue that the world that global capital is set on brewing is the best we can hope for.

You speak of South Korea as a model. Two quick things: South Korea, like the rest of the "Tigers" didn't develop via the neo-liberal nostrums that you find so appealing. There was state-led land reform, restrictive taxation to support domestic capital formation, high tarrifs, and government backing of key industries. Hardly the neo-lib prescription. As far as South Korea as a success, well I find this as revealing in that South Koreans work more hours than any people on earth, have the highest death-on-the-job rate, and are afflicted by terrible pollution. And that's as good as it gets for "Third World" capitalism! Some advertisement.

Of course, as a proponent of Pax-Americana, America is the model for the world, right? Although its not possible (because resources won't allow it), if every country were to emulate Americas wasteful, privatized consumption habits (or more precisely, the consumption habits of America's well-to-do), well, ecological apocolypse would be assured. Period.

But let's look at the US.
-- Tens of thousands (who really knows exactly the number) homeless and becoming so everyday annually.
-- Approximately 20% of America's children grow up in poverty (according to very tight definition of poverty)
-- Tens of thousands die every year of violence.
-- Tens of thousands die every year in vehicle accidents
-- How many millions on anti-depressants
-- Destruction of wild nature at alarming rate
-- Declining real wages since 1973

My daughter is crying and gotta tend to her. We'll pick up i'm sure.

so this will be a 1/2 assed reply, sorry.

burningman: no, capitalism is not democracy, one is an economic system the other political. however, although democracy is not a necessary condition for capitalism (singnapore for example), capitalism is a necessary condition for democracy.

to be fairly reductionist, let's just say that there are two broad categories of power in the world, political and economic. democracy by definition implies fractured political power, with power spread out over the population as opposed to just one hand (dictatorship) or a few hands (oligarchy).

economic power also needs to be dispersed and not concentrated in one hand. hence capitalism, where economic power is spread out to a variety of actors, as opposed to just one, as in command economies.

and yes, to be blunt i support the destruction of small farmers. there should be transitionary help for these farmers, however not bail-outs or protection. again, as i stated earlier, food prices in the US dropped from taking up 1/3 of a person's income in the 1960's to only 12% today. this is largely the result of the corporatization of agriculture. cheap food is good for everyone, however it is best for the poor

aaron: to be honest i have no idea why people think its a big deal for me to admit that i'm living off my parent's dole. i'm a student, and quite frankly it's impossible for me to sustain myself with tuition being what they are. so, feel free to go back hating me again :)

as for getting a 40/hr week job changing my lifestyle, who knows and so what. that may change my views signficantly only b/c my worldly experiences would be fixed into one point of view. as it stands now i feel as if i have the luxury of looking at life though a variety of lenses mainly b/c i am not tied down anywhere.

=======
The fundamental difference that lies between our world-views lies in what we believe to be possible.
=======

exactly.
i am a long-term optimist yet short-term pessimist. in the long-run anything is possible. in the short-run we gotta work with what we've got. capitalism will one day be replaced by a new method of economic organization given a long-enough time line. however as a coherent alternative has yet to be put forward (IMO) capitalism is what we have to work with

and, i am not looking at certain indicators in certain sectors to "prove" capitalism. quite the contrary i believe it is you who is doing so in order to disprove it. a holistic approach to the world shows capitalism's tremendous benefits. it is only when you begin focusing on subsectors that you see the true dislocations. so the death of the small farmer. great for the US as a whole, bad for the small farmer. the end of the manufacturing sector in the US, good for the country as a whole, bad for blue-collar workers.

everything has trade-offs, however the best way to judge the relative merit of these trade-offs is to look at the big picture.

east asian tigers: no, they were not perfect followers of neoliberalism. among one reason is that neoliberalism (or what you call it) hadn't even been coherently theorized at that point, and state-centric development policies were all the rage back in the 50's and 60's.

however, the tigers did differ in one key way from the rest of the world, that's that they pursued trade oriented development strategies rather then inward looking ones. and, this emphasis on trade is still alive and kicking today. just look at argentina, the new president is now talking about self-sufficiency, the same strategy that screwed over much of latin america back in the 60's

============
as a proponent of Pax-Americana, America is the model for the world, right?
===========

america per se, no. market democracies, yes. and if countries want to pursue more socialist tendencies like france, then so be it, so long as they are willing to pay the penalties (which france does).

and things do suck in the US for many people. however, the lack of total success does not imply some success. the question is how many more poor people would there be w/o the market playing a central role in the US? obviously opinions here will differ, but i think you know what my answer is.

