CBTP Reply #2

This is just too much fun! Ok... here is the second installment of Capitalism Great; Tree There to be Cut Down as Natural Renewable Resource, whereby I take a post from Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty (CBTP)and dissect it, argument by argument with lots of satire and cynicism. The original post follows (with my comments in red): ************************************************************************
People should be freer than capital (people are freer, capital can't vote and certainly can't start a ridiculous blog filled with misguided thoughts)

I wanted to write a little bit more about my position on immigration, because I think it's an issue that doesn't receive enough attention (WTF! The only thing I could thing of that would get more attention would be if Michael Jackson were to open a chain of day-care facilities). One commenter on my post wrote:

But I have been surprised that many of the people that are vehemently against
corporations outsourcing jobs to India and China have no problem with domestic
outsourcing to illegal immigrants driving down wages for many Americans.

This sort of rhetoric on immigration is really dangerous (It's really not dangerous at all. Illegal aliens with criminal records are dangerous. I've never had my car broken into by a roving gang of rhetoric), because it drives a wedge between those with work permits and illegal immigrants, and it's wrong. The reason illegal immigration can drive down wages and conditions has nothing to do with the fact that people come from some country with bornwer skin (what the hell is bornwer skin? Is that some Kiwi thing that I don't know about?), in fact it has nothing to do with the immigrants at all, it's because the employers use the power they have over illegal immigrants. If all illegal immigrants were allowed to work legally then their wages and conditions would go up, because they could utilise labour legislation, and it would be easier to organise. (Illegal aliens get the jobs they have because they will work for cheaper wages than other, legitimate workers. If they were afforded legal status, they would have no special advantages over other people in the labor pool. If all 12 million illegal aliens in the US today were granted citizenship, they would most likely find themselves out of work and replaced by new illegal aliens streaming over the border every day. These 12 million new citizens would then be eligible for unemployment, putting a further strain on our economy.)

I don't actually care about American jobs any more than New Zealand jobs, or Chinese jobs and Indian jobs (You SHOULD care more about NZ jobs and get your nose out of our business). No borders isn't just rhetoric about immigration - it has to be a commitment not to priviledge one group of workers above another. (Every employer in every business in every country should absolutely privilege certain workers over others. Employers should favor workers who pay taxes, are willing to follow directions, work hard and increase productivity when needed.)

I also oppose tarriff reduction regimes for different reasons than this commenters (huh?). While the arguments about relationships between tarriff changes in the first world and job losses (and not just in the first world, but that's a longer post) are important. The real reason I oppose tarriff reductions is that they give companies more power. The more free companies are to move around, the more they can leverage from different localities to move where they are. Improved transport has meant that manufacturing can reasonably easily be moved from one location to another. This has given manufacturers the power to leverage zones where no labour legislation, or most other forms of legislation, apply to them. It's this power, not the job losses, that I object to. (So let me get this straight, you like freedom for laborers to move around to whatever country has the better wages, but you don't think companies should have the right to move around to get the best labor prices? Are you nuts? Let's think about that for a bit. If the labor pool moves freely to the countries that have the highest wages, like the USA, and the companies in other nations, like China and Mexico can't move around, then the USA would grow in population and power to a degree that is unimaginable. Every factory in the US would be at full capacity because there would be no labor available anywhere else. With the abundance of labor, we could reduce wages because of oversupply and further dominate the world. Hey I'm starting to like this girl's thinking. With this kind of oversupply of labor, we could implement a mandatory draft of all the unemployed and with our newly huge army we could invade everyone else in the world and take their natural resources for ourselves. Then, once we owned the world, we could ship out all of the undesirable people back to the countries from whence they came and start all over again! Damn Maia you're on to something here!)

I don't actually believe that 'no borders' could be achieved under capitalism (NO Maia, say it aint so! Your plan is awesome, let's get working on it!), neither could women's liberation (Does she mean we should have to liberate our women? Does than mean that American women’s should get the right to vote and drive and have jobs? What kind of radical is this Kiwi chick?), but steps in that direction are worth fighting for.

Also posted on Alas posted by Maia at 9:32 PM 1 comments links to this post *****************************************************************8

Anyone else care to weigh in on this? I have to stop, my side hurts too bad from uncontrollable laughter and my fingers are sore from typing.