Does anyone have an example in World History

[AllentownJake]

Where a nation willingly committed suicide by transferring its greatest economic resource (in our case our manufacturing capacity) to other nations at the cost of its own people for short term profits.

I can't think of a single nation in world history that so willingly sold its own people out in order for a few of its elites to get temporarily rich (if they think they can hold onto assets overseas with a weakened US they are fucking nuts).

[Romulox]

1. The Romans outsourced their military. That was roughly analogous. nt

[AllentownJake]

2. and their eventual downfall

[villager]

4. was thinking in terms of Rome's foreign adventurism -- in all senses -- as well...

n/t

[trackfan]

40. Very good!

That's the first thing that came to my mind, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it covered in the first response.

[KittyWampus]

3. Colonial Spain pissed away all the silver it brought back from the New World

For a short period of time it was in an immense position of power and wealth.

[ieoeja]

10. Wasn't it stolen?

I thought they banked their money in the Netherlands, then lost it when the Danes revolted.

[KittyWampus]

16. Spain owed more than it brought in w/silver brought back from America. Silver went to bankers

and from there, into the rest of Europe.

The monarchy in Spain had to pay for wars, court life and its part in colonies.

Spanish financiers footing bill for the majority of colonization in Indies and New World also owed money.

France and England were late to colonizing the New World but ended up benefiting from letting Spain exhaust itself.

"The first volume, reissued in paperback, examines the emergence of the Atlantic commercial system between 1500 and 1700, when Spain's control of the rich mines of Peru and Mexico brought it immense wealth. Spain thus found itself at the cutting edge of the early global economy, but failed to capitalize on its riches while others, notably France and England, used silver to spur long-term development. "

-Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe; Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789


See also- "The Spanish Treasure Fleets" By Timothy R. Walton

[BlooInBloo]

5. We're doomed.

[Turbineguy]

6. Spain

late 1500's

[LeftinOH]

18. +1; it took them until the late 20th century to recover from it.

[Turbineguy]

48. But since 400 years

is more than the next quarter away, let's make some quick profits now!

[SteppingRazor]

7. I think the fall of the Roman Empire is a pretty close example.

Outsourcing of one of the empire's greatest resources (it's army, from Romans to Germanic barbarians), coupled with the devaluation of currency, massive debt and deficits, and the ensuing huge tax hikes coupled with rampant inflation, is largely responsible for the empire's collapse -- along with overextension and the expansionism of previously cowed Germanic and Frankish tribes.

[Ironman3476]

8. Their eyes glaze over when I tell them that.

Oh, man , it's soo frustrating.

[Braulio]

9. Free Trade Helps Economic Growth at the World Scale Level

It's not as simple as you may think. Free trade does help economic growth worldwide. One problem we face is that, as free trade has improve the world economy, population growth and the additional wealth being generated strain the world's resources (oil, gas, steel, copper, the atmosphere, water, etc).

The problem in the USA is worsened by Bush's free for all immigration policy, which allowed illegal aliens to flood the job market without any controls whatsoever. This supply of cheap labour coming from Mexico and other parts created enormous competition at the lower levels, and this in turn drove wages down.

Countries such as Sweden have joined the WTO, and have maintained a very good standard of living for all their citizens, but they don't have a military industrial complex run amok and hundreds of thousands of troops engaged in "nation building" in Asia.

[redqueen]

13. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Electric Monk]

20. Lou Dobbs, is that you?

Bush's biggest mistake was his immigration policy... got it.

LOL

[KittyWampus]

30. Paul Krugman has made the same point. The problem is lack of NEW jobs and NEW technology

Overall, the world benefits from Free Trade.

[reggie the dog]

52. How?

Aside from the Scandanavian countries and Japan, pretty much all industrialized countries are losing their factories, and associated jobs, to countries with less pollution regulation, less workers rights, lower wages, and lower taxes on earnings. It is not as if the people in the countries the new factories are opened up in have anywhere near the standard of living of the former factory workers.

[JNelson6563]

55. Concentration of wealth, now more concentrated.

Big factor to add to your list. :-)

Julie

[PATRICK]

11. I think the similarities

are in imperial designs and corporate makeovers of nationalism. What is happening in all these cases is loss of "homeland" interests in favor of multinational empire and business. I don't thing "globalization" and other catchwords stand for anything really new. Yet the scale and scope of the US surrender to this proud absurdity is boggling to the mind of any intelligent species in the universe.

manufacturing, farming. the size and self-sustainability of America. You could even add in Canada and South America and there is no justification or rationale at all to import any but the most exotic foods and products from anywhere. Instead we have drywall and apple concentrate shipped from the shoddiest most starved and unreliable regions by slow steamer. Everything rots. Everything is shoddy and the economy is false and wasteful and destructive of all, repeat ALL parties to the madness. Only a totally surreal money game dominates the paper empire. In the past collapse is simple, inevitable and a caveat to the unending calvacade of repeating imperial pretensions. Ours has the potential to be quite spectacular, humiliating and inexcusable by any standard,

[Braulio]

15. Isolating the Western Hemisphere?

How Smoot-Hawleish of you.

[PATRICK]

28. Once upon a time

during the Monroe Doctrine leading to SA democracies like ours it was a vision, as opposed to the British Empire corporations and European colony exploitation gobbling up all else.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. I was thinking about this last night.

My husband and I were watching TV and he said "why are the only ads for either restaurants or insurance (geico, All State,etc)?

And then this giant light bulb went off and I started remembering old commercials - the Maytag repairman, see the USA in your Chevrolet, Timex - takes a lickin, keeps on tickin, Kodak cameras, Polaroid with Jim Garner& Mariette Hartley, Buster Brown shoes, Pf Flyers, Westinghouse Theater, Tonka Trucks, . . . you get the idea.

These were all ads for THINGS. AMERICAN MADE THINGS!!! That the companies and the workers and the consumers all actually took pride in. Some of these manufacturers had been around for decades, or longer. We don't see these ads or their more modern equivalent anymore because we don't MAKE anything. We cook food for each other and sell each other services.

There has never been a more apt phrase than the one used by John Kerry - Benedict Arnold CEO's. They sold their companies, their cities, their towns, their COUNTRY down the river for as you say "a few elites get temporarily rich".

[doc03]

14. Neither the government or Wall Street shipped

manufacturing jobs to other nations, you and I did, we bought the products.

[AllentownJake]

17. I'm 30

By the time I had any purchasing power before I got laid off the only thing I could buy made in the USA was cigarettes, a car, or beer.

[reggie the dog]

54. Don't forger pot too

most pot in the USA is american grown;....

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

19. That was the point I was trying to make when I posted this poll

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6387161&mesg_id=6387161

[TxRider]

23. +1

Guilty as charged.

[Toucano]

33. That is simply false.

Or maybe simplistic.



Perfect example: Levi Strauss & Co.

Profitable company, steady sales peaking at $7 billion per year. An American Icon, if ever there was one.

All manufacturing in the U.S. ceased in 2002, disemploying almost 2,000 people.

Operations transferred to Mexico (thanks to the government's incentive provided by NAFTA) and Central America, where now the rivers run with indigo dye.


The consumers had no involvement in this, no choice. They bought the products and paid a premium for them. It was plain and simple greed.

Did they reduce the retail price to compete against the cheap competition from Asia? Not one dime!

[Tumbulu]

35. Levi's hung on to