Boyett responds to Davenport
Jim Boyett, co-chair of the Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee, responded to a May 13, 2007 column by Charles Davenport:
When I read Charles Davenport’s article against raising the minimum wage in Greensboro to $9.36 per hour I burst out laughing. He implies that my motivation
for wanting the increased minimum wage must be Karl Marx and socialism.
Well Charles my actual motivation comes from the 20 years I spent as a Marine defending our Constitution. The Marine Corps motto is “ Semper Fi “
or always faithful. The real secret to building a successful organization is trust. Faithfulness and trust in the successful organization is a two way street. If your company or your country wants you to be faithful to them, they need to be faithful to you.
It seems to me that the politicians in this country were unfaithful to us when they made a trade deal with Communist China. The Communist promised to protect the trademarks, patents and the capital of Multinational Corporations doing business in China and we promised the Communist unlimited access to our market. As a result Chinese imports of textiles soared and 200,000 North Carolina workers lost their jobs.
The working people of this country should not be required to compete against the slave labor of Communist China. We want to stop wages from declining further, restore the minimum wage to the value it had in 1968 and get rid of the political leadership that has given 80% of us stagnant and declining wages.
As I see it this is a political problem not an economic problem.
for wanting the increased minimum wage must be Karl Marx and socialism.
Well Charles my actual motivation comes from the 20 years I spent as a Marine defending our Constitution. The Marine Corps motto is “ Semper Fi “
or always faithful. The real secret to building a successful organization is trust. Faithfulness and trust in the successful organization is a two way street. If your company or your country wants you to be faithful to them, they need to be faithful to you.
It seems to me that the politicians in this country were unfaithful to us when they made a trade deal with Communist China. The Communist promised to protect the trademarks, patents and the capital of Multinational Corporations doing business in China and we promised the Communist unlimited access to our market. As a result Chinese imports of textiles soared and 200,000 North Carolina workers lost their jobs.
The working people of this country should not be required to compete against the slave labor of Communist China. We want to stop wages from declining further, restore the minimum wage to the value it had in 1968 and get rid of the political leadership that has given 80% of us stagnant and declining wages.
As I see it this is a political problem not an economic problem.
posted by Jill Williams at
11:25 AM
5 Comments:
TAKE THAT CHUCK !! So much for Coulterisms.
Though I agree on the matter that this reform has not so much to do with the economic conditions in greensboro(and the rest of the US) but is a political matter, which shows us the true nature of the state, the collective consciousness for business interests going out over working people.
Which brings us to another whole in the arguement/counter argument, if china , as it actually does, has a market economy then there is no such thing as chinese communism. we can debate the lack of democracy within china but we can debate the lack of democracy anywhere, US included. This is not an arguement for China. Rather, we have to realize that the Chinese market is not the problem...its much bigger. the only thing that will make any difference is community action for community results. I dont think we need to look at the current problem as the US government selling "us" out to the Chinese because we were "sold out" long before "communist china". China is just a new stage or momentary hump on a long and bumpy road.
I think it's important to realize our current problem is about the lack of political power within our own community not the chinese market because before the chinese it was mexico, and before mexico it was african-american, southern labor vs. northern labor, and women's labor coming in to drive downt he wages. We must realize that what they say is just pure mystification because they are using old argument with different names. Its a conflict of interests, those who demand want more out of their work vs. those who want to drive down the labor cost.
And please stop the red-baiting.
~GRAF.
Graf,
Actually I am against the exploitation of people by what ever name the exploiters use. Facisism,communist and capitalist all seem to want to achieve domination and control. Perhaps it is some crazy gene in our DNA?
I agree with your observation that cooperative local organization and action are the only answers that makes sence.The next time we have a meeting join us.
I am quite aware that exploitation can take many names and many forms but in this day and age it seems to me that the market-economy reigns supreme both in the east and west. Russia as China are not anymore socialistic than America is truely democratic. A monetary system was kept in place in the old mother country Russia just was governments across the western world. Point being, Russia or China, regardless of the communist rehtoric and one party rule(one party, two party, what a party) the economy operates pretty much the same as it does in the west. Their may be more government sanctions and taxes but what capitalist county doesnt have taxes? What is of more importance at this juncture is the working peoples in china, as in Greensboro, and their/our relation to the economy. I think a minimume wage campaign would be good for chinese workers as the campaign here is good for Greensboro workers.
In China they work for the glory of socialism and Mao. In America we work because we are free and supposedly love the idea of a free-market that is somehow innerconnected personal freedom. When in fact the back drop to all the "glory" or "freedom" is working and only getting paid tid-bits. So regardless of the political nonsense or cultural/national explainations we see there are two different perspectives, no to realities in motion, one of business that is totally convinced that the market is anarchy and the other of workers who need to struggle.
The largest employer in America is Wal-Mart, which pays subsistence wages and minimal benefits. They are being sued in 28 states for forcing workers to work off the clock and for not paying over-time.
Big business and their spokesman cry out "let the market decide." but there is no modern market independent of government, so what they're really saying is, "stop defending workers and building a middle class. Let the corporations decide how much to pay for labor and how to trade."
Governments provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated workforces through public education. Workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and firemen provided by government. Most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government.
There is no such thing as a ”free market.” Markets are the creation of government. I am tired of hearing about the mystic powers of the market. Grown men teach college students that the invisible hand of the market will correct whatever economic problem we face. We talk about “the market” in a hushed voice with reverence and wonder at its mystic unknowable power. The concept of “free market” has become a god
substitute held up by corporate power to stifle any criticism of its abuse of workers and the environment.
This is, at best, destructive to our national economy, and, at worst, destructive of democracy itself. A complete integration of business power and government power blessed by the church was Hitler’s model of fascism.
The "middle class" is not the natural result of freeing business to do what ever it wants to do. The middle class is a new invention of liberal democracies and the direct result of governments defining the rules of the game of business. It is, quite simply, an artifact of government regulation of markets and tax laws. When government sets the rules of the game of business in such a way that working people must receive a decent wage; stops the use of slave labor; provides for a 40 hr work week; provides public education and protects domestic industries from overseas competition; only then can a middle class emerge. When government gives up these functions, the middle class will vanish.
In the last 15 years we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs due to automation and the exploitation of cheap labor in places like Mexico and China. International corporations want to build products where they can work children 80 hrs per week at 30 cents per hour and are not be bothered by pollution regulations.
The future looks grim. In the last 30 years, real after tax income, for 80% of workers has fallen and the trend is accelerating. On October 23,2006 the News & Record reported that real inflation adjusted earnings had fallen 21% for families in Greensboro. This huge decline in the ability of families to provide for themselves and their children has happened in the last five years.
Supreme court justice Louis Brandeis once said, “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few but we can’t have both.” As wealth becomes more concentrated it takes more and more force to maintain the unfair structure of the society. Eventually, a huge army and police force are necessary to protect the small group that owns everything from the rest of society. This is the social model for most of the world.
What kind of society will we have in the future? Will we allow greed to destroy our economic future
I think living a life of abundance in the modern world is dependent upon education and cooperation. America’s real leap forward economically came after world war II when we decided to rebuild our enemies economies by giving them billions of dollars through the Marshal plan and offered free college educations or vocational training to 12 million veterans. The more we gave away the more we received. What actually happened is we created a bigger pie and everyone had a larger piece. The way to a bigger pie is not to hoard all the land and property for yourself and your family. To live life abundantly you must expand the capacity and ability of your children and your neighbors.
Greed is not good.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home