So, you're saying that the American military is parading around these third world countries forcing their citizens to buy American goods? No?
That's right: No! So why mention it?

Actually, in many places, the only goods worth buying come from the West. Often made from resources coming from the Third World originally, but taken out, repackaged and sold back. No force involved, but the only alternative is to go without.

How did the West (not just America, but certainly including it) exploit the Third World? Where to begin ... ?? Extracting mineral wealth using local labour but paying wages that, at best, were menial. Paying the lowest possible royalties and licence fees for the right to extract those resources - using economic muscle to ensure they had to pay as little as possible. Exporting those resources to the West to be sold and resold at higher and higher cost until they reached the final consumer, but none of those resale profits went back to the Third World countries the resources originally came from.

As for "offering goods for sale," doesn't it strike you as incongruous that, while people in urban Johannesburg eat at MacDonalds, there are thousands of people still living below the poverty line in shanty towns like Soweto. Is it right that while people in Zimbabwe or Congo are forced to drink parasite-invested water, the Coca Cola Company is peddling its wares to the urbanites and taking the proceeds back home?

Nothing wrong with offering goods for sale, I grant you, but not where to do so is an affront to justice and equality. Isn't it wrong that a major retail outlet in UK, Ireland and Spain makes the clothes it sells using sweat-shop labour in India, or illegal imigrant labour in UK, where the workers could never afford to pay for any of the garments they produce?

As far as I am aware, you only come across sweat shops like that under capitalism. And, before you rush off to try to find instances of sweatshop labour in centralised economies, may I qualify what I said by pointing out that, under capitalism, the labourers work to make individual wealth owners wealthier. Not themselves, not the co-operative, not the nation, but fat, golf-playing, self-centred people who think that possession of more money than others is a sign of greatness.

[The oil companies] also spent obscene amounts of money to build the infrastructure to do so, as many industries do. And a significant portion of that money went directly to the country involved. If the government of that country decided to keep it for themselves rather than give it to the people, who's fault is that?
Three points:

  1. That's capital investment. It is necessary to invest money to generate profits (c'mon - you know that - I thought you were a capitalist)
  2. Yes, a lot of money went to the country involved, but much more was taken out. Several countries found it necessary, in the end, to nationalise the foreign companies to stop the haemorrhaging of money and oil
  3. It's our fault if we knowing dealt with a corrupt regime and were aware that the wealth we did create for those countires was being misappropriated. If the money was being used to build a better infrastructure within the nation, then there's no fault at all.


... let's just say recognition for all that the American people (NOT government) donates to charities world-wide.
Am I correct in assuming that these figures are for official, government controlled foreign aid?
Yes, your assumption is correct. I got it from a website - I don't remember which one, but I'm sure the same figures appear on many others.

If you're confining your comments, as you say, to private donations for simple disaster relief - the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, perhaps you're thinking of as an example - then maybe you do give more generously than others, I don't know.

But the need is far greater than the occasional disaster that kills a quarter of a million people and makes 10 million homeless. there are, I understand 64 million refugees in the world, all needing ongoing help and assistance. That's more than the entire population of the United Kingdom!

Furthermore, there are 34 million displaced persons due to war. They need help too. Who are the bigggest war-mongers? Easy. We are - the West! We have created most of the world's homeless, and we neglect the world's poor. A dollop of conscience money every few years doesn't help a lot, even if it does come straight from your own wallet or purse.

Besides, I didn't hear a lot of thanks coming out of America when the nations of the world rallied round and sent millions of dollars and tons of food and clothing to USA after Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps the New Orleans people were too preoccupied to think of offering us respect for our kindness ... just like the Indians and Indonesians in 2004, perhaps


At any rate, this kind of attitude is the problem with Socialism as I see it. The poor expect the wealthy to "give back" their wealth, regardless of how they may have earned it. I'm not a rich person, but I don't expect anyone to give me anything I haven't earned.
Poppycock! And that's the problem with free-market capitalists!

Socialism is not about taking wealth away from the rich, it is about making sure that everyone is paid what they deserve. This cannot happen if there's a man with money who wants to gorge himself first because is says he's entitled to. Capitalism is about putting up the money and creaming off the financial rewards first, without regard to the true value of the labour involved.

There are plenty of millionaires in socialist regimes. There are even a lot of millionaires who consider themselves to be socialist. They don't intend to give away their fortunes, but they do want to see others paid what they are worth.

In your world, Thorne, you expect to die if you can't sustain yourself because you are incapable of doing so for some reason. How much better if your all your compatriots agreed your life was worthwhile and clubbed together to save it. After all, it wasn't your fault if you were born disavantaged, was it, and it was not your entitlement, but just good fortune, if you happened to be born privileged?