Is the concept of removing dependence on humans that aren't American now a progressive or liberal

[RB TexLa]

value or belief?

[Mountainman]

1. ? I don't understand the question.

:shrug:

[Smith_3]

2. The concept of stopping the exploitation of global inequality is.

Trade agreements should be made on fair terms and only with countries that fullfill common standards with regards to workers rights and enviromental safety.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. It's pragmatism

If we're dependent on other countries, we are insecure.

[Smith_3]

4. nevertheless...

...there has always been much to gain for both sides out of fair trade agreements. The question is not if globalisation should happen but how.

[The2ndWheel]

5. I think there are many questions as to whether or not it should happen

That seems to be our biggest problem. We only ask how. Should would mean limits, and we're the rapacious corporation to the planet's government. We don't like regulation.

[Smith_3]

6. I am more concerned about the freedom of the people than the freedom of the corporations.

Strongly locally regulated economy doesn't mean you cannot live in a "global" effectively borderless world. I would like to see it to where people are free to move and work where they choose to.

[The2ndWheel]

7. Well corporations are just extensions of us

Just on a bigger scale.

And what I was trying to say was that each species on the planet is like a corporation, all doing what they do, but being regulated by the planet, or the government. Our species is the Exxon, or Wal-Mart, or whatever, of that world. Just like any good global corporation, we want to bend the government to our will. We don't like the limitations on our profits. So we end up never asking should we do A, B, or C, it's only how can we do A, B, or C. We privatize the profits, and externalize the costs. We take more from society than we give back. Etc, etc, etc.

"Strongly locally regulated economy doesn't mean you cannot live in a "global" effectively borderless world. I would like to see it to where people are free to move and work where they choose to."

See, I don't think we get to have all the positives, without also having to deal with the negatives. We live in physical reality. We want instant global communication, but then we cry about outsourcing. We want strongly regulated local economies, but at the same time everyone gets to go and do whatever they want wherever it is they they wish to do it. There are consequences for every action. That equal and opposite reaction thing. We have to give to get, we don't just get to get.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. No, corporations are wholly and entirely indepentent of people

Corporations are "persons" who have the same rights and privileges that you do, except they never die. They are also freed of the limitations on human conduct caused by morality or ethics. They are fundamentally amoral. No ethical considerations matter except to the extent that they influence profit making (i.e. "dolphin safe" labeling).

I recommend "unequal protection" by Thom Hartmann
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection/

[The2ndWheel]

10. Independent of people?

They only have the power that people give them. Corporations do what humans do, just on larger scales. Monsanto does what humans have been doing for a long time, just on much larger scales. Exxon extracts more energy from the environment than a single person can. They're not different from us, they are us. They're built into the way we've organized society. They didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

"Corporations are "persons" who have the same rights and privileges that you do, except they never die."

Exactly. They do what we do, and never do what we wish we didn't have to do.

"No ethical considerations matter except to the extent that they influence profit making"

Again, I agree. That is why we only ask how to do things, not should we do them. It's the same mindset. Why? Because the corporations are not independent of people.

And the reality that we've created/let be created for us is built for large institutions. It isn't made for inefficient human beings that die. We are cogs in the machine. We are replaceable, expendable, and interchangeable. That's the price we have to pay though. If we want a universal, one-size-fits-all world, where place no longer matters, that's the price we pay. If we want lives of ever increasing convenience, then we're not going to get that without global corporations that never die.

Corporations are us. They're not some other species that evolved outside of the world we create. We are Monsanto. We are Exxon. We are Wal-Mart.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. We are saying the same thing, yet saying the opposite thing, simultaneously.

Humans created the construct of the corporation. That construct, that "person" is now wholly independent, and bears very little resemblance to the individuals who toil on its behalf.

Humans and corporations are very different. Their single-minded pursuit of short term profit makes their decisionmaking process fundamentally different than that of a real person. For people "benefit" is a much more complex set of considerations than it is to a corporation.

Example: Humans practiced agriculture for tens of thousands of years prior to Monsanto. In all that time, no one thought to take ownership (under penalty of law) of the species of crop they grew. If they did, they called it "heirloom" and didn't try to force their neighbors to grow the same thing. Clearly when you take ethical considerations out of the calculus, you get different behavior.

Monsanto doesn't care that the neighbors all hate them. People usually do.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. There's a difference between dependency and partnership. n/t

[Solon]

11. If those humans we are dependent on are underage girls working 12+ hours a day...

for shit wages in some free trade zone factory, I say no. Unlike you, I actually care about the exploitation of child labor, wage slavery, and sweatshops.

[dysfunctional press]

12. removing such dependence for whom? or what?

:shrug: