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How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

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Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#51

Post by TheCoelacanth »

leereeves wrote: post #45
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All nations are at least a bit nationalistic. If they weren't at all nationalistic, they wouldn't be nations. Restrictions on the free flow of people are not a binary decision. Countries in the Schengen Area which have almost completely given up the ability restrict movement between their territory and 25 other nations are not restricting the movement of people as much as say North Korea which doesn't even let most o…

By that definition the US is the least nationalist country on the planet. 20% of the world's foreign born population lives in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... And it seems to me that it's that lack of "nationalism" as you've defined it that's helping US-based companies exploit cheap labor in (or from) other nations.

Even if you were to define nationalism solely based foreign-born population, the least nationalistic country would obviously be Vatican City with 100% foreign born or UAE with 84% if you want to exclude extreme outliers. The US isn't even particularly high at 14% of the population being foreign born.

And of course, restrictions on freedom of movement can't be summed up exclusively with number of immigrants. There are many countries that are much, much easier to get into than the US; people just don't want to go there as much. And of course, nationalism isn't exclusively border control. That is just one nationalistic behavior.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#52

Post by discordance »

RestlessMind wrote: post #42

The answer lies in Politics. If a multinational is ruining your beaches / water supply / air quality / whatever, use the power of government to apply regulations and taxes. One common argument against that is that a company will simply go to another place which offers friendlier regulations. In that case, good riddance. Now, if someone depends on those multinationals for a better living and have no options otherwise,…

That's not possible as regulation from government always lags commercial damage. Governments are often complicit in the damage to begin with.

See The Great Barrier Reef [1] for example. The Australian government has done little to protect it while exempting mining companies from damages, approving dredging and generally being climate change denialists.

1: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/explore-...

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#53

Post by gitgud »

Felz wrote: post #34

The article's central point seems to be that it's more difficult to track accountability and causality in an increasingly "overheated" and complicated world. True. But the major system for addressing that currently seems to be People Getting Upset, and the article proposes more organizations for People Getting Upset. But this isn't very efficient; sometimes the global economy DOES need to make Gladstone a bit less pr…

There's probably a block chain startup that solves the accountability problem in supply chains...

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#54

Post by sonnyblarney »

glitchc wrote: post #4

Multi-national corporations are counting on the disparity to essentially play arbitrage with labour. Nationalism feeds into that, so it's in their interest to stoke nationalist sentiments.

I think it's the other way around.

Multinationals would prefer to get rid of all nationality, ethnicity, religion, culture, political ideology etc - it stands in the way of their bottom line.

Strong nations can stand up to big corps.

Strong cultures make it difficult to 'define consumer behaviour' - example: in Europe, American companies have a difficult time selling some consumer products because Europeans 'have their own way' of doing things. Why do you think Starbucks doesn't have a lot of stores in Italy? Because Italians don't care for it - they do their own thing.

This is kind of ugly - but there is a kind of 'culturally secular left' and a 'big / globalist business right' that actually get a long quite well - they both want to get rid of what they view as 'outdated norms'. The left wants to re-write social structure, the right wants to re-write consumption, consumerism and define our aspirations.

I'm not being conspiratorial, it's not like there's a cabal of evil globalists pulling strings, it's just overall in the best interest of these groups. BigCos tend to promote policies which benefit them - not the local population. Shareholders just don't think or care that much about people or culture.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#55

Post by Felz »

r00fus wrote: post #48
Felz wrote: post #34

The article's central point seems to be that it's more difficult to track accountability and causality in an increasingly "overheated" and complicated world. True. But the major system for addressing that currently seems to be People Getting Upset, and the article proposes more organizations for People Getting Upset. But this isn't very efficient; sometimes the global economy DOES need to make Gladstone a bit less pr…

Government coffers belong to the people. If the carbon tax is done right the revenues go to a special use fund for addressing the externalities caused by the thing they're taxing to control... and not to the "general fund". I'm fine not getting a share of the carbon tax if the monies are used to fight the problem.

My concern is exactly that the offsets from externalities would go to special use funds attempting very naively to rectify them.

For one thing, governments are inefficient, and externalities aren't always easy to reverse. So probably after the Department of Externality Taxation is established, either the funds raised by the tax aren't enough to compensate the people damaged, or something bureaucratic and symbolic is done that doesn't really help. After all, if there isn't really anything the department can do to address the problem, the last thing they're going to do is put themselves out of a job and return the money. They'll start wasteful moonshot projects instead.

For another, the government is now heavily incentivized to tax the Bad Thing as much as they can, both to show voters that they're Tough On Bad Thing and also to raise money. That's not what we want- we want to disincentivize externalities by exactly their true cost, and preferably return that true cost to the people damaged by it.

Finally, assuming we can't perfectly tell what the externalities cost individual people, directly giving them a return equal to average damages is efficient. It drives people who suffer the externality disproportionately away, and it attracts people who can bear the externality at minimum cost.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#56

Post by sonnyblarney »

perfmode wrote: post #23
leereeves wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong nationalism doesn't help multi-national corporations. It either prevents their operation entirely (for example, bans on imports and nationalization of assets as in Iran) or exploits them only when the government decides the country will profit more than the company (as in China).

it’s not so simple. one side effect of strong nationalism is a restriction on the flow of people. when capital can flow freely, but people can’t, multinationals gain an advantage.

No, again, sorry I think this is wrong.

Multinationals are almost all in favour of open borders.

They want a) cheap labour and some, good companies need b) high end talent. The later is more rare though.

Every big company I know is 'pro migration' I can't think of a single one that's against it.

Google is more in favour of getting 'highly skilled' people, while most others are in favour of 'bodies' for cheap labour. Companies that are allowed to think long term, like large banks, want migration because 'adding bodies' is the only way most Western economies actually grow. So in Canada, CIBC, BMO, RBC (i.e. big banks) make their $ from mortgages and small business lending - there's no real way for them to grow other than 'more mortgages'. So they push for more bodies as part of national strategy.

Because most political entities, most big business, and a lot of social activists are globalist in nature, it creates a friction with other groups.

This friction is actually a big deal and is reshaping the political landscape in the entire Western world.

It's getting to be less about left/right than it is those with a globalist view and those with a more localist view. 'Nationalists' tend to fall in the later camp.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#57

Post by 1457389 »

Felz wrote: post #55
r00fus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government coffers belong to the people. If the carbon tax is done right the revenues go to a special use fund for addressing the externalities caused by the thing they're taxing to control... and not to the "general fund". I'm fine not getting a share of the carbon tax if the monies are used to fight the problem.

My concern is exactly that the offsets from externalities would go to special use funds attempting very naively to rectify them. For one thing, governments are inefficient, and externalities aren't always easy to reverse. So probably after the Department of Externality Taxation is established, either the funds raised by the tax aren't enough to compensate the people damaged, or something bureaucratic and symbolic is…

Your witty little strawmen with snappy names aren't helping your argument...

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#58

Post by sonnyblarney »

InfiniteBeing wrote: post #24
glitchc wrote: post #4

Multi-national corporations are counting on the disparity to essentially play arbitrage with labour. Nationalism feeds into that, so it's in their interest to stoke nationalist sentiments.

In what way? Nationalism leads to immigration restrictions and protectionism.

All nations have immigration controls, most of them strict, and the majority of most economies - even Western economies are protected (Banking, Telecoms, Entertainment, Agriculture, Energy) and even those that might not be technically protected are de-facto protected by business or political cabals. Try and buy a major Japanese auto company and see how they handle that.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#59

Post by perl4ever »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #56
perfmode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s not so simple. one side effect of strong nationalism is a restriction on the flow of people. when capital can flow freely, but people can’t, multinationals gain an advantage.

No, again, sorry I think this is wrong. Multinationals are almost all in favour of open borders. They want a) cheap labour and some, good companies need b) high end talent. The later is more rare though. Every big company I know is 'pro migration' I can't think of a single one that's against it. Google is more in favour of getting 'highly skilled' people, while most others are in favour of 'bodies' for cheap labour.…

It seems to me that immigration helps raise wages. A multinational company is going to employ people in India regardless of US immigration policy. But if those people can come to the US and make 5x the money, then even if they are making somewhat less than other Americans, they are improving (i.e. raising wages in) the global market for labor that we have to compete in.

Given that wages in India and other places are clearly artificially depressed, or people wouldn't want to come to the US, I don't think it's obvious that the multinationals do want open borders. I think it's in the interest of workers though.

Re: How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility

#60

Post by geezerjay »

r00fus wrote: post #48
Felz wrote: post #34

The article's central point seems to be that it's more difficult to track accountability and causality in an increasingly "overheated" and complicated world. True. But the major system for addressing that currently seems to be People Getting Upset, and the article proposes more organizations for People Getting Upset. But this isn't very efficient; sometimes the global economy DOES need to make Gladstone a bit less pr…

Government coffers belong to the people. If the carbon tax is done right the revenues go to a special use fund for addressing the externalities caused by the thing they're taxing to control... and not to the "general fund". I'm fine not getting a share of the carbon tax if the monies are used to fight the problem.

> Government coffers belong to the people.

Actually, quite the opposite. Government coffers belong to the government and state institutions, which is comprised of the ruling elite and the long list of apparatchiks at their service. "The people" are nothing more than a rhetorical device used to cut dissent by fooling "the people" into believing the ruling elite acts on everyone's best interests.

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