Thread: Ethics of Globalization

Suppose there existed a country in say... Africa, where a small military elite lead by a powerful dictator presses the rest/majority of the population into abject slavery. He and his soldiers own them outright. He then decides to hire out their services as workers at a highly discounted price to American corporations to manufacture things like shoes.

If we trade with this guy and he starts to make a lot of money out of the deal, will he:

a) - Use the money to improve conditions for his slaves?

b) - Use the money to buy more guns for his soldiers in order to shore up the social hierarchy, so the slaves can't rise up?

c) - Improve general conditions in his country causing the wealth to unavoidably trickle down to his slaves until they gradually become empowered enough to rise up against him?



Now the next question is, what if the workers are not quite slaves, but not empowered either, and their leaders are making a lot of money by keeping the workers' wages low. Do you think that:

a) - Those leaders will allow those wages to rise if the situation remains highly profitable over a long period of time?

b) - Those leaders will become all the more oppressive?

c) - Those leaders will be powerless to prevent the workers from gradually becoming wealthy enough to assert themselves?

If you're not sure which option to choose, just try to choose the one you think will happen the most. Clearly the real outcome would be a mix of the outcomes, but probably not a perfectly even mix.

I'm going to abstain from the poll, and I think you're missing a variable: 'D)' Where the dictator/ruler keeps the majority of the money for himself, and uses the minimum amount possible to maintain the status quo, be it improvements in infrastructure/quality of living -or- more money for the military.

From my experience, that tends to be the result more often than any of the others.

With all due respect, Kojax, those are not terribly smart questions. Just as all humans are different, so are all dictators.

In recent history, we have had Lee Kwan Yu, who oppressed his people (Singapore) but developed the country's economy amazingly, and raised the average standard of living to western levels. There was Stalin who murdered his people by the millions. Marcos of the Philippines who stole from his people by the billions of dollars. There is Mugabe who oppresses one tribe and elevates the next (his own). And so on.

None of your questions can be answered the same way for all.

I think I was clear in specifying what kind of "personality" we're starting with here. Consider Mugabe, for example. If he found a way to take advantage of globalization by offering his workers to work in factories at a highly discounted price, and that turned out to be profitable for him, would he

a) - Have a change of heart and decide to generously improve conditions for the tribes he's oppressing now?

b) - Buy guns to ensure he wins the next "election"?

c) - Improve conditions for his own tribe, but have it turn out that some of the wealth inevitably trickles down to the tribes he wanted to oppress causing them to become empowered and demand higher wages?

The groups with the nicer personalities you described are not meant to be included in the question. I'm only interested in knowing how you think a ruler who is already oppressive at this moment in time would change his behavior based on access to a profitable foreign market for labor.

Oh wait.... now I see what Stander-j was saying. Maybe the whole regime would just keep the money. No investing in more guns, no paying the workers more on purpose, and no improving general conditions. My exception to his proposal was that any realistic dictator would be obliged to share some of the spoils with his immediate underlings. But, that requirement doesn't change the objection much. And Stander mentioned that being part of it anyway.

So maybe I should add an option D: none of the above. They just stick with the status quo and the status quo never changes. (Presuming that "keep all the money for themselves" is the status quo.) What do you think? Shall I edit that in?

It's similar to B, but with the assumption that no further gun purchases are made necessary by globalizing.