Guest Post: On Comparing America With The Rest Of The World

by lisa, Jul 12, 2009, at 10:18am

We’re pleased to re-post an excellent essay from Missives From Marx. Missives From Marx is written by an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at a college in the United States. He says that he plans to blog pseudonymously until he gets tenure!

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riots

I pretty regularly hear people suggest how great America is compared to other nations. Look at the fights over Gaza, or the fights over Kashmir (or other communal riots in India), or the tribal fighting going on in Africa, or whatever. There’s almost always some violence in the news that Americans can look at and say to themselves, “I live in a great nation—that doesn’t happen here anymore.”

Now, there’s something to be said for this—we don’t have the same sort of outright racist or communalist violence seen in some other nations. Racial conflicts tend to be small here, and rarely do we see communalist riots of the type seen in India, where hundreds or thousands may die. That’s not to say there isn’t communalism or racism in America, but just that it doesn’t produce violence and deaths on the scale seen around the world.

These Americans who flatter themselves ask, “What is it that’s so great about America that that stuff doesn’t happen here?”

My initial response to hearing this sort of thing is the following: that’s kind of like saying that it seems a lot nicer to live in the plantation’s mansion, rather than in the slave quarters.

America doesn’t exist in isolation from other nations. Of course things are nicer in America, but that’s largely because of things like accumulation by dispossession (which I discussed here). We usually notice only one side of the coin—”America is great”—and ignore the other side—”what relations of exploitation and domination have we entered into that allow us to be so wealthy?”

Consider the following pic of the Titanic’s first-class cabin:

titanic_first_class

Beautiful, right? But you should ask yourself about the flip side: what social relations made this beautiful cabin possible? For instance, why can’t you find pictures of the crew’s cabins? How much were crew members paid? And how much were the workers who built the damn thing in the first place paid?

People in America aren’t rioting because they have their bellies full and cable TV to watch—all thanks to an exploitative economic system that rapes the world to serve their interests.

So, you see a great plantation mansion, I see slave quarters.

plantation slave quarters

You see $1 flip-flops, I see a sweatshop.

old-navy-2009-flip-flop-sale sweatshop2

You can’t have one without the other.

Comments

George 10:54 am on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I disagree with your premise. I think the is actually a common fallacy. The problem, I think, is that people look at the distribution of wealth as a sort of pie chart. America has the biggest slice, which seems unfair. The problem, however is that our wealth doesn’t come at the expense of other nations — economics is not a zero sum game. New industries are created that are constantly adding wealth — the entire pie is getting bigger. There is more wealth in the entire world now than there was, say, 50 years ago.

I’m not saying that there’s no exploitation whatsoever, but there’s not nearly enough to account for American wealth coming from exploitation of the poor. The poor don’t have enough wealth to exploit — it wouldn’t add up.

The picture of flip-flops and the sweatshop is particularly misleading. First of all the people working in that sweathshop are being paid a market rate in their own country. That’s better wages than they’re likely to make elsewhere. In many cases the choice for these people is to be paid poorly in a factory, or to be essentially a slave in the agricultural industry. It’s not a nice choice, but it’s not America or our industries’ responsibility. Business could not pay them more without increasing the price of the sandals here. And who’s buying those $1 sandals? The relatively poor people in our own country. Increasing the price of foreign labour would increase the costs to our own domestic poor.

The world is not fair, human nature has flaws. In my view the market, though imperfect, is the best mechanism that has yet been invented for maximizing and distributing the utility.
amandaw 12:28 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I really think “Markets!” is the new snake oil. Markets cure everything!
Eric Stoller 12:31 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I think this is why I never get along with economists.

The current system needs inequality and hierarchies in order to “thrive”. The market status quo maintains itself via a system of the haves and have nots.

There may be more wealth in the world as a whole, but the system still is based on a hierarchy. The current market system is all about maintaining power. It doesn’t evening distribute wealth because it cannot exist if it does and that is Lisa’s point.
George 1:32 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I would like to know, what is the alternative to Markets?

