Whenever the merits and flaws of globalization are put up for debate, one of the more recent arguments (technically) for globalization is: "'Don't the Indians deserve good jobs?'"
This is such a PERFECT statement. In a political sense, not a scientific one.
Because, you see, it nicely side-steps the discussion at hand while insinuating racism upon anyone trying to argue against it without being so gauche as to state such an accusation openly. All that, while at the same time being a perfect example of a trap-question – along the lines of 'Have you stopped beating your wife?'
That is a wonderful manipulation of the debate, ending all discussion of the actual matter at hand while side-lining the conversation to an issue that you control – the perfect representation of politico speech.
Well, the question has been asked. So, let's answer it.
Don't Indians deserve good jobs?
Firstly, that implies – without any supplied evidence – that the jobs in question are good jobs. So, let's actually look at the evidence. The technical jobs being shipped over to India do, indeed, pay a decent-ish wage for non-strenuous office-work during normal daylight working hours. When they're over here.
Once transferred to India, the jobs offer a standard of living there comparable to that of a contract janitorial company over hear with a similar lifestyle – working nights, long hours, for less than a family wage, in a high-stress environment. Or, in other words, over there it's not a decent job; it's a low-end, living wage job with no benefits and no environmental or safety protections. Which is the point, after all. Those jobs are being outsourced there so that corporations can get a cut-rate deal for the same work. If they had to provide the same standard of living that they do over here, then there wouldn't be any huge cost savings, and there wouldn't be any point in outsourcing.
Thus, the answer to the question: 'Don't Indians deserve good jobs?' is: 'Yes, they do. So, are you going to start providing them some?'
Of course, in a country suffering from heavy unemployment, starvation, and large numbers of suicides (an epidemic in India from foreclosed farms), a contract-janitor's standard of living can look comparatively enticing.
Then again, the wrecked state of India's economy was in part caused by those same corporations now outsourcing jobs to them – setting up an awful, awful conflict of interest. Wreck their economy, take their land, then put them to work for you on land they once owned at rock-bottom prices.
Which brings up a second, even more pertinent, answer to the question – 'Why do you think whites have to provide Indians with decent jobs? Don't you think Indians can provide decent jobs for themselves?'
Because, you know, it is whites who are at the top of these outsourced organizations. Yes, often outsourced jobs are contracted out to a company local to the region, and the managers (overseers) of said local companies make a decent living, and the owners of those companies make a good living, but, of course, it is still whites who are sitting on top of this outsource company structure making all the real money.
But what does it matter where the jobs come from?
Ah, as the old colonies discovered long ago: in the short term, nothing at all. But in the long term, when millions of locals end up working for a few thousand outsiders on land that was once their own…trouble brews. Trouble that ends in bloody revolution.
But let's go back and discuss the original, sidelined question: the merits and flaws of globalization.
Firstly, outsourcing isn't new. Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico are among just a few of the countries who have received outsourced jobs in previous decades. And back in the day, the US was a received of a outsourced jobs from Europe, especially Britain.
You see, the idea of globalization isn't 'new'. The world isn't even newly globalized. In fact, there have been several different periods in history when more goods were traded per person than the amount currently being traded today. In previous eras, certain goods were only available in one or a few areas, and those goods went EVERYWHERE.
Yet, even if we do as most globalization proponents do and simply ignore the Exchange of Goods argument (in a discussion of trade no less), so to instead focus on the new INTERCONNECTIVITY of the 'modern' globalized system, even then the globalization era is not the most interconnected era in history. That would be the time of the British Empire. In that era, all of the British colonies had their particular specialization, and the US for a time played a role similar to that which China does for the US today – manufacturer.
Now, the U.S. did inherit control of a large chunk of the British Empire when that empire fell, and has since expanded on what it inherited, but the U.S. just doesn't have that flair for rule of disparate lands that the Bretons have, and so the US has not been able to even come close to forging an interconnected trade system that would rival Old England's.
Well, does that mean the US trade network is a solid second, then? Because second is still commendable.
