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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frodo Baxter who wrote (8104)	2/25/1999 2:52:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

I agree with about 90% of what you said. A few points of divergence: Anyone who has traveled here over the last two decades would confirm, I am sure, that Asia has had a transformation. It has, but this transformation has been largely limited to urban areas. One major factor inhibiting the spread of growth to rural areas is, I believe, the relatively greater influence of traditional elites in the countryside. While their influence is frequently not easy for the casual visitor to detect, it is very real. If GDP increases by 5%, the average worker is better off by... 5%. Not necessarily. The Philippines has experienced considerable economic growth since 1986, but real incomes of both farmers and workers have declined. Prices, at the same time, have soared, largely due to the removal of the Marcos-era subsidies and the absence of real competition. The average worker, even one with considerable skills, still earns a sub-poverty wage. I would say that feudal influences have a great deal more to do with these phenomena - which, as I said before, probably have more in common with Latin America than with the rest of Asia - than the corporations that the old socialists loved to demonize. It needs to be said, though, that in many areas the US has actively subsidized and contributed to the power of these feudal influences, seeing them as necessary allies against socialism. It is also important to note that with socialism effectively on the run, the situation has changed, and our old allies the feudalists have become the most critical obstacles to the development of a true free market economy capable of sustained growth. liberal guilt does not give one a free pass to ignore economic data or rational analysis. True. But altogether too much economic analysis takes place without adequate study of political and historical context, and this is also dangerous. The power of traditional elites in many developing countries depends entirely on political influence and control of the judicial systems. In a truly competitive free market they will vanish in a generation; they know this, and will do anything possible to derail the free market system, though they will often adopt its rhetoric. Watch it happen in Brazil, when the talk is over and it's time to walk. This is why continued stress on non-economic factors like human rights and political liberalization is so important: it targets the non-economic means by which the old elites maintain their economic dominance.

To: Frodo Baxter who wrote (8104)	2/25/1999 3:00:00 AM
From: shadowman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

LK >Your message bears repeating again and again. The notion that the exploitation of workers is a viable means to drive productivity and production increases, in America, in Asia, or anywhere else, is a nutty populist pinko fantasy. If a country is in the midst of an economic expansion, it is incredibly difficult for the average worker to somehow not share in this prosperity. If GDP increases by 5%, the average worker is better off by... 5%. Sure, some industrialists may make off like bandits. They may even be cronies. Whatever. If GDP isn't growing, no one wins. The only caveat, as Mr. Rogers has so perceptively explained, is a futile feudalism, which of course, generates no growth, just like socialism. Capitalism, even some of the glaringly imperfect versions, does create growth.< Having read a number of your previous posts and believing that your definition of socialism seems quite broad, like anyone to the left of Francesco Franco is a socialist, how do you explain the "growth" in the economies of western European countries that would probably fit your broad interpretation of socialist? Could it be possible in your view, that the unfettered growth in the United States during the early and mid 19th century might have been aided somewhat by the "employ" of certain "average workers" who did not share in the bounty of that era? Was this an example of "futile fueudalism"?(your spelling)... Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation? I know, an isolated incidence, couldn't possibly happen anywhere else, not in the 20th-21st century. I'm not stupid enough to say that exploitation of workers is the norm, as you seem to want to infer, I'm just trying to say that it happens, it's wrong, and it doesn't contribute to the economic or political long term stability of a country or region. I guess that qualifies me as a fellow traveler in the 50's sense of the term. Lawrence, things are not quite as black and white (or red) as you see them. Now I'll drag my pinko butt to bed.