European style social democracy is extremely expensive (20% sales taxes at least 40% income taxes) and they were experiencing > 10% unemployment when the economy was good.

Communism was an unmitigated disaster. I know, “it hasn’t been properly implemented yet”, but I think we have a statistically significant sample that’s enough to say it’s inherent flaws are too great to be practicable.

Since this is a sociological blog I wonder if anyone is familiar with the work on complex systems. In such models small scale interactions among a large number of people lead to emergent phenomena, such as economies. Imposing solutions from the top down is difficult compared to structuring motivations from the bottom up. This suggests that the solution to problems of inequality lies in harnessing the natural — they are the default system, unless another is imposed — force of markets rather than attempting to oppose them.
Tlönista 1:52 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Is anyone else reminded of Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”?

Also, for the MARKETS! people, here’s an Adam Smith lolthing!
Penny 1:56 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

This post collects together too many historically disparate examples to make a clear point. The planter’s house wasn’t luxurious for the same reasons (or in the same ways) that the Titanic cabin was luxurious, and neither really has much in common with the $1 flipflops.

As with most things that are made to seem simple, there’s far too much left out here. There’s a whole realm of locally-produced and handmade goods missing from this formulation. Can you buy reasonably-priced goods that are ethically made and marketed? Yes, absolutely. But you might have to try shopping somewhere besides Target and Old Navy, for a change. Can you buy second-hand, or swap/trade/barter, or (gasp) make your own stuff? Sure, and a lot of us do a lot of that, too. It’s not impossible.

This post might lead one to believe that you’re just stuck with the $1 flipflops and all they entail. You’re not. If you care about who makes your clothes, your food, whatever, you can live that concern in practical, affordable ways.
Toni 2:27 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I would have hoped that on a blog like this, contributors would know better than to use a trivialising metaphor like ‘X thing that is not rape is totally like rape’, especially when discussing privilege and oppression.
Sabriel 2:38 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I agree with Toni.
Penny 2:43 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Amen, Toni.
Eric Stoller 3:02 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Ursula K. Le Guin recently gave an amazing talk on “morality and self-deception“.
Duran 3:16 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

You see a sweatshop.

I see the best employment option locally available.

Ever thought to ask yourself why people choose to do jobs that you or I might consider beneath us? Of course not. Because you base your thoughts on feelings instead of logic.

But let’s institute a variety of Marxism here. That’s worked out great everywhere it’s been tried.
Missives from Marx 4:07 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Hi George; thanks for your comment. In response I want to say that you’re right about the fact that it is a common fallacy that economics is a zero-sum game. However, it is not one I made in my post. I did not say (and nor do I think) that America simply steals wealth from other nations (although there is arguably SOME theft). It is entirely possible to posit that relationships of exploitation exist without positing zero-sum economic relations.

I think where you misunderstand me is in thinking that by “exploit” the poor I mean “steal from” the poor. It seems pretty clear to me that businesses can exploit international labor markets—by entering into contracts with laborers that benefit the businesses drastically more than they benefit the workers—without ever “stealing” from laborers. As a result, your claim, “he poor don’t have enough wealth to exploit — it wouldn’t add up,” doesn’t make any sense.

You go on to say the following: “the people working in that sweathshop are being paid a market rate in their own country. That’s better wages than they’re likely to make elsewhere. In many cases the choice for these people is to be paid poorly in a factory, or to be essentially a slave in the agricultural industry. It’s not a nice choice, but it’s not America or our industries’ responsibility.”

In response, I’d like to say that a “market rate” is not the same as a fair or a living wage. Point out that they may be better off does not win you points. If I save someone from drowning in the river outside my house but then enslave them, I could say they are “better off”—since they are alive—but that still doesn’t mean my behavior is ethical in the least.

