On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Nathan Newman wrote:
> I am implying folks are capitalist dupes, meaning that by protesting
> sanctions against China, you are objectively serving the interests of
> the capitalist elite. If I thought the Chinese government was still
> in any real way acting in the interests of its workers, however
> "deformed" or otherwise, we'd be back in the old debate, but [no].
Perhaps this is the difference. Do you think the average Chinese worker is worse off now than they were 20 years ago? So that sanctions, braking this process, is an immediate help to workers?
I don't. Perhaps I'm wrong. Economic growth helps capitalists more than it helps workers. But economic slowdown hurts workers more than it hurts capitalists.
Since sanctions hurt the workers you are trying to aid, and help the workers that are supposedly doing the aiding, they have to be looked at with a gimlet eye. They should be the weapon of last resort, not first.
But I can see how if you believed that economic slowdown was an immediate help to workers, you would believe the opposite.
So do you believe American unions should call for economic sanctions against America until it improves its labor laws? Granted, they are not as bad as China's. But they are in many ways outrageous when compared to Europe. If economic sanctions help amend labor laws, why not here? I'm sure the world would be glad to help. And the amendments we would be asking for would be so much less, I'm sure they would be granted easily ;o)
I think a call by chinese workers for economic sanctions against their own country under conditions of much greater repression would sound at least as odd. And to have it done ventriloquistically sounds even odder.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com