Pynchon and global capital/corporations

[jbor]

----------
>From: "Judy" <blarney at total.net>
>

>   > Better alive and working in what *Westerners* call a "sweatshop" than
> dead
>> in the street. The conditions before the factories came were far worse.
>
> Why must there only be this choice: sweatshop or death?

But it's not a choice, not expressed as a choice, not meant as a choice:
it's a comparison. Things are better now than they were before. Hopefully
they will get better still. By hindering the process of economic development
in the Third World the protests are not doing the people there any favours
at all. Foreign investment in developing countries, rather than charity and
noble sentiments, is what will create long-term, *sustainable* advances in
quality of life.

> The fact is we
> cannot depend on corporations because they only seem to have their bottom
> line in mind.

I agree entirely. That is why it is so frustrating that the protesters and
naysayers are targetting a process of global delegation which will oversee
what these corporations do. Don't forget that *nations* are also economic
entities -- *corporations* -- and that they have *ALWAYS HAD* a vested
interest in these trade agreements and practices.

>  And now, as Mike points out
> from the Manchester Guardian, we have reason to fear as the media becomes
> even more within the control of corporate power.

In this country we have laws which strictly delimit the percentage of media,
and cross-media, ownership or influence any one corporation or group is
allowed to have.

> Of course, as everyone here demonstrates, none of this is simple, but there
> is nothing wrong with asking for change, looking for ways other than those
> present at the moment.

I'm much in agreement with you and Mike Weaver and Phil and others on the
need for free and open discourse, and I think that this is what global
organisations such as the UN and the WTO afford. It's those who are intent
on halting or sabotaging discussion that I am most suspicious of.

best