Face it, globalization is just another word for imperialism.

[arcadian]

Neo-colonialism, call it what you will, what it spells out is exploitation of natural and human resources by the ruling class. Raw Materials and labor from all over the globe being concentrated and converted into unfathomable wealth for a very few elites.

[avaistheone1]

1. Globalization has done squat for the average American. It has only made our lives worse while

enriching corporate CEOs and high level management.

Free trade and globalism are both part of the same bad deal.

[tblue]

3. And it is devastating much of the developing world.

[TheKentuckian]

2. I'd say its even worse

At least Imperial Citizens in the motherland's got some benefit from reaming the colonies.

[mitchum]

10. +1

[tblue]

4. Of course it is. But you can't just call it 'American Iraq' as you could American Samoa.

It's not PC to re-name countries you take over anymore. But the net effect is the same. Except, it's not 'American' anything. It's 'Multinational Corporation Iraq.' Make no mistake, we are just as much imperialists as the Romans and the Brits were.

[Zodiak]

5. More like the Brits

They performed a lot of imperialism under the banner of the East India Tea Company. Pretending your imperailism is just "business" is an old tradition, one that started a revolutionary war in a country or two (including this one).

[arcadian]

14. The Crown is a corporate sole

[anonymous171]

39. America is controlled by the wealthy. They are the imperialists. Not us. nt

[malaise]

6. So was the original globalization

Word is that there are Rethugs in Congress willing to support goods being sold in the US that were made by children or even enslaved people.
I heard night before last that there's something about this on the Heritage Foundation website - I need to check that.

[newtothegame]

7. We kind of have to take the blame ourselves then as well for our obsession with multiculturalism. n/

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Yeah, screw other cultures. What have they ever done for US?

[mitchum]

11. That multicultural ruse was how they were able to sell globalization to...

many liberals.
"It will be just like a Benetton ad!"
Suckers...

[anonymous171]

12. Multiculturalism isn't to blame. Globalism is. nt

[fascisthunter]

16. oh my ....

unbelievable

[tblue]

21. No. It's our obsession with buying cheap crap. And voting for people touting 'Free Trade' b.s.

And valuing $$$ over people.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. You're right. Developing countries should just go back to farming...

...and stay the fuck away from our standard of living.

[anonymous171]

15. Look at this child at the bottom. Look how happy she is now that she isn't farming.

White man's burden FTW!

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. Eventually

they will be forced to go back to farming. The corporations are destroying the middle class here and in other countries by shipping millions of middle class jobs to third-world countries where workers make pennies an hour. It's just a matter of time before the middle class is destroyed and there is no market for the goods manufactured overseas. Those workers will then be shit out of luck.

Oh, and we're also exporting our pollution along with the jobs. Look at the ecological mess our transnationals are creating in Asia.

[HamdenRice]

26. Unless, of course, they do what western developing countries did and develop an internal market

Oh, how silly of me. The Chinese are too stupid to start making clothes, cars, electronics, and home furnishings for themselves, now that they have a "war chest" of foreign exchange -- just like every other developed country, including the USA, did.

[Hello_Kitty]

28. They don't pay good enough wages to create a consumer base that rivals the U.S. one

There are small affluent professional classes in both China and India but most people live in grinding poverty, even the ones who are "lucky" enough to be working in factories instead of on farms. The problem is that they haven't been making clothes, cars, and electronics for themselves. They've been making them for us.

And Hamden, how do you justify the child labor, slave labor, and pollution?

[HamdenRice]

29. The Chinese are not as poor as you think

The rural Chinese live poor, but are extremely frugal. Many Chinese peasants wearing little more than rags, have larger net worths than most Americans. The NY Times reported recently about farmers in tattered "Mao jackets" who saved several thousand dollars a year.

The issue in China (somewhat unlike India) isn't absolute poverty, but a culture of excessive savings. The savings and income are there for a consumption boom, just as in the early 20th century in America when it took the Sears catalog to get mid western farmers to start ordering stuff from Chicago.

