Empire building usually happens when there is a large surplus of humanity willing to work for horribly low wages. As this article tells you, the wave of prosperity in Dubai, culminating in the most beautiful hotels in the world, is built on the backs of Indian/Pakistani/Afghan migrant workers who are made to work obscene hours for a pittance. Why do they keep coming in such large numbers? Simply because it is even more difficult to get any kind of job back home. In some cases, like those of Afghans, their homes, indeed their whole nation has been ravaged by war. What do people go back to?
One has to think about this: it has long been understood that all economic systems thrive on inequality: there is no way that the rich of the world, or even the not so rich, who shop at Saks cannot possibly maintain their own extravagant lifestyles if we were to provide free immunization against MMR to every child in the world. Or clean drinking water.
One of the fringe benefits of maintaining low intensity conflicts around the world is the constant availability of displaced people (refugees, we called them in a distant past) who will serve as willing (or coerced) warm bodies for labour when we erect our monuments to our own undisputed glory. There is the slight problem of some of tehse displaced people whose lives have been ravaged by conflicts set up and sustained by the great powers that they will turn so angry that some of them will insist on passing on their grief to as many people as possible. But hey, thats what the police state is for!
One has to think about this: it has long been understood that all economic systems thrive on inequality: there is no way that the rich of the world, or even the not so rich, who shop at Saks cannot possibly maintain their own extravagant lifestyles if we were to provide free immunization against MMR to every child in the world. Or clean drinking water.
One of the fringe benefits of maintaining low intensity conflicts around the world is the constant availability of displaced people (refugees, we called them in a distant past) who will serve as willing (or coerced) warm bodies for labour when we erect our monuments to our own undisputed glory. There is the slight problem of some of tehse displaced people whose lives have been ravaged by conflicts set up and sustained by the great powers that they will turn so angry that some of them will insist on passing on their grief to as many people as possible. But hey, thats what the police state is for!
1 comment:
Good stuff!!!!! I agree....
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