Friday 9 March 2007

The New Normal or the Interim Reality?

It still pains me to consider how correct some of the dystopian SciFi of the 1950s and 1960s was in predicting that the world would eventually come to be run by corporations. It's not so bad that I'm going down to run down to the corner for a bag of Soylent Green with extra butter or anything, but the vicious world-wide retrenchment of the modern Keynesian welfare state [in the developed nations], the complicity of the state in sowing the seeds of its own destruction [the developed nations], the disturbing obliviousness of the general public is troubling. Equally disturbing, although for different reasons, has been the rise of materialist cultures in the developing nations as the nation-state that have been squashed by the transnational corporations [TNCs] and international regulatory bodies [such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.] Finally, the failure of workers across the world to mobilize against the forces that are rapidly crushing all opposition, co-opting dissent, and controlling much of the mainstream media. While the TNCs have successfully created unity for their shared class interests the working class is still divided by petty nationalism and the basic struggle for survival in an increasingly hostile world.

Knowing what is wrong and knowing what to do are two entirely separate things, however. As for what should be done, several basic options appear to exist, each representing an ideological corollary to Conway’s Law - any ideology tends to reflect the organizational structure that produced it.

1) Doing nothing. [As easy as this would be, the dominant socio-economic ideology across all of the industrialized nations - globalized economy - is behaving as responsibly as a 14-year old with a stolen vehicle.]

2) Modifying the current system. An example of such an idea would include the global implementation of the International Labour Organization's Core Labour Standards. These standards include:
- Freedom of association [the right to organize and collective bargaining]
- Abolition of forced labour
- Equality
- Elimination of child labour [which requires that one or both parents be paid a living wage]

3) A third option. A radical redistribution of wealth or some other plan as yet unknown??

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