Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Offshoring has Destroyed the US Economy

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Offshoring has Destroyed the US Economy

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Global Research.

Sir James called it correct, as did Roger Milliken. They predicted that the working and middle classes in the US and Europe would be ruined by the greed of Wall Street and corporations, who would boost corporate earnings by replacing their domestic work forces with foreign labor, which could be paid a fraction of labor’s productivity as a result of the foreign country’s low living standard and large excess supply of labor. Anytime there is an excess supply of labor, or the ability of corporations to pay labor less than its productivity, the corporations bank the difference, Share prices rise, and Wall Street and shareholders are happy.

None of the people whose observations on the contradictions of capitalism cited in this article are anti-capitalists. They are just honest people who see where this system is leading to--multiple crises. But contrary to some of their arguments, globalization is a natural extension of capitalism. It is following exactly the same basic motivation: the private appropriation of wealth on the basis of "ownership" rights to wealth created by working people. National boundaries have nothing to do with the system.