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From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin
Message-ID: <2095@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 14:28:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2095
Posted: Mon Jun 24 14:28:31 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Jun-85 02:49:07 EDT
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Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 85

> You must remember something about the industrial revolution - those horrible
> working conditions and all the other things we have progressed beyond
> today did not look the same back then.
> 
> People were not grabbed out of their farms and forced to work long hours
> in the factories.  They decided to do it because it was a better offer
> than they got elsewhere.  It's true, they didn't like the deal much
> and would have preferred a bigger piece of the pie, but they hadn't
> figured out how to get it yet.  Back then a job in a factory was superior
> to an agricultural or migrant existence - why else did people take the
> jobs.
> 
> It's hard to come to grips with this, but we owe the men who built the
> companies of the industrial revolution a great deal.  The same "Robber Barons"
> who squeezed every penny they could get from their employees built up
> the society today that gives a modern poor person more of just about
> everything (except personal service) than the middle class had in the
> 18th and 19th century.
> 
> Just remember when you claim that modern society was built on the backs
> of exploited workers that those same people lined up to be exploited
> wherever they could.
 Sure Brad take anyone and put them in a miserable existence for long
 enough and then offer them a slightly less miserable existence and
 they'll probably take it.  Let's also not forget that there was a
 privelidged/ruling class back then as well and that they are/were
 one of the reasons why the poor were so poor in the first place.  Lets
 also not forget the "orphanages" where poor unfortunates were given
 something useful to do (like crawling through mine tunnels for 14
 hours a day) or women forced to do the same because their social/political
 system did not allow them any alternative.  Lets also not forget the
 company towns where workers were kept; where they were forced to buy
 the necessities of life at inflated prices so that they could never
 get out of the cycle.

> ------------------
> On another point, while we talk about English colonialism, what about the
> USA.   The industrial revolution of the last century was in Europe, but
> in the 20th century it was in the USA.  Which group of people that the
> US (or Canada) exploited in the 20th century do you claim as the primary
> source of modern American strength and wealth?  It's my feeling that most
> of the American companies made their money right here on this continent,
> and that multinationals external profits are far from the majority of
> the GNP.
> 
 Well think about it the next time you buy shoes from Bata (South
 America & Philipines), or strawberries from South America, or ICs from
 Taiwan or the Philipines, or lettuce from California or New Mexico
 (planted and harvested by Mexican wetbacks).  All these things
 are cheap in large part because of labour that is paid subsistence
 wages.  I don't *think* it extended into the 20'th century but I've
 been told that around the time of confederation there was a bounty
 on Indian scalps in parts of the east coast (we wanted their land
 you see).

 Blacks of course have been exploited throughout this century (not
 to mention before) for economic benefit.  Women have always been
 a big favourite for exploitation, and today working women still
 earn an average of 63% of what men earn (they get to do all the
 really boring low level jobs for really low wages; makes businesses
 cheap to run you see).

 And of course there's little things like dumping toxic waste (e.g.
 mercury) on lands and waterways that belong to Indian reserves
 (recent case right here in Canada); much cheaper than processing it
 properly.  In the 50's in Vancouver the federal government gave
 a 99 year lease to the Shaugnessy(as I recall) golf course for a 
 fraction of what the land was worth; it happened to belong to an
 Indian band and the gov't just lied to them about the deal - that
 one got into the courts and the band was awarded damages by the 
 courts.

 It would be interesting to have a list of where our banks invest
 their (our) money.  I'll bet a large part of it is in third
 world countries with underpaid labour.  Lets also remember the
 current round of revelations of Canadian companies selling to
 right wing regimes with long histories of human rights violations.

 When the rich get richer the money has to come from somewhere
 and that usually means taking it from the poor.  When the
 powerful gain opportunities it usually means the weak lose them.

 
> -- 
> Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473