http://www.amconmag.com/2004_04_26/taki.html
> Outsource the Neocons! > > By Taki > > While flying back to the good old USA, I read a letter to a newspaper from an > Illinois > factory worker who had lost his job to some sweatshop out in the Far East. He told of > his efforts to keep some kind of dignity as well as the wolf from his door. The > letter > was well written, and the writer came through as a decent person who wanted to find > work rather than a handout. > > Although Pat Buchanan wrote about suicide by free trade in the last issue, a column > by George Will compels me to comment further. Here?s what he had to say about the > perils of protectionism in Newsweek: ?Protectionism is intellectuals? Louis Vuitton > luggage?a luxury for persons comfortably placed in societies with social surpluses so > large they can sustain the injuries protectionism does to economic growth.? > > Who are these purveyors of Louis Vuitton lugagge? They turn out to be none other > than ordinary American workers who find themselves thrown out of work as a result > of being undercut by low-paid workers in Africa and Asia. The latter, poor wretches, > are willing and ready to work in sweatshop conditions for $1 an hour, if that. > > ?Workers disadvantaged by globalization,? Will announces dismissively, ?are few but > concentrated, attentive and intense.? Well, not as intense as George Will gets when > face to face with, say, Lally Weymouth or some other hysterical but rich female. The > message from Mr. Will is that these people should simply shut the hell up and be a > lot > more solicitous about the economic well-being of poor African countries, just like he > is. > > Now of course George couldn?t care less about poor Africans. They come in handy in > order to make a point but hardly ever give a chic cocktail party inside the Beltway. > But > this column is not about Africa. (It would take a War and Peace-like opus just to > list > the murders and thievery of African leaders). It?s about American jobs and American > workers. And what I?d like to know is whose interests are being protected when > corporations close down their factories in the United States and open them in Gabon > because labor there is a lot cheaper? Whose interests are being protected when these > corporations then re-import these goods into the United States at prices so low that > they, in turn, help drive domestic producers out of business? Certainly shareholders > do very well out of this. Without any extra work, labor costs are suddenly smaller, > profits are larger, and the value of their shares is higher. American workers, on the > other hand, are now out of work. > > Please don?t get me wrong. I?m all for shareholders? profits. I am, after all, the > son of > a capitalist. But with a difference. My family moolah comes from industries and > ships. > We created jobs and offered them to Greeks when in Greece, to Sudanese when in the > Sudan, and to Americans when in America. We didn?t close down factories at home > and open them up abroad, like the Heinz corporation does in order to keep John > Kerry?s wife in the style she?s never been accustomed to. > > Once upon a time, the state was required to defend the nation?s borders as well as > the > people?s jobs. Now the crooks in Washington no longer protect the nation?s borders, > and the corporate crooks no longer give jobs to Americans. What in hell is going on > here? I?ll tell you. People like George Will, that?s what. > > As a conservative, I favor social stability over shareholder value. The great > bourgeois > world of the past was built on families confident that the man of the house would > always have a job and that his income would rise slowly but steadily. Nothing > guarantees instability so much as unemployment or the fear of unemployment. The > Wills of this world fulminate about cosseted Americans and extol the virtues of > competition and suggest that there is something elitist and scandalous about wanting > to ensure that American workers are not out of work and are paid reasonably. These > champions of free trade claim that cheap imports mean cheaper consumer goods, but > if people are out of work, they don?t have the money to buy these goods. If people?s > pay is driven down every year because that?s the only way that companies are able to > compete with Third World sweatshops, then there won?t be anyone to buy those > cheap cars and DVDs?other than people like George Will who make their money by > posturing and posing. > > However, I do think free trade is sometimes reasonable. I propose that we outsource > George Will, David Frum, and the rest of the neoconservative pack to India. There?s > probably a sweatshop in Bombay that can churn out neocon drivel at a far brisker > pace and for less than 50 cents an hour. Imagine what ABC could do with all that > money they would save by no longer paying George Will?s exorbitant salary! The > unemployed Illinois factory worker cum letter-writer made more sense than the fully > employed but pompous George ever did.