You are right to point out that laborers often do submit to working for low wages in order to make the best of a lose-lose situation, but I’m unsure what you mean when you say that it is not America’s responsibility. If you mean that America (and American industries) don’t “take responsibility” in the sense of doing something about it, then you’re right, but in a trivial sense. If you mean that America (and American industries) aren’t responsible in the sense that they aren’t responsible for contributing to the economic relations that exist there, then you’re wrong—American industries DO contribute to (i.e., are responsible for contributing to) the economic relations that exist in other nations.

I imagine what you mean is that America (and American industries) shouldn’t take responsibility in the sense of doing something about it. That is a claim with which I disagree and which calls for a justification rather than mere assertion.

Last, you note that “Business could not pay them more without increasing the price of the sandals here.” EXACTLY! I would willingly pay more for products that were made by people who earned a living wage. No one has an inherent right to have cheap luxury items.
Missives from Marx 4:12 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Hi Penny; thank you for your comments. I completely agree that there are products available that are not produced in sweatshops. This is something that I did not foreground in my post, and you are right to suggest that this was an oversight!

In addition, you’re also right to suggest that the examples I provided were highly disparate. The link that binds them, in my mind, at least, is that they should not be considered in isolation. The problem is commodity fetishism: I wanted to point out that products are what they are because of systematic relations of production. You’re absolutely right that the modes of production related to each (plantations, the building of the titanic, the production of flip-flops) are completely different from one another.
Missives from Marx 4:15 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Toni, as a bourgeois white male, it is good to be reminded that the metaphors I use may be insensitive or trivializing. Thank you; this is something I’ll attend to much more carefully in the future.
MissCegenation 4:21 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

“…our wealth doesn’t come at the expense of other nations….”

@George, i couldn’t disagree more. i understand that one could make an argument in the case of the $1 sandal that the US is giving employment opportunities at local pay rates to other countries (even though i think it’s still a bad deal for the other side).

however, throughout history, our nation has become extraordinarily wealthy as a direct result of our willingness to exploit the resources of other countries. we have procured labor, land, and natural resources (as well as actual human beings), and paid rock-bottom prices for them, or nothing at all.

i just can’t see your logic in this one.
Richard 4:42 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

@MissCegenation:

Perhaps there are two, seperate issues here.

1. We could give local workers a significantly better deal than we currently do, and it wouldn’t cost us all that much.
2. Assymetries in political power allow corporations to bend/re-shape laws that relate to poorer nations, for instance via transfer-pricing, corruption during bidding for governmental contracts, or the imposition of unfair trade treaties, or assymetric enforcement of trade treaties.

That #1 is true doesn’t, necessarily, imply exploitation in the sense of ‘unfair manipulation’ (and exploitation in the sense of ‘use’ isn’t necessarily bad).

Our wealth did come from the exploitation of other countries (sense #2), but it’s not clear that either #1 or #2 are required to grow/maintain it.
Jesse 4:51 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

What percentage of people on earth don’t earn a living wage? How do these people live?
Missives from Marx 5:00 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Jesse, “living wage” doesn’t mean “enough to live.” How it is calculated is highly variable, but it usually implies “above the poverty line.”
Ellen 6:15 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

Duran sees the best locally available option. I see young women sold into indentured servitude working 13 hour days, submitted to involuntary gynecological exams, not allowed to cross the street, and often never getting out of debt to their employers. And since they are “employed” by multinational corporations or more likely local companies subcontracted by multinational corporations that sell their products to us, we are responsible. It takes some exceptional ignorance to think this is okay.
Jesse 7:51 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

I don’t want to defend a version of market fundamentalism by saying that the existence of markets makes everything OK. But I think the analysis here errs to far in the other direction: it completely ignores the logic of markets and makes poverty and prosperity purely matters of willpower and moral responsibility.

