I received some feedback on an earlier post...the one about sweatshops, suggesting that I find a case study to investigate. So I started Googling, searching the Web for some Western "exploiter" to defend. In the midst of my research I happened upon this piece from AWorldConnected.org.
So I read it, and felt at once inspired, and deflated.
This is the kind of material I want to learn to write. This article's treatment of its topic was excellent, IMHO. Please read it when you have a few minutes. It's worth it.
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11 comments:
You shouldn't feel bad. Radley is an excellent writer, and he's been working on these issues for several years.
Decent article, and yeah, we went that
route too (with more than a little
emphasis on enforced labor of various flavors).
My question, tho, from the point of
ethos: are we bound to follow (or
encourage or abet the following) of established economic routes in
developing nations?
At what point does it become an argument to support our accustomed habits of consumption, rather than
an objective tenet or precept of economics?
Evolution applies to more than biology, imo.
Steve:
Yeah, I've read some of the other stuff he's written, as well as checked out his blog. He rocks.
Kathy:
I think our habits of consumption are irrelevant. Demand for goods is what makes it possible for markets to create wealth, so it really doesn't matter what we're buying. In order for wealth to enter any region, however, that region must have something of value to trade. Many developing nations have only one thing to offer...cheap labor. Is it wrong to buy their one and only export if it's being used to produce some crap we don't really "need"? I don't think so...particularly because "need" becomes highly subjective once you move beyond bread, water, and a mud hut.
Beer is clearly a need, and essential for any advanced society's function.
"Is it wrong to buy their one and only export if it's being used to produce some crap we don't really 'need'?"
Uh . . . Yeah, it could be, if you
expand your rational point of reference
and open your discourse beyond the
science of economics, which is only one
way of thinking about the world.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth
Horatio" yadda yadda yadda.
Tangenital comment: "Come on! [...] Make me
think." Maybe you could help me out by elucidating
a bit on this. Are you trying to think, or generate
consent? There's a big difference.
And some free advice from a beloved old teacher
(I don't give this stuff to just anyone): If you're
trying to set up a rhetorical (persuasive)
argument, it would be more effective if you
built your argument on a composite foundation,
rather than re-stressing data or opinions
someone else has published (regardless of how
much you agree with the author). Otherwise, you're
not thinking independently and critically, but
parroting something that's captured your attention
and sympathy. Theses like that get trashed more
quickly by academics and critical readers than
you can say "bunghole."
Essentially, you'll need
Logic (logos) - purely academic; based on your
asserted data
Emotional appeal (pathos) - a humanistic persuasion,
seeking to engage the reader (i.e., why should the
reader be interested?)
Ethical appeal (ethos) - a persuasion based on higher
shared values (i.e., how will this be specifically
or generally beneficial to the common good?)
Ethos needs to be approached through logos and pathos,
otherwise it's too abstract.
The rhetor has as much an obligation to engage and
lead his audience as the audience has to listen.
Otherwise, like so much of the blogosphere, it's
so much repetition, derivation and empty opinion.
True, economics is only one way, but really any sort of value judgment can be made about anything if we get right down to it. This is why I find Austrian Economics so appealing and why, to me, it makes so much sense. It makes no value judgment on the whims and fancies of consumers, but rather takes their fickle nature as given. It views with equal respect your efforts to find some meaning beyond the things we buy and my efforts to acquire more XBox games, beer, and cool shit for my motorcycle. It moves outside figures and statistics and into the realm of human interaction to explain how liberty, individual rights, and free markets provide the best possible framework for human prosperity. It presumes individual freedom for each of us to decide what's important on our own, and it provides an environment in which we are each free to pursue those things, so long as we allow others to do the same.
Heh...apparently I was replying at the same time you were. I didn't see your reply until I had posted my own.
And did you mean to say "tangenital"? Is that, like...going off in a random direction from your crotch?
I do appreciate the feedback on the writing. I guess I haven't fully determined what the purpose of the 'blog itself is just yet. I've been doing a lot more reading and research than writing, which is one reason the posting has been so scattered and why most of it ends up being regurgitation of what someone else has written. Generating consent is a long-term goal, though, as I'm still in the phase of learning to think critically and engage in constructive debate. For most of my life, I didn't really have an opinion about much of anything, so I'm having to build those skills now. I welcome the debate as a learning opportunity, and I shall put your words of wisdom to good use.
I don't see what the big deal is about linking to a piece, saying you pretty much agree with it, and leaving it at that... in a blog anyway. Blogs are for long tirades, short "hey look at this" posts, open questions, the offering of completely untestable hypotheses, etc.
As for the blogosphere being full of repetition, derivation, and empty opinion, that's kind of the point. It's disparate and disjointed, but it has a wonderful six degree effect, and is one of the best examples of an order that emerges as "the result of human action but not of human design."
Speaking of which, Tyler Cowen had a post on this that I pretty much agree with. ;-)
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/12/why_people_dont.html
"For most of my life, I didn't really have an opinion about much of anything, so I'm having to build those skills now. I welcome the debate as a learning opportunity, and I shall put your words of wisdom to good use."
Good for you. I had to learn the hard way,
maybe I can spare you a few things. :)
"I don't see what the big deal is about linking to a piece, saying you pretty much agree with it, and leaving it at that... in a blog anyway. Blogs are for long tirades, short "hey look at this" posts, open questions, the offering of completely untestable hypotheses, etc."
It's not a big deal . . . if the reader has nothing
better to do, no other reading material competing for
the timespace involved, and no particular craving for
original thinking.
Sorry, this is the trained scholar in me coming out.
Everyone may have an opinion to voice, but not all
opinions are of merit, and those of merit can be difficult
to frame in a convincing way. Ron wants to get good at
critical thinking and written rhetoric. That doesn't
just happen through exposure and improve through
repetition --- it's a learned skill set, woefully undertaught these days.
Most blogging is so much mental masturbating. Nothing
wrong with that per se, but if you want to capture
critical attention, you have one lead paragraph (sometimes one thesis sentence) with which to do it. Hyperlinks and
rants alone won't do that.
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