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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (90356)	4/5/2003 6:04:35 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

CB, as Paul pointed out, flux is the issue. In NZ, we are in the process of a replay of the enclosures of land as you read this. This time it's the enclosure of the oceans. When common land or common ocean or common air or common harbours are in big supply, they can be used as a shared resource and there's more or less enough for everyone to expend effort and go and get a piece of the action. When people went on having babies, the commons land or ocean gets too crowded, competition for the dwindling resource becomes excessive and the government dictates a solution, which leaves the dispossessed who enjoyed a free resource displeased and maybe even murderous if their lives depend on it. Hence, displaced Palestinians, who lived for ages on leaded Ottoman land, displaced Indians in Fiji, who had leased land for a century, economically displaced Hong Kongese who no longer enjoy being part of the British realm and are subsumed by the joys of China's authoritarian hand and SARS. It wasn't Robber Barons who were the problem, nor unbridled capitalism causing despoliation. Nor was it long ago in some forgotten industrial revolution. In my life I have watched my Manukau Harbour turn from vibrant, full of fish and life to dead and disgusting and now coming back to life. I've worked in health destroying conditions and unsafe conditions which would now be considered criminal. Capitalism is good. I defend Carnegie because I suspect the unionists were violent thugs, crippling his business with viciousness. They were precursors of the Russian revolution which led to the charms of Lenin and Stalin. Not the sort of unionists I'd like to associate with. Also, Carnegie gave me my start by providing a free library in Onehunga from which I'd borrow books on rockets, science and stuff as a child. I remember them well. Without them, I might not have seen the possibilities of Globalstar [ha!] and QUALCOMM. I, the poor, did have a choice of working conditions, though not a very good one. The problem is to protect people against ignorance and greedy, careless employers without suffocating people and their freedom to run their lives as they choose. In BP, they had international standards. In poor countries, employees were forced to meet the same safe high standards of BP although the cost is excessive. Spending $1 million to save one life in India is unethical when the value of a life in India is about $300 per year and $1 million could save many lives. On the other hand, it doesn't seem ethical to value lives somewhere at a lower price than elsewhere, but the truth is that it is ethical to value some lives less than others. All very tricky to sort out and we can be sure of continuing flux as the issues are battled. Mqurice