Nobodies
In the conclusion to his book Nobodies, John Bowe argues that the vast inequalities of wealth and power in the globalized world make the common arguments for "free markets" and "free trade" highly suspect. In fact, he sees labor coercion as well as environmental degradation as the likely result if global regulations are not placed over the global marketplace.
Bowe has the stronger argument here. As he states, "People like Friedman and many world and business leaders might honestly believe in freedom and justice as much as anyone else. They just have the benefit
What Bowe is pointing out is that not just the Friedmans, but also typical Americans have no idea how the people that make their goods live, whether in Tulsa or in Saipan. The critics are usually white males and Republican who have never left the United States. They do not know and do not want to know about the human suffering that goes into providing the low prices for the goods and services that they consume. Such people have not lost their good paying jobs to outsourcing and do not have to take a minimum wage job at someplace like Wal-Mart or Starbucks to make ends meet. They think...
They do not have to face seventy-five hour work weeks and a
police state which will oppress them if they step out of line. They do not live in slums and have to deal with
gangs and
poverty.
Just as environmental regulations, workers compensation and the minimum wage have come to
America, they must also come to the globe's poor to lessen their misery. For those who argue against it, Bowe concludes the book poignantly "But to anyone in this world today who feels compelled to go on TV and talk democracy -- any writer, any politician, any corporate advertising person invoking Go out into Go live in their huts, eat their rice and plantains, squat on their floors, and listen to their babies cry.
Sniff some glue and pray with them. Try to get justice from their police if someone hurts you. And then come back and let's talk about freedom" (ibid. 278).
The biggest
critique of the free trade argument is that it is not based upon fact. "Laws" of
economics are not laws of
physics like the laws of gravity. They are made up whole cloth to justify the system as it is and to guarantee…