Jon, you're idealism in the face of reality hardly fits your pragmatic self-conception. Capitalism makes democracy impossible. Mexico, as we were talking, is the most perfect case in point. NAFTA only passed over a stolen election. That is a fact. It only continues because the Mexican elites, against the wishes of the vast majority of Mexicans has ruled voiding the treaty as beyond the pale.

Capitalism means in practice, in this world, that the few soak the riches from the work of many. That is tyranical. We don't elect our bosses, we beg and compete to be the ones ripped off for our time. And what a lame system. We didn't vote to have our nation filled with shopping malls and monoculture. It was IMPOSED on us by a capitalist class intent on profits.

And regarding technology, I'm with Aaron (on this) and Marx – capitalism frees up tremendous creative energy as opposed to earlier "tributary" economic systems. No doubt about it. But advances in technology shackled to the profit motive only create a more efficient economic prison for the rest of us. TV is an advertising medium. Film has gone to hell. Refrigeration allows us to save chemical soaked produce, flavorless tomatos, and the occassional luxury food.

I don't need an organic tangerine off season. Neither do you. The cost to the world and our people is way too high. (And the retail price is quite beyond my means as well.) Only capitalists genuinely benefit and even they are paying the health and ecological price.

So, to recap – we don't need further "growth," let alone a system that necessitates breakneck growth to survive. We don't need 1% of the world's population to be so rich it's decadent. We need rational planning of our economies, an end to the Western consumption society and true social democracy, that is socialism.

Best of luck masturbating over Thomas Friendman's crapola.

capitalism makes democracy impossible?
interesting then that every vibrant democracy in the world today relies on the market mechanism for distributing the majority of goods and services.

====
We don't elect our bosses
=====

directly, no. indirectly, yes.
if you don't like your boss you either don't take the job i the first place, or you work someplace else. there are numerous instances where employees are so fed up with managers that the managers eventually have to be replaced.

=======
We didn't vote to have our nation filled with shopping malls and monoculture
=======

perhaps you didn't, but most people did. if you don't like malls, then don't go to them. just don't whine if other people like them. i personally don't like the death penalty, however if enough people vote for it that's the law and its something i have to deal with. just b/c you don't get everything you want doesn't mean that the system is flawed.

as for monoculture, quite the opposite. a market economy allows for a much for diverse realm of culture as opposed to command economy. with a market economy any alternative culture becomes practicle assuming enough people want to participate. look at the vibrant skater culture and all of its related activities, all thanks in large part to the market. when the state is controlling the economy how much room is there for small niche markets? not much.

I don't know about you, but I like my electricity, my TV, and my tangerines off-season.

Too bad for you if you don't. Of course, you can always escape and form a commune of your own. Nothing wrong with that - it's a big world and there's plenty of room for folks like you. Just don't ask me to live like you, because I won't. Good luck with it.

typically, you confuse culture with markets.

The skater example is perfect, you even interchange the words. I would urge you to check out the Baffler magazine and their awesome article "Why Johnny Can't Dissent" on the uses of sub-culture for niche marketing.

In New York City, where I live I was priced out of three different neighborhoods by gentrification. 90% of the neighborhoods opposed that gentrification until it was imposed on us. Likewise with the superstores that have taken over downtown. I too go to Barnes & Nobles, but I miss the textures and flavor of the independent bookstores that are all but gone. Starbucks has pushed out cafes by their ability to concentrate around a target market and use outside profits to outbid local, small businesses.

So, here I am, the marxist defending the culture of small business. But that's how crappy monoculture is.

But Jon, sucking on the tit of his folks has yet to enter the world of rent and bankruptcy. That's what fucked my folks who didn't have the money to send me to a school where I could learn to tell Mexicans to be content supporting a family on less that $5 a day.

