Max,
Jim Cullen's response, while I disagree with it, was thoughtful and
to the point. Yours, on the other hand, was shameless parodying and
misrepresentation of my viewpoint. (I don't mind humorous barbs -- in fact I
have enjoyed your frequent humorous barbs -- but now you've entered the
slippery territory of out-and-out caricature).
I'll get back to both of you gents in the next few days when I get a
chance. Suffice it to say for now that I myself have never presented
the U.S. working class as a homogenous bunch of overconsuming and racist
ignoramuses. All I did was question (in perhaps too polemical a form)
the ethical and political wisdom of an anti-MAI and anti-free trade
strategy which in some ways doesn't sound dramatically different from
the "solutions" being offered by Buchanan or Le Pen in France (save the
overt immigrant-bashing).
Best,
At 03:32 PM 12/3/97 +0000, Max Sawicky wrote:
>> Jim Cullen responds:
>>
>> The tone of your criticism is one of the reasons that most American workers
>> would just as soon export liberals to Myanmar, rather than support their
>> causes. My editorial appeals to the self-interest of American workers
>> because they are the ones who can have an impact on United States trade
>> policy. . . .
>
>You see, Jim, that was your problem. There is a certain mindset
>which holds the consumption needs and habits of, say, the top 75
>percent of the U.S. population to be environmentally excessive and
>aesthetically vulgar. The working class is mostly outside the U.S.
>(those inside the U.S. often not working) and lives in a world with
>no legitimate borders, state, or need for such oppressive things as
>law enforcement. You have to go back to Lin Piao, where the peasants
>of the periphery would surround and engulf the developed capitalist
>world and its fat, racist, sell-out worker-aristocrats.
>
>Get with the program! (sic)
>
>> I suppose at a moral level perhaps it is unworthy of us to couch our
>> arguments in self-interest, but at a practical level I don't see anything
>> wrong with an American worker getting involved politically to protect his
>> or her livelihood.
>
>Tsk tsk.
>
>Out at the shack, building my next "surprise,"
>
>Max
>
>
>
>===================================================
>Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute
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>
>Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views
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>===================================================
>
>
John Gulick
Ph. D. Candidate
Sociology Graduate Program
University of California-Santa Cruz
(415) 643-8568
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