You are right to point out that laborers often do submit to working for low wages in order to make the best of a lose-lose situation

What a bourgeois statement. Really, there are billions of people on the planet who live meaningless, hopeless, “lose-lose” lives… but if some enlightened liberals woke up and took responsibility for them, then maybe they could be rescued.
Ellen 8:11 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

It’s not willpower or individual responsibility. But it is about hierarchy and power structures. This is why neither capitalism nor communism really can work for everybody. Because advantaged groups will work to maintain their advantage at the expense of others.

And when we talk about how our economic structure and trade agreements effect the rest of the world in a negative way, the markets shouldn’t be used as a defense.
Juni 9:43 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

“however, throughout history, our nation has become extraordinarily wealthy as a direct result of our willingness to exploit the resources of other countries. we have procured labor, land, and natural resources (as well as actual human beings), and paid rock-bottom prices for them, or nothing at all.

i just can’t see your logic in this one.”

And don’t forget – in some of these cases, multinational corporations have more to gain by keeping dictatorships intact, rather than having anything close to a real democracy where the people aren’t treated like cr**.
Juni 9:45 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

And actually, there are cases where “market” has actually made things worse. For example, look at private health insurance, where healthcare becomes a priviledge and if you’re not covered enough, it might mean life or death.
Juni 9:46 pm on July 12, 2009 | # | Reply

*privilege
simono 5:50 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

as far as i understand the current “best practive” regarding development aid is: don’t do it. the – little- money we spent on this the last 30 years made the situation worse (corruption, more weapons).

but “don’t do it” would also mean: do not intervene within their social & ecnomic system. this is what we still mess up. africa could very well hold out on it’s own, where it not for us pushing our cheap goods, taking their cheap goods and making a profit both ways.

at least that’s roughly what i that i was told in the “international development studies”, uni vienna.

“Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time — just as (Karl) Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass murder” – Jean Ziegler
simono 5:51 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

^^^ Jean Ziegler

that guy is traveling through africa a lot, he is the special embessador of the UN for nutrition & food (not sure of the title, but you get it)
mordicai 6:36 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

Add me to the list of “TONI TONI TONI”– hey, lets use some super inflammatory language & undermine any chance of understanding or discussing by doing so! Or…lets not.
allburningup 7:22 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

Thanks for this post. So far I am still pretty ignorant about this issue. I once brought up this question to someone, and they said that the #1 reason America is so wealthy is because there are so many natural resources to be found here. Is that true?
Richard 8:25 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

@allburningup. Not really. Natural resources seem pretty disconnected from economic success.

There are countries with few resources that do well (Japan) and regions with many resources that do badly (Africa).

Natural resources were a part of our history, but I don’t think anyone can credibly claim to know what would have happened in an alternate history where we didn’t have as many.

—
And, the more I’ve thought about it, the worse the $1 flip-flop example seems. I suspect that we could have very, very cheap flip-flops without contributing to economic exploitation.

The labor cost of producing the flip flop will be less than $1. So, we could double the labor cost and have flip-flops for less than $2. (Probably somewhere around $1.25)

The difference between $1 and $1.25 (or even $2) for a flip flop would be pretty trivial to most of Old-Navy’s consumers, and would make a gigantic difference in working conditions. (For instance, halving the expected hours, while keeping total pay fixed)

So, it seems mistaken to say, “You can’t have one without the other.”
Fiendish 10:22 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

Richard: Doesn’t that completely ignore the cost of design, packaging, marketing, sales and normal or supernormal profits? Firms aren’t willing to increase cost and decrease their percentage profit; that’s basic supply economics.

George: Europe experienced over 10% unemployment when the economy was good? I only ask because I’m genuinely concerned that people will believe you. As a European citizen, I’d like to point out that a) Europe is not a country, and therefore b) there are many economic systems working within the EU, and finally c) your “10%” was therefore blatant fabrication and many European countries had long periods of full employment before the economic crisis. Thanks for playing, though.
Anne 10:56 am on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

Rape is not the kind of word you want to throw around to describe exploitative interactions other than, you know, rape. It’s an offensive comparison, even aside from making your text needlessly triggering.

