No matter what the various Thurow, Gray or Goldsmith say (not to mention raving Batra), I find our present first world, with all its pollution and scattered toxic dumps, much more tolerable than the poverty and disease prevalent in Europe in pre-industrial times, and in most of the Thirld World still today. Anyway, exporting technologies is fine with me to help the development process: I was referring to exporting _products_, either finished or semi-processed like steel. By the way, I'd find it wonderful if America or Europe ceased to be self-sufficient in some strategic area: that would create common interests with the rest of the world, making the use of force difficult. The real reason why, nowadays, wars are confined to places like Cambodia, Afghanistan, central Africa or ex-Yugoslavia, is that elsewhere they are too dangerous for the interests of global capitalism. Which IMHO is proving the best defender against the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, not their sponsor.
Cheers --
Enzo
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Lehman <TLEHMAN at lor.net> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Monday, December 14, 1998 12:02 AM Subject: Re: Merger Mania
>Dear Enzo,
>
>We could usher in a new dark ages in the way Lester Thurow describes it
>happening. Although, Thurow lays his analysis off on William Manchester's
A
>World Lit Only By Fire; the analysis is Thurow not Manchester. It's more
like
>Thurow's economic interpretation of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
>
>Enzo, I'm sure that you are aware that the ancient Romans built large scale
>irrigation systems in North Africa and the Middle East. With the fall of
the
>Roman Empire these systems were destroyed by the barbarians or fell into
>disrepair and were never re-built. Even today lands that were irrigated
way
>back then are not irrigated today!
>
>Please, remember that what is low tech to us may be rocket science or
dreaming
>in the 3rd world. The growth of deserts, deforestation on a massive scale,
>polluted water and toxic waste is this the world we want? Or do we want to
gear
>our industries to building productive equipment that can make life in most
of
>the world tolerable.
>
>Sincerely,
>Tom Lehman
>
>
>Enzo Michelangeli wrote:
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tom Lehman <TLEHMAN at lor.net>
>> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>> Date: Sunday, December 13, 1998 7:32 AM
>> Subject: Re: Merger Mania
>>
>> >The, sort of ,defense argument that I think works goes something like
this:
>> people
>> >all over the world need clean water, irrigation, and sanitary sewer
>> systems. We in
>> >the USA make the best equipment to solve these types of problems. We
make
>> the
>> >pipe, we make the pumps, the motors, have the technology to make the
>> deserts and
>> >wastelands of the world bloom. We should be exporting this equipment
and
>> these
>> >technologies. It's low tech---it's also what people need in the 3rd
world.
>> To my
>> >way of thinking this makes long term friends and allies.
>>
>> No you shouldn't: low tech is what industries in the 3rd world can do
best,
>> and if you flood their market with subsidized products you destroy their
>> fledgling industries. Instead, you should open your markets and _buy_
their
>> products. Even if this upsets your steel lobby (and your textile lobby,
and
>> your toy lobby and...)
>>
>> Enzo
>
>
>