That doesn't even begin to touch the pent up demand of the urban middle classes who continue to save staggering amounts of their income by American standards.

As for "child labor, slave labor and pollution," I'm not sure what you are referring to. I've traveled over rural and urban China, as well as Africa, and there is much less indentured labor in China than in Africa, and nothing like the amount in India and Pakistan. Moreover, it's illegal in China. There is no question of "justifying it" but facing it as a criminal subculture that the authorities are working on. So you're talking about an illegal practice the government is trying to stamp out (this doesn't include Chinese prison labor, but Americans are hardly in a position to point fingers at any other country in the world about their prison industrial complexes, because ours is second to none.)

I worked on a three year water pollution and land conservation project for Chinese environmental organs in the late 90s, and while the pollution is terrible, despite what you read in the west, they have dedicated themselves to solving it. Again, we're hardly in a position to point fingers, when this much poorer and rapidly developing country now has a more fuel efficient national fleet of cars than ours, and has committed itself to far more ambitious renewable energy goals than we have.

[Hello_Kitty]

31. Thanks for the info and I defer to your experience

However, you and other free trade advocates on DU seem to have a tendency to split cultural hairs rather than address the underlying economic issue. This allows you to accuse people who point out that the very wealthy and multi-national corporations are engaging in exploitative labor arbitrage and evasion of their responsibility for pollution and global warming. What country the child and prison labor is happening in is far less relevant than the fact that it happens at all and in the name of "free trade".

[HamdenRice]

32. "you and other free trade advocates on DU" -- when did I ever advocate free trade?

I find this one of the more bizarre rhetorical strategies on DU. Sort of like, "if you state fact X, then you advocate the slaughter of baby arctice seals for their fur."

[Hello_Kitty]

33. Not really

I think a lot of the free trade supporters here honestly believe that some of the disagreeable things about it are an acceptable price to pay for the overall improvement it will bring. But what those of us who favor more protectionism (yes, I said it) and stronger regulations are trying to point out is that the improvement hasn't come for most people. The disparity between the haves and have nots has grown, not shrunk, since the U.S. and other countries embraced all this so-called "free trade".

[HamdenRice]

41. Yeah, but where did I ever say I was in favor of free trade?

It's the accusatory nature of DU that gets tiring. I've studiously avoided making pronouncements about free trade because I have very mixed, and ultimately undecided, feelings toward it.

On the one hand, I've lived in very poor countries and think that locking those countries out of rich western markets is unfair. I think, for example, that Liberia could double or triple its GDP if Liberian oranges and grapefruits were allowed into this country. On the other hand, free trade as currently practiced is not fair trade.

I once taught a course that included several components on WTO/GATT, which included the class reading the treaties that create the WTO. It's a lot like our legal system -- it looks completely fair on the surface, but if you can't afford to hire 300 lawyers and station them in Geneva, one of the most expensive cities in the world, then your outcome at the WTO isn't going to reflect the theoretical fairness of the treaties.

I favor protectionism for poor countries and fair trade for American industries affected by dumping into our markets.

But I don't think you'll ever find a post from me on DU advocating "free trade."

[Hello_Kitty]

19. Yeah, and child and slave labor and pollution are no big deal!

I'll just quote Rachel Maddow from last night since she puts it so well: “You think that child labor and slave labor and forced convict labor are cheap and therefore cool with you? Go ahead, make your case. I would love to hear it …. you child labor-endorsing, pro-slavery freaks.”

Go ahead, Cessna, make your case.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

46. First of all... polution.

Shut the fuck up about pollution. Americans are by far the largest per capita producers of greenhouse gases on the planet. This is the stupid conservative strategy for avoiding committing to any kind of climate change treaty - refuse to do anything until the developing world accepts concessions far in excess of anything we would be willing to accept.

As for slave labor, slave labor or indentured servitude has existed in many developing countries for a very long time, far before what we would call modern "globalization" existed. And much of it takes place on farms where the farmer is not the owner of the land and is required to kick up a large percentage of his or her crop to the landowner. But nobody ever hand-wrings over that, since there's not an identifiable corporate brand name attached to that suffering. Pretending that globalization is the cause of slave labor in developing countries is just foolish.