Nope. That second spot would be the vast Spanish Empire. (Which in my opinion might even really be first, but English history has kind of relegated the Spanish Empire.) Spain did a lot of plundering in its territories, instead of colonizing, but it's not like they didn't colonize – as all of South America, Central America, the Philippines, Africa, Asia, and many, many islands can attest. And many of those places eventually received outsourced work.
Spain, second place. Right. So, that means the U.S. is a respectable third. In terms of all of the nations of history, that's still amazing.
Nope. Third would be the Portuguese Empire.
Fine. Fourth. Fourth in all history. That's still a good show.
Well, probably fourth. I'd be a little leery of the French Empire and the Dutch Network, but yes, fourth. Probably. Maybe fifth. Or possibly sixth. But up there, sure.
Now then. You might have noticed that all of those other nations ahead of the US are empires. Well, that's because empires tend to craft an interconnected trade network in the wake of their conquering. That goes all the way back to Rome needing to import Egyptian grain in order to survive.
Yes, the ideas of globalization are as old as the Roman Empire.
The only new thing about globalization is the name – renamed for YOU by PR. Renamed, as has so much else been renamed in the modern era, when names are sometimes changed three times a decade.
Well then, what are the merits and flaws of a globalized system?
The merits are:
- Bundles of money for the people in charge. The ability of colonies to earn hordes of cash for the colonial heads (ie the plantation owners) is undeniable. A quick glance through the records of the slave plantations and the South will show you that.
- A trade alliance often promotes stability amongst the member of the network, who will often share in each others' defense – even if its only to protect the network.
- That's about it, really.
A good trade network with a large exchange of goods has lots of additional benefits besides trade. But, once again, globalization isn't about promoting the exchange of goods. It is about establishing a specific kind of trade network. Which is why there aren't a bunch of Chinese and Indian good flooding into the US, despite the heavy amount of trade.
The flaws are:
- As such a trade network succeeds and expands, more and more locals are employed by the foreign corporations. When a country of millions of brown people ends up working for a few thousand foreign white people, trouble starts. See Africa.
- A specialized, interconnected system tends to be highly fragile. Fragile things break easily. When things break down, goods stop moving. For the producing countries in a specialized system, that means starvation.
- The system is highly vulnerable to price fluctuations. The old adage of: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If a country is specialized in one good, and the price of that good falls, devastation results. And even if the price of that good rises steeply, that's not a reason to celebrate, as one would think. Instead, it usually ends in other countries in the network looking for an alternative to that good so they can stop buying it.
- Using trade imbalances to generate profit is an exploit (currently a huge and highly profitable one), and that kind of profit generates huge inflation. But eventually exploits come to and end, only you're stuck with the inflation.
- This kind of exploit usually has about the same effect on an economy as a gold rush, handing bundles of money into a few hands, which causes inflation, inflation that most people's wages aren't rising to match since they don't get a share of the gold. See the Spanish Empire.
- The longer the trade network is maintained, the more intervening that has to be done in order to maintain the network. Trade imbalances tend to return to balance over time. Customs and laws change. People want to own their own countries. Chaos and war. Revolutions. –The trade network has to fight against all of that. Ie why Western corporations are fighting against any proposed Chinese labor laws.
- The whole nature of the beast is a massive subsidy to the corporations involved. The producing and manufacturing countries have to be kept stable politically, economically, and socially. The lines of trade have to be guarded. Transportation costs have to be kept low. Rivals have to be kept at bay. And corporate assets have to be protected from being nationalized. And the policing nation gets to pay for all of that. Don't believe a government would intervene for a corporation? See history of the East India Trade Company, National Fruit, Halliburton.
- Endless interventions on behalf of maintaining the globalized system means endless interference in other countries elections, social movements, laws, policing, and rebellions. Which means endless bribery, corruption, and assassination. But most of all, it means fighting endless spot wars (or police actions, or military interventions, or humanitarian interventions, or whatever is currently the word du jour).
- Intervening doesn't create friends. See 9/11.
But such is what the globalization system has been since Roman times, and such is what it will always be. It comes and it goes as empires bring them into being, and then fall apart as the empire loses control of it and can no longer hold it together. But it always comes back when the next empire arises, because of those obscenely vast sums of money that it generates for those at the top. Those mountains of gold are hard to ignore.
