Workers Dignity and Free Trade - What does Fraternal Love have to do with it?
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Fraternal Love is being replaced by utility. Workers are used primarily for corporate
gain outside of any democratic process. Raw Capitalism has voided Free Enterprise. The larger corporations can
sell under costs until all their competition is vanquished. Small elite groupings, vast trans- national
corporations , governments acting as brokers and international entities like the WTO control the flow of wealth outside any
real democratic process this way. Human dignity has been offset by a new kind of corporate collectivism where individual
workers rights are subject to the goals of the corporations and governements running the show with hands in
each others pockets.
Fraternal Love is put aside as individual must bow to the new world
order as proclaimed by the elder President Bush with President Clinton confirming this in the passing of the unfair NAFTA
and GATT trade agreements. The younger Bush just followed in both their footsteps when he took office and pushed Fast Track.
This made the Executive Branch of our Government like the Chief Executive Officer for Trade.
The Greek philosphers of old spoke about Fraternal Love in maintaining good societies. These examples
even evolved to the using of Greek symbols and terms for our college fraternities in our times. Christian philosophy
relating to the workday was centered on Jesus who said to love one another as you love yourself. The Bible speaks about doing
unto others as you would have them do to you. Confusianism puts it in a similar way - what you do not wish others to do with
you, don't do it to them.
Today, Globalist Free Traders say - get the other guy before he gets you similar to President Bush's
pre-emptive wars. A small elite grouping enjoys the rewards of Globalization and Free Trade at the expense of a growing working
poor class in the USA and a wage slave class in other lands. Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo led the way for over a hundred
years about the right of workers to form associations with the need for employers to honor a social contract where workers
enjoyed a living wage.
Now even this is being discounted as something no longer relative in a world of fierce competition.
Free Enterprise should be a simple process to maintain the common good for the total society.
Free Enterprise should be a process where something is grown or made at a margin where the owner
can enjoy a reasonable profit while being able to pay his workers at least a living wage. Owners should not use their
wealth to sell under costs to capture markets at the expense of competitors who do not have the same kind of wealth. Fair
trade has been on the books for a very long time but there is very little enforcement.
The Free Market system has open the door to many unethical processes where an anything goes mindset
runs the show.
The economic models of the 1950s to 1980s were much better.
Unemployment was primarily based on full time jobs with benefits.
Part-time jobs were separate from the overall reporting. Most of the data was collected from the unemployment insurance
offices. Today only about 38% of all workers qualify for unemployment. For this reason the Bureau of Labor Statistics changed
to a polling process based on sample statistics. Even a person making only a $100 a month is considered employed, Even
a person making nothing while helping in a family busines or on a family farm while seeking a paying job is considered
employed. In addition there are millions missing in action from any kind of reporting suffering in a Silent Depression.
The value of work and production is now subject to the lowest possible labor costs. The Globalist Free Traders produce
more wealth this way for a smaller elite group while they live off the low value of the working poor class. In other lands
the destitute workers who make the products do not make enough to buy the very things they make.
During the cold war, Communism challenged Captitalism to perform for the common good of all. After World War 2,
the U.S. had the Marshall Plan which help rebuild local value added economies in Europe and Japan. It was backed by the awesome
industrial might of the USA. At the same time, the U.S. had the GI Bill for veterans to get a college education. It
worked well. Success was duplicated in other lands in balanced geopolitical settings. As the cold war faded away Capitalism
took a more selfish stance. Free Trade was introduced. Actually, the U.S. Government start moving factories to Mexico in 1956.
It was supposed to be a temporary program but it became a forced march by the Globalists. Globalization did not
evolve in any natural way. It was forced. Free Trade grew without any real trading of products. It was primarily based
on moving production to the cheapest labor markets of the world. It then evolved in doing the same thing with the outsourcing
of jobs. Instead of the economic models of the 1950s to 1980 we now have chopped up the U.S. economy into pieces. The pillars
that supported local value added economies augmented by the entitlements are being smashed away. The
entitlements and pension plans and other augmentations that supplemented the old Capitalism have become an overhead the
new Capitalism can sustain. The gap between rich and poor grows wider and wider.
In 1970, a first class postage stamp cost 8 cents. A good mid-size brand new car cost about $3,500. A good home was onlye
about $25,000. There were plenty of $10,000 to $12,000 jobs during this time. The value jobs did not increase. Today many
make only the same amount of dollars but things cost about 5 times more. According this ratio, there should be plenty
of $50,000 to $60,000 jobs now for single workers but these jobs are now few in numbers.
It takes two spouses to make what one spouse made in the 1970s.
Now we have the working poor in place like Wal-Mart who need all kinds of government assistance to survive. There
is a Silent Depression. Hurricane Katrina vividly exposed this with populations not being able to escape the storms due to
lack of money. This Silent Depression exists in many of our major cities and the bottom line is this - the destitute will
not be able to go home to places like New Orleans because it is impossible to rebuild the impoverished neighborhood for the
same values that were at least somewhat affordable.
Workers Dignity - What does Fraternal Love have to do with it?
---- Fraternal Love has everything to do with it----
