Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
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.
<sigh> I see that you and I are on opposite sides of a large gulf, here. My point was that there was not force involved. And there are other alternatives than going without. If goods from the West are too expensive, then manufacture your own goods, and sell them to your neighbors. Then you can be the capitalist! But what's wrong with going without? Sometimes you're better off.

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.
But in many cases (not all, I'll grant you) those "menial" wages were far better than the workers could do with their own businesses and industries.

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.
Sorry. This sounds, ultimately, like good business practice to me.

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?
And just what would you have them do? Pull out of South Africa and let the country go to hell on its own? Why should Coca Cola worry about the poor in Soweto when the damned South African government doesn't?

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?
Is it wrong? Certainly. So don't buy any of those goods. If people let the retailer know they won't stand for those practices then the retailer will have to stop. But there's the real problem. The people don't care! They only care about cheap goods, with no about concern where they come from.

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.
This is true of any economic system, regardless of how it's supposed to operate. Those who have the money get richer. So what? I'd be more than happy to ride that wagon!

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.
So? What would you have us do? If we help these people there will be more to take their place. There are always poor, there are always unfortunates, there are always hungry mouths to feed. You obviously feel that it's our duty to feed them. I don't.

And sure, if I were poor and desperately hungry I'd feel that the rich should give me food. And if I were rich and powerful I'd feel that I had the right to stay that way. I'd much rather live with the idea that someday I might be able to get enough money to be really comfortable, rather than the idea that every extra dollar I manage to scrape together must be given to poor people who are too stupid, too lazy or just plain too unlucky.