Which is not to take away from your article, which makes an excellent point.
opminded 2:13 pm on July 13, 2009 | # | Reply

An Assistant Professor with an anti-American agenda?? Wow, that’s different!
jw 1:41 pm on July 14, 2009 | # | Reply

@Missives from Marx: How exactly do you define the poverty line? The US line? An average line? The line at which in that country the average person can have a roof over their head and afford to feed themselves?

@Fiendish: You are right that the EU makes up a large number of countries, however, for many of them the structural unemployment rate is much higher than it is elsewhere, so you are being just as disingenuous by saying they were at “full employment”. Many estimates put France’s full employment rate in the 7-9% range, which is higher than the US range of 5-6%. Don’t even get me started on all the statistical tricks that are used to hide the true level of unemployement (in the US and elsewhere).

@Richard: Fine, double the price of the flip-flop. Doesn’t seem all that bad. Now, double the price of the shirt, the pants, the underwear, the food, the computer, the cell phone, the tea kettle, the stove, etc. Congratulations, you just increased the cost of every single item, and therefore the cost of living in the US. Now wages will adjust, to an extent, but most likely the quality of life for US consumers will fall. Now you might claim that this is a fair trade off, but let us go to that far away country where the guy is now making 2 dollars a day. He now has 2x them money to spend. In the short run, there will be the same amount of food / goods / housing to consume, and therefore, with more money chasing the same amount of goods, you just succeeded in raising the cost of everything in that far away country, in the end leaving that individual probably not much better off. Inflation is a bitchy thing, and the only real way to get around it is to have some of that money go into investing in the productive capacity of the “country”.

As an example of the above problem, look at China and India. Hundreds of millions of newly “middle class” individuals now wish to consume more meat, more food, just like the middle classes do elsewhere. What did that do last year? Pushed up the price of food globally, until many millions of people were freshly pushed below the subsistence line.

These topics are way more complex than many people think. As easy as it is to say “evil american / corporations and exploited third world nations” it is not that cut and dry. There are a lot of bad things about the US (including the absurd, economically inefficient, health care system, that no economist in his right mind would support in its current form), but trying to replace an organic complex system with a top down “mandate for change” is not the solution. The solution, as it has been for centuries is to take 2 steps forward, and one back, and effect the slow, plodding change that has brought countries like Egypt, Mexico, China, India, etc from the poorest of the poor to not as poor as before… To keep allowing our sensibilities and our technologies to evolve, and to continue to “vote with our dollars” in order to affect change on a global system.
Richard 12:10 pm on July 15, 2009 | # | Reply

Labor costs are not 100% of total costs. Those associated with sweatshops are much, much less than 100%.

Google is telling me that the labor cost associated with a ~$70 Nike shoe is around $3. A 7% increase to costs of goods would be inconvenient, but as a society, we’d probably survive.

My point wasn’t that doubling wages for poor workers is the best possible strategy. (Though, I could see decreasing hours by 30% and increasing pay to compensate, or instituting safety standards that reduce effective productivity).

Instead, I’m disagreeing with the article’s conclusion that western standards of living are inexticably tied to neo-colonialism and the availability of super-cheap labor in developing nations.
Anonymous 9:24 pm on July 15, 2009 | # | Reply

“Instead, I’m disagreeing with the article’s conclusion that western standards of living are inexticably tied to neo-colonialism and the availability of super-cheap labor in developing nations.”

What’s your rationale? What would it be tied to, then? “Alternatives” are there, but there aren’t “Alternatives” for everything, you know. Maybe it’s because it’s being prevented or no one is looking hard enough or no one has found it yet-who knows. And even when there are “alternatives” to everyday goods, some are VERY hard to find, not very credible and some are even…illegal?