Posted on 04/23/2007 12:52:04 PM PDT by A. Pole
Free trade bump!
The free traders always like to tell people that wealth creation is not a zero sum game.
How come the living standard for the average worker seems to be zero sum?
What makes you think its “zero sum”. Are you saying your own living standard isnt better then what it was when your dad was your age? During your dad’s time, was he able to afford a mobile phone, computer, HD tv, microwave....etc?
Its always the case that an individual average worker looks at his/her own living standard relative to other “average worker” (i.e peers) and so his/her own living standard seems to remain static, and hence is very likely to believe that living standard for the average is “zero sum”. In reality it’s not.
Screw this.
I'm going to buy some acreage, grow vegetables, live in a shack without electricity, and own two pairs of shirts and coveralls I'll wash in the creek.
And I'm only half joking.
I'll take my dad's living standard:
Career security, a strong and loving family, a nice home, affordable medical insurance, thermostat set to 72 in the winter, plenty of good food, well-behaved kids who marry the nice boy or girl next door, church on Sundays, leaving your front door unlocked, and home from work by 6 P.M. every night.
You can keep your damn gadgets.
And we had no air conditioning, and you can keep that too.
We did have a black and white TV, but you can keep that too.
I have exactly the same feelings.
The shortage is self-imposed. Corporations want to pay high-skilled labor (electricians, mechanics) the same wages as the entry level laborers.
If you really want a taste of an idyllic country life that has no access to modern technology, then picture this:
You are living in a country that sweltering hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. No electricity means no AC/heating system, you would have to chop wood in winter and bring them on mules or camels. If you are living in a dry region, then your woman would be walking bare feet on burning sand for miles to get water in earthen pots. (Thats what they still do in parts of India and Africa where water is scares). You would have to walk or take the carriage and go for miles to get to the nearest hospital in case of emergency only to know that the disease is incureable. And as for making a living......if the crops fail..... you starve.
I am dying for the idyllic country life. /sarc
From the perspective of poor Indian the globalism might look good indeed. But for many Americans the perspective of rat race in competition with the Third World laborers might be less appealing.
Given the choice between "multiple careers" and endless "switching jobs/industries" many in developed countries might give up most of gadgets and take it easy.
I am living in North America, where there are plenty of hungry and homeless victims of industrialization.
Let me know when your consumerism society makes ours a Utopia--the blather we've been hearing for a hundred and more years says Utiopia's just around the corner--but industrialization won't bring it.
A handful of intelligent, objectively thinking people who have more sense than to value the products and lifestyle of consumerism, have done what I said and lived happily ever after.
My biggest fear is that society will someday find a way to take my land "for the greater good."
Just as it took the land of the American Indians--
And more recently, of the small American farmer.
“Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing;
“But though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts ‘All aboard!’ when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over—and it will be called, and will be, ‘A melancholy accident’.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Every time someone says to me or mentions in my earshot a statement to the effect that we must fight for equality, I remind them that the only possible way for everybody to have exactly the same amount is for everybody to have nothing.
Longer and healthier isn’t necessarily happier and more comfortable; when I see people running I want to ask, “who’s chasing you?!”
Do we all want to be the same, or will we all be made to be the same for the “greater good?”
None of those things existed in my dad’s time so how can I possibly compare?
I’m beginning to think he had it better....much better.
I agree with you.
And most of the shortcomings could have been overcome with knowledge instead of gadgets.
For example, life expectancy could have been increased in his day (and ours) more from exercise and heatlhy eating than from modern medicine.
Not only that but I heard on the radio today(fox network news) that the pet food poisoning was INTENTIONAL!
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