And since we're talking about the big world, why don't you live on $5 a day and then tell me how great it is.

no, culture isn't interchangeable with markets.

however, markets do protect small niche cultures if there's enough demand.

and you lament the death of the small bookstore. guess what, if you liked them so much you and your friends should have shopped there. the simple fact was that the majority of people prefered the convenience of barnes and noble. again, your own elitist views shouldnt dictate how others live

as for living on 5 bucks a day. sure, but where?
in the US, no. in a third world country however five bucks takes on a whole new meaning. if you can't understand something as simple as that you really shouldnt even try to discuss anything remotely related to economic matters

Hey Jon i was just reading a mainstream history book on Mexico (A Concise History of Mexico) -- the last three decades in Mexico are widely known as the "lost decades". The lost decades isn't reffering to pot smoking-- its talking about the economic condition Mexico was in during the 70's, 80's and 90's. I also have some close friends who are from Mexico-- though their views on Fox are mixed i don't think any would say Mexico has been doing well economically. So how do you think the statistics you site jive with perspectives (from Mexico) that are 180 degrees different.

This is such a weird debate. Have you been to Mexico? Into a typical home? Into a Mexican home in california or Chicago? I suspect not. Go to the slums around Mexico City. They are endless. I urge you to explain why dysentary is good for them.

We're debating what should be and is obvious. You say capitalism supports marginal cultures and yet talk about how Barnes and Nobles are the natural result of their convenience. It's as if you live in some parallel universe.

You also failed to deal with how rich capitalist assholes destroyed my neighborhood and forced me to leave because my family only worked for a living instead of living off the money of others.

Trek: it was the 80's that was the lost decade, mainly caused when mexico defaulted on its rather substantial debt.

however in the 90's mexico posted growth on average of 3%, no small feat

and, let's look at mexico's human development index, perhaps the best indicator of living standards
1975: 0.688
1980: 0.732
1985: 0.750
1990: 0.759
1995: 0.772
1999: 0.790

for comparison purposes, in 1975 the US's was 0.861

so, you a definite upward trend in mexico's living standard, even during the "lost decade", which was more of a problem b/c of its slow growth rather then any actual rapid decrease in living standard

burningman: i explained everything. barnes and nobles thrives b/c people like buying their books from their as opposed to a small bookshop.

as for a housing crunch, yes. truly sucks for renters as the more wealthy move in from the suburbs.

your in the same position that small farmers are in with respect to your housing arrangements. sucks royally for me, however is best for society in general. no one denies that capitalism has trade offs, and as it stands your paying the costs.

yea, burningman, i agree.

last night i was in a charitable mood vis a vis jon because i thought it rather laudable that he copped to the fact that mom and pop are supporting him. But having read his response to my kudos, and upon reflection, I see this admission as more a sign of his shamelessness than courage. In jon's mind, his own privledge is such a given that he sees nothing perverse about the fact that he can cheer "market rationality" as it's imposed on the poor in Mexico (and elsewhere) while accepting -- again, as a given -- a monthly stipend from his parents. To Jon it's just plain common sense, after all, university education is so damn expensive! Jon evinces no signs that he grasps how ironic this is. To quote Jamaica Kincaid (referring to an excerpt by Henry James in "Portraits Of A Lady"): this could "have been written only by a person who comes from a place where the wealth of the world is like a skin, a natural part of the body, a right, assumed, like having two hands and on them five fingers each."

The famous Greek mathematician believed that numbers had a mystical power, that they were in a very real way the melody of abstraction. I am slightly more sanguine in my attitude towards their merit.

The two central issues, and what you are leaving out, are exploitation and the arrangement of social power. They're the core of it. The extreme, unending and humiliating poverty is merely the mercenary ethics of capitalism on display and tragically lived by the vast majority of humanity.

I can't speak for you. You may be studying to join the ruling class rather than simply earn a career as an official apologist. In the case of the former, I'm all cool with your glib affirmations. They are the logic of your interest. But if you are merely seeking a position rather than joining the club, I'm almost sorry for your cheap devotions.

Live young man. Live large and beyond what you think you know.

I think Foucoult would have had a field-day with jon and his infatutation with statistical abstracts. I picture jon's bedroom walls as covered in numbers. A poetic man, that jon.

The Nation Magazine (I know -- blech!) had an interesting article a week or so ago that's pertinent to this discussion. The jest of the piece was that NAFTA's hey-day in Mexico (some hey-day it was!) may have already come and gone. In the past year 150,000 maquiladora jobs have been destroyed. This is part and parcel of the global recession. But a less recognized sub-plot is that manufacturers that opened shop in Mexico in the past decade are uprooting and setting up in China where the average manufacturing wage is 25 cents an hour as compared to Mexico's plump $1.50 an hour.