[arcadian]

20. Wow, can't believe I'm seeing somebody use the "white man's burden" defense on DU.

Your statement is culturally demeaning. Your saying that "developing countries" don't have the means or the intelligence to govern themselves and determine their own path. What's wrong with farming?

[Hello_Kitty]

23. I don't think the poster meant it that way.

But while we're on the topic, one of the things I find most infuriating and patently offensive about globalization fans is their casual and unexamined racism. Liberal elitists have no qualms about engaging in demeaning stereotypes to justify exploiting certain groups of people.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

43. They do have the intelligence to govern themselves and determine their own path.

That's why the OP is so ridiculous.

[anonymous171]

45. And globalization threatens their ability to do so.

That is why it is a form of imperialism and therefore bad.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

47. How does it threaten their ability to do so? How is it imperialism?

I'd like actual answers to these questions instead of a bunch of buzzwords.

[tblue]

They should be able to enjoy the bounties of their own freaking countries!

And our standard of living is fast becoming nothing to brag about.

[anonymous171]

37. Not to mention the fact that OUR standard of living is held up by cheap 3rd world labor

So they cannot actually attain our standard of living, as is. Unless they themselves find another less fortunate area to exploit for their own profit (for example, China and Africa), they will remain serfs for the west.

[tblue]

42. I know! Isn't that awful. And it will keep spiraling down until something implodes

and the Corporate Masters will build walls around themselves and throw the people, I mean the 'insurgents/terrorists," in prison or bomb them to "save the village." It's happening.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

48. I will be willing to listen to people on this point...

...when they are willing to give up their own standard of living and donate all of their worldly possessions to the less fortunate in developing countries. Until then it's only so much hand wringing.

[tblue]

25. Delete dupe. And how did that dupe happen?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

44. I don't know. I've been getting duplicate posts all over the place recently.

Sometimes the same posts ends up getting posted two and even three times.

[HamdenRice]

13. Face it, working in McDonalds is just another word for galley ship slavery!!!11!

The exclamation points make me right!!!

Why do people have the need to analyze one phenomenon in terms of some other completely unrelated phenomenon?

During imperialism, iirc, China was carved up among the European powers and forced TO BUY stuff they didn't want, like opium, from the richer countries, while not being able to sell stuff to offset its trade deficits.

Under globalization, China is independent and is the workshop of the rich countries and SELLS stuff to the west and maintains trade surpluses.

There are so many other ways in which they are not the same and barely comparable.

Whether you hate or don't hate globalization (or hate or don't hate imperialism), calling the two the same is profoundly stupid and ahistorical.

[anonymous171]

18. Because it is somehwat confusing and requires too much critical thought.

Political movements are not built on thoughtful discussion and analysis. They are built on motivated individuals and propaganda.

[HamdenRice]

22. Sad and true. nt

[Hello_Kitty]

24. Interesting that you agree with Hamden Rice on this in light of your sigline. eom

[anonymous171]

36. Globalization is not imperialism in the classical sense of the word

It is like imperialism, but with transnational corporations running the show instead of states. So yes, calling globalization imperialism is a oversimplification. However, it does helps us win support in the fight against it because no one likes imperialism. So I agree with HamdenRice, but I don't see why that means we should not keep on calling that.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

49. Right, because transnational corporations had no hand in imperialism at all.

Like, um, the British East India Company.

[Sinti]

27. Yep, but it doesn't have to be that way. n/t

[SIMPLYB1980]

30. So how are you going to stop it.

Lock yourself away in a cave and be a hermit.

[Hello_Kitty]

34. Yeah, it's not like we could, you know, protect our jobs and industries.

Or renegotiate trade pacts or anything.

[anonymous171]

40. BLASPHEMY! nt

[anonymous171]

38. Nationalism. nt

[Enthusiast]

35. You have it exactly correct.

Globalists, neo-cons, fundamentalist "Christians" and fascists go hand in hand.