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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin
Message-ID: <298@looking.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 00:00:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.298
Posted: Mon Jun 24 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Jun-85 03:00:26 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5710@utzoo.UUCP> <704@utcs.UUCP> <295@looking.UUCP> <2095@watcgl.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 77
Summary: 

In article <2095@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> 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.
>
Nobody is going around defending this behaviour.  We're all aware it
happened.  Enumerating it isn't really relative to the case.  The whole
world used to be poor.  Now lots of it isn't.  This is a FACT.  It's
also a fact that some people, and not everybody, figured out how to
change the world from poor to richer.  It's also true that the people
who figured this out, clever as they were, also figured out how to keep
the biggest chunk of the pie they were creating.  They managed to keep
most of it and give only as little as possible to those they hired.
But, they did have to give them something more than they had.  It wouldn't
have worked otherwise, except through slavery.  Which is not to say there
wasn't slavery and strongarming.  Those things did exist and are deplored
by everybody today.  The only thing that isn't an established fact, and thus
subject to debate is, "Was the strongarming the most important factor in
the success of these people, or was it simply one of the factors?"
>> ------------------
>> 
>> 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).
>
So you have listed a few companies and industries.  I can literally list
thousands, almost millions of counterexamples.  Enumerating examples of
misuse is not important.  Let's see aggregate figures concerning domestic
production vs. foreign production, and revenues attributable to both.
>
> ...Many more examples of nasty goings on...
All these are terrible, and it is the function of the government to
erradicate them.  But the principle of freedom should still be the
fundamental principle, and it should only be modified with the greatest
of care to correct injustices.  The argument that the principle of communism
is correct, and freedom should only be added where it can be proven useful
scares me.
>
> 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.
>

THIS IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MISCONCEPTION.  It shows a total lack of
understanding of trade, I am very sorry to say.  Free, informed trade is never
zero-sum.  Not just rarely, NEVER.   Free trade always results in both
parties being richer than they were before.  

The only way you can lose in free trade is if you
  a) Make a mistake because of your own stupidity or ignorance.
  b) Are forced through violence into making a "mistake."

When the rich get richer the money does NOT have to come from somewhere.
People create wealth, that's how societies in general get wealthier.
Did you think that all new wealth came from the government printing
presses?
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473