I propose that jon save a bit of his stipend and take a trip down to the maquiladoras with his stack of statistical abstracts in hand and explain to impoverished Mexicans why he -- an american who's never supported himself on wages ever -- is a "long-term optimist." I'm sure they'd appreciate his dispassioned analysis of their fucked predicament.

ooo, ad hom attacks. i always take that as a good sign of progress

and do forgive me aaron for my love of actual evidence, as opposed to simple anecdotal evidence that can be easily construed to prove anything.

oh, and my bedroom walls are filled with photojournalism and comics taken from The Funny Times, not statistical abstracts. sorry

as for mexico, two points
one, the global recession, again as you stated is probably most responsible for the loss of jobs.

and, some stores moved shop to china. and there you go with your simple anecdotal evidence. how many manufacturers, what were their markets, what percentage of market share? it could also be that they are moving to china in order to better take advantage of china's growing consumer market.

and, if they are moving to china, why do you care? are you now racist against asians? if jobs are really moving for the reasons you listed that means that the chinese are poorer then the mexicans. yet, you in your high horse believe you can tell the chinese that they shouldn't have those jobs.

there's something really strange about you waving a bunch of numbers onto the screen and thinking that is somehow convincing. the numbers may have internal logic to them, but what's the criteria? do they measure the toxicity of the air, soil, and water? how does a clear-cutted forest register? how does it calibrate the worth of a good -- of whatever nature -- that was fulfilled by a community that market forces has destroyed? do your numbers register an exchange in the market-place as a good thing by definition? how do they measure non-market goods -- the existence of parks, sense of security, community and solidarity? do they convey the ramifications of heightened inequality? do they convey the degree to which people have power over their fate? do they measure hopelessness and despair?

as far as "anecdotal"evidence is concerned: yea, sure, it alone isn't sufficient. but my sense is that you would dismiss as anecdotal knowledge gleaned from actually having to survive via wage-labor and/or having interacted with those victimized by market processes that you see as "in the long-run" benevolent. your world-view smells of someone who not only doesn't sympathize with the poor, but rarely or ever even talks to them.

as to China: I intend to get more info on this whole matter of manufacturing moving there, not only from Mexico but from all over. China's "communist" police state is the perfect enforcer for global capital. you're "are you anti-Asian?" crap is a transparent attempt to deflect from the issues at hand: Global capital's power to set the terms of investment and seek out the cheapest labor possible. and please don't tell me how "voluntary" 25cents-an-hour jobs are.

next drink's on me

thanks burningman.

the following link is pertinent and, once again, gives the lie to jon's claim that globalized capitalism and corporate agriculture is bringing the poor a brighter day. It's on hunger in Central America

http://www.phillyimc.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/05/1236218&mode=thread

On the effects of austerity and corporate agriculture:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12001

Monsanto:
http://www.primitivism.com/monsanto/htm

A couple on biotech:
http://www.primtivism.com/genetic-engineering.htm
http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/biotech

i already posted what the variables were in the human development index.

the more regular things like income, inequality, etc. as well as other things like education (especially female), literacy rates, infant mortality, etc.

your point on whether it includes parks or not is completely ridiculous. when you want to judge how poor people are doing most serious people will want to look at things like food security, not the existence of a merry-go-round.

and why is this information more valuable then simple anecdotes? b/c anecdotal evidence can be used to prove anything, and more importantly anecdotal evidence can only show small glimpses of things. when dealing with huge problems more coherent statistical information is needed.

as for 25 cent/hour jobs being voluntary. why yes. actually if you knew anything about int'l labor you'd know that a quarter an hour is quite generous in many parts of hte world, as the UN plugs the global poverty line at a dollar a day. so, 25 cents an hour in the poor states of the world is nothing less then a veritable fortune. different countries have different prices, this isn't a hard concept.

It may be a formally voluntary act to sell ones labor for 25 cents an hour, but this is where the chasm between formal and real freedom becomes apparent. The whole enterprise of capitalism rests on the imposition of wage-labor which can not be achieved without dispossession -- in particular, through severing agrarian people's ties to the land. This is why I believe it's accurate to say that capitalism is the agrarian revolution. Jon himself, at least in a de facto manner, agrees with this, thus his approval of the "destruction of the small farmer". Not surprisingly, Jon expresses no sympathy for the small farmer whose livelihood has been destroyed. Indeed, when said dispossessed former-farmer sells his labor-power for a pittance to a capitalist who forces him to work in a toxic environment under totalitarian conditions, in jon's addled mind this is a voluntary exchange.

