Wouldn't it behoove us to find out whether the firms that will make the
textiles etc. are Northern Corps. out to simply set up shop to capture rents
from the wage differential. If they are, say, US corps. then the suggestion
that some sort of levy or tax on their "import"[ation] into the US so as to
compensate for the retraining of US textile workers for job loss wouldn't be
too off the mark. As for the idea that it will make African workers more
propserous, could someone suggest a time line so that we could go back and
check on their lives and communities in, say, five-ten years and also see
what the factory conditions are like, whether some of the profits were used
to invest in education, health care, sewage systems etc. or was the capital
just sloshed around in forex markets or confiscated for "debt repayment".
Better yet, although it's too late, were any suggestions made that the firms
making these goods be worker owned or community owned or did they just get
slapped with the WAl-MART model of ownership/ripoff.
Ian
