I like the really carefully reading. It;s nice to knwo our professors are so precise in their analysis. I said middle class. Woj reads this as US suburban. I never said that, of course. I do not and never have supported the proliferation of McMansions, malls anchored by Nordstroms, two SUVs in every yard, and plasma TV in every room, here OR in Bangladesh.
I support bringing up the the standards of the world's poor to a level of not mere substantance of minimal adequacy but actual comfort - cushiness if you weill -- enjoyed by at least the unionized US or European working classes, and bringing down the lifestyles of the richest members of our society to one no higher that than enjoyed by partners at large law firms.
Since further literalness seems necessary, I would like to see more public transportation and less reliance on automobiles, more shared us of durable resources -- maybe washing machines -- less subsidies for suburban sprawl, etc.
And, yes, you will note that I probably would tolerate a whole lot more inequality than most of you. Before you denounce me as a bourgeois liberal, remember I wear the label proudly. But even if it is not as equal as you might like, you'd have to admit tata it would be a big improvement.
But we won't get this. We won't the get Bangladeshi SUV's either. We will get further polization, continents devassated by AIDs and war, sweatshop labor, fundamentalist terrorism, first world imperialist self-righteousness. We will get the imporatttion of third world living standards home. In short, we're fucked.
--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Justin:
> > In my bourgeois way I always say that there is
> nothing
> > wrong with a middle class life style, it should be
> > more widely shared by the poor . . . and the rich.
>
>
> That would be a disaster. The US life style is not
> sustainable on a larger
> scale, especially in more densely populated areas.
> It can only exist for a
> small number of people in sparsely populated areas,
> such as the US.
>
> If the working class of Third World that toils to
> make the junk sold to the
> US were to enjoy the life style of the US
> bourgeoisie - the world would be
> one big gridlock cum environmental catastrophe.
>
> The key here is not the income and volume of stuff
> it can buy but
> efficiency. A lion share of US incomes is wasted on
> artificially inflated
> "transaction costs" - endless middlemen providing
> insurance, selling and
> financing real estates, and reducing various forms
> of information
> asymmetries (from filing taxes, to providing legal
> advice, and to personal
> counseling), an army of service persons serving the
> monumentally inefficient
> transportation, and army of lawyers litigating every
> aspect of everyday
> life, and so on.
>
> It is, however, possible to maintain a life whose
> quality is superior to
> that in the US on a fraction of the US cost i.e.
> income. All that it takes
> is reducing the transaction costs built into the
> American monopoly
> capitalism.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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