If jon wants to depict 25 cent an hour wages as some sort of god-send he, once again, shows himself to be an apologist for exploitation. While jon cheers the imposition of market rationality on those who've never known anything but toil, he himself is being subsidized by moms and pops so he can get an education that -- surprise, surprise!! -- is prohibitively expensive for most wage-slaves that don't have the luxury of assistance. Perhaps jon should question why university education is so fucking expensive.

It's interesting to note that jon doesn't answer my question as to how the numbers he waves upon the screen measure the toxicity of the land, water, and air. Nor does he say how the destruction of a forest is calibrated (I suspect it isn't). Nor does he answer how his digits take stock of the value of goods furnished by communities that market forces have -- with his approval -- destroyed.

Shit, i gotta go, but the following scorecard is something to chew on. I'm not in full agreement with its premises -- for it takes capitalism as a given, and is hence a dissection of the relative advantadges and disadvantadges of different capitalist managerial strategies -- but still, with that clause attached, it is i think pertinent to this discussion.

http://www.cepr.net/globalization/scorecard_on_globalization.htm

i find it laughable that you chide me for not addressing every one of your points when your modus operandi is to do the same for almost everything i post.

oh, and yes, i do support the agrarian revolution. quite frankly i think that primitivism is abhorently stupid, almost criminal.

===========
If jon wants to depict 25 cent an hour wages as some sort of god-send he, once again, shows himself to be an apologist for exploitation.
==============

you again completely sidestep the issue. 25 cents an hour with an eight hour day translates to 4 dollars an hour, or 4 times the int'l poverty line. set to american wages this would equate to roughly $45,000 a year ($11,000 being the absolute poverty line in US i believe). so, for a worker in a destitute country this sum of cash is indeed a god-send.

==================
While jon cheers the imposition of market rationality on those who've never known anything but toil, he himself is being subsidized by moms and pops so he can get an education that -- surprise, surprise!! -- is prohibitively expensive for most wage-slaves that don't have the luxury of assistance.
===================
oooo!
actually i could have completely funded my college education through either offered scholarships or ROTC, but the actual prestige of the attended colleges would have been less then my current one.

and higher education isn't prohibitively expensive. its called state schools which will cost you a measly 5k a year. god forbid! and if even this is too much federal aid gets rather generous.

==============
It's interesting to note that jon doesn't answer my question as to how the numbers he waves upon the screen measure the toxicity of the land, water, and air. Nor does he say how the destruction of a forest is calibrated (I suspect it isn't). Nor does he answer how his digits take stock of the value of goods furnished by communities that market forces have -- with his approval -- destroyed.
==================

the HDI measures living standards of the world's poor, which in turn also takes into account environemntal damage. a toxic lake for a water source will find its way into the HDI, general air pollution that has its negative effects dispersed throughout the globe and not localized will not.

but, since it is the environment you care about it would be interesting to note that free trade with few exceptions actually leads to a bettering of environmental protection at the best, or no relation at worst.

crud, forgot the last link from CEPR

actually ran across the report a few weeks ago.

i skimmed the article but never fully read it b/c of a series of pretty big problems i had with the underlying foundations.

first off, i found the division b/w 1960-1980, and then 1980-2000 to be completely arbitrary and perhaps even intentionally misleading

the current era of neoliberalism gained ascendance in the early to mid 70's, so why the break is beyond me.

also the 70's saw the recycling of huge amounts of petro-dollars b/c of the OPEC oil crises. this led to massive loans given to the third world (therefore massive gains in living standards), yet all at an unsustainable rate. things only started to fall apart in the early 80's, so the divide b/w the two periods of study would completely distort this rather important historical event.

my second problem was just the study itself and its methodology. they are essentially looking at the history of the world and pinning an explanation on only one variable. in other words, they are saying "let's look at these two time periods, and any discrepnancy is obviously the result of globalization". this is just incredibly reductionist and staggers the imagination as to why they would do this.

my third problem is the lack of evidence. i would have preferred that at least SOME of the sources come from primary sources that actually gather data, not through secondary purposes. there is one on the UN and AIDS, however i thought that the whole AIDS issue was brought up to just slander globalization by in short trying to pin one of the worst human tragedies in history on globalization through a process of guilt by association.