globalisation

globalisation is a subject a little like postmodernism, you think you know all about it, but at the same time you know you don't. part of this is because even the experts don't agree what it is - let alone whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. it just seems to be.

one of the attacks that is aimed at globalisation is that corporations are no longer bound by national needs, in fact they have become more powerful than nations (some argue that only nations go to war, but it might be said that halliburton helped push the war on terror into iraq where it had no reason to be...)
in looking after it's own needs a corporation will go looking for the cheapest work force to make the most profit out of what it is producing and selling.
you make it cheap - by paying cheap labour.
you sell it dear.
only it's a lopsided equation in that if you are low paid you just can't buy the goods.
so more and more companies look for cheap labour.

so you have to wonder why the americans are scared of mexican illegal immigrants .
they strike me as being the people who are going to be happy to work cheap.
which is just what the american government want.
no unions.
no healthcare.
cheap wages.

but just like the right wingers in the uk their desire to see open and free markets is always derailed by their own bigotry.
thus proving (what pretty much all sensible people knew all along) that the market unfettered is a figment of the imagination of a few people, and that regulation is needed. and that individuals need to be protected from the desires and machinations of corporations.