So I was thinking about John Gray’s rant for hire and wait a minute. Dr. Gray knows better, he said it himsefl in his brillinat riff on Karl Marx – John Gray Revisits the Communist Manifesto. Of course he knows the problem with the “free markets” is not the weaker “family values” but the structural conflict between the capital and labor. It finally came to a head when the labor was decoupled from geography during the current globalization. Here is the fresh off the Davos illustration (via Felix Salmon).
- December 7, 2011: Citigroup to Cut 4,500 Jobs on Slumping Revenue.
- January 29, 2012: “Jobs should be our number one priority,” declared Annual Meeting Co-Chair Vikram Pandit, Chief Executive Officer of Citi, in a session on the global agenda for 2012.
As in his freaking job only…
The Guardian chimes in – We can now see the true cost of globalisation:
Further reading:“On an international scale, it should no longer be taboo to propose limits to foreign takeovers, or to the nonstop, unquestioned flow of capital around the world. We should welcome the fact that China’s workers themselves are becoming increasingly restive about their plight. Higher wages and better conditions for them might push up the price of an iPod in London or New York, but they would also help the Chinese economy towards Beijing’s aim of a rising middle class and stronger consumer demand at home, instead of economic growth that depends too heavily on cheap exports. Strong, sustainable Chinese growth, and rising labour standards, would be good for the west too: they should help to narrow Beijing’s yawning trade surplus by opening up vast new markets. Apple’s critics would once have been written off as naive idealists; but as we sift through the wreckage of the Great Recession, perhaps it’s finally time to heed Marx’s words, and stand up for workers everywhere.”