To add
to your list.
6. An
individual will seek out others just for the sheer joy of learning and seeing
old situations and things in new ways.
-----Original Message-----Ed,
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 2:16 AM
To: Ed Weick
Cc: Harry Pollard; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: You are naive (was Re: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
At 18:04 27/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
I believe I started all of this by rather innocently posting an article from the NYTimes dealing with cheap illegal immigrant labour doing cleaning work at Walmart. Personally, because I have first hand familiarity with what second generations can achieve, I'm not against bringing in cheap immigrant labour to do menial work, nor am I against sending work abroad to India and China. What I am against is holding the threat of deportation over immigrant labour's head and using outsourcing to undercut domestic workers and their communities. There must be a decent and moral way of doing both out and in sourcing. Society, acting through its elected politicians, has to find that way and not leave it up to Walmart and the outsourcers. The matter has to be considered as an important political issue and not be kept hidden under the table. But perhaps I'm being naive?
Ed
I think you are being naive. Not because you are an innocent but because you are trying to mix morals and economics. In truth, consumers are greedy and will always go to the cheapest sources. When the British car industry was dying in the 1960s and early 70s in my home town of Coventry (we had eight large factories there then: one now) and politicians of both parties were appealing to us to "Buy British" whenever they were in power -- with "Buy British" stickers everywhere you looked and stuck on every conceivable product -- the very same workers who were destroying the British car industry were also buying Japanese cars. They were there, large as life, in the car parks of all the factories when their owners were on shift. Why? Because Japanese cars were better and cheaper.
And why were Coventry car factories destroyed (the last remaining one -- Jaguar -- is due to move abroad shortly)? Because the car workers were greedy (they were already earning twice or thrice the average UK wage for those days) and the local management was weak. I know because I worked in one of the factories for many years.
We all deplore the demise of the corner shop, yet we (Bathonians, at least) all do the bulk of our weekly shopping in the superstores because there's more choice, the food is cheaper and the quality is more reliable. When I first came to live in my present house in Bath 17 years ago there were five corner shops (literally) at the end of the road -- greengrocer, butcher, grocer, newsagent, post office. They've all gone now. What we have now is a deli (in truth, a posh takeaway) and four antique shops, mainly for the benefit of tourists. Yet another dagger in the heart of the local community.
We don't have much by way of morals -- but all are deeply prefigured in our genes. They are:
1. A mother (but not a father) will give her life in sacrifice for her children in an emergency; in a period of starvation, however, she will allow her child to die instead of herself. (Why? Because she has a chance of having more children if and when the starvation period goes -- otherwise, both might die. Observe any and every TV clip you see of mass starvation, as in Ethiopia and northern Africa.);
2. An individual will help another within his family in order to maximise the survival of his/her particular cluster of genes;
3. An individual will help another in his community (that is, when there is a fair chance that the help can be reciprocated sooner or later either by the recipient or by an observer in that community);
4. An individual will tend to trust another (friend or stranger) in any transaction if there is an almost certain chance of reciprocation either immediately or at some stage in the future;
5. It is permissable to use every trick in the book (that one can get away with) to raise one's status in the community because in this way one is able to choose a beautiful and talented sex partner with survival-worthy genes for your offspring.
The first three are called altruism; the fourth is called trade, the last is called art and/or science and/or philosophy and/or organised religion (another version of politics) and/or politics and/or economics and/or consumerism.
This may seem a bleak list -- and so it is, because, ever since we left hunter-gatherer times (after having extinguished most of the easily-available animal prey) the majority of the world's population are either suffering physically or are experiencing unhappiness. Even the 'prosperous' developed world is becoming increasingly stressful and will probably become increasingly divisive (both inter-nationally and intra-nationally). It will always be so -- until we have a more realistic notion of what sort of creature we are and are able to fashion our social and political units more in accordance with our genetic make-up. Until then, I'm afraid, it's all pie in the sky.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
