Can we say, Been There, Done That?
Didn't Alexander Cockburn do a column for the Nation about 15 years ago in which he had an imaginary debate on the McNeill-Lehrer N.H. (or something like) between a conservative advocate of slavery and a liberal critic of its excesses, with the abolitionist speaker always getting shut up?
This is why Tom Lehrer gave up satire. The real world are far sicker than merely Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.
--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
> WTO NEWS: 2006 PRESS RELEASES
>
> Press/388
> November 13, 2006
>
>
>
>
> US Trade Representative to Africa, Governor of
> Nigeria Central Bank weigh in
> at Wharton
>
>
>
> Important Note:
> Many visitors from all over the political
> spectrum have read this
> release and believed it to mean that the WTO is
> officially in favor of
> slavery.
> In actual fact, we at the WTO would never, ever
> wish to suggest that the
> modern version of the West's free trade with Africa
> is tantamount to its
> older form, slavery, or even worse than its other
> older form, colonialism.
> That would fly in the face of everything that we
> stand for.
> The catastrophic failure of free-trade policies
> in Africa may be one
> partial source of this confusion. The actual,
> literal slavery that
> flourishes under the auspices of free trade (in
> Brazil
>
<http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061103/AUTO01/611030340
> /1148> , Jordan
>
<http://citizenstrade.org/pdf/usw_pressreleaseonjordan_04042006.pdf>
> , and
> elsewhere) may be another.
>
>
>
>
> Philadelphia - At a Wharton Business School
> conference on business in
> Africa, World Trade Organization representative
> Hanniford Schmidt
> announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full
> private stewardry of
> labor" for the parts of Africa that have been
> hardest hit by the 500 years
> of Africa's free trade with the West.
>
> The initiative will require Western companies doing
> business in some parts
> of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt
> recounted how private
> stewardship has been successfully applied to
> transport, power, water,
> traditional knowledge, and even the human genome.
> The WTO's "full private
> stewardry" program will extend these successes to
> (re)privatize humans
> themselves.
>
> "Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available
> solution to African
> poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market
> theory," Schmidt told more
> than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the
> stewardry program was
> similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that
> just as "compassionate
> conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor
> relations in
> industrialized countries, full stewardry, or
> "compassionate slavery," could
> be a similar boon to developing ones.
>
> The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor
> of the Central Bank of
> Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African
> Affairs at the Office
> of the US Trade Representative), and other notables.
> Agama prefaced her
> remarks by thanking Scmidt for his macroscopic
> perspective, saying that the
> USTR view adds details to the WTO's general
> approach. Nigerian Central Bank
> Governor Soludo also acknowledged the WTO proposal,
> though he did not seem
> to appreciate it as much as did Agama.
>
> A system in which corporations own workers is the
> only free-market solution
> to African poverty, Schmidt said. "Today, in African
> factories, the only
> concern a company has for the worker is for his or
> her productive hours, and
> within his or her productive years," he said. "As
> soon as AIDS or pregnancy
> hits-out the door. Get sick, get fired. If you
> extend the employer's
> obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, you have an
> entirely different
> situation: get sick, get care. With each life
> valuable from start to finish,
> the AIDS scourge will be quickly contained via
> accords with drug
> manufacturers as a profitable investment in human
> stewardees. And educating
> a child for later might make more sense than working
> it to the bone right
> now."
>
> To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt
> cited a proposal by a
> free-market think tank
>
<http://www.policynetwork.net/main/article.php?article_id=505>
> to save
> whales by selling them. "Those who don't like
> whaling can purchase rights to
> specific whales or groups of whales in order to stop
> those particular whales
> from getting whaled as much," he explained
> Similarly, the market in
> Third-World humans will "empower" caring First
> Worlders to help them,
> Schmidt said.
>
> One conference attendee asked what incentive
> employers had to remain as
> stewards once their employees are too old to work or
> reproduce. Schmidt
> responded that a large new biotech market would
> answer that worry. He then
> reminded the audience that this was the only
> possible solution under
> free-market theory.
>
> There were no other questions from the audience that
> took issue with
> Schmidt's proposal.
>
> During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three phases
> of Africa's 500-year
> history of free trade with the West: slavery,
> colonialism, and post-colonial
> markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has brought
> tremendous wealth to the
> West but catastrophe to Africa, with poverty
> steadily deepening and ever
> more millions of dead. "So far there's a pattern:
> Good for business, bad for
> people. Good for business, bad for people. Good for
> business, bad for
> people. That's why we're so happy to announce this
> fourth phase for business
> between Africa and the West: good for business-GOOD
> for people."
>
> The conference took place on Saturday, November 11.
> The panel on which
> Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa:
> Enhancing Relationships to
> Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in the
> conference were entitled
> "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing Africa's
> Appetite." Throughout the
> comments by Schmidt and his three co-panelists,
> which lasted 75 minutes,
> Schmidt's stewardee, Thomas Bongani-Nkemdilim,
> remained standing at
> respectful attention off to the side.
>
> "This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt.
> "It's about the freedom
> to buy and sell anything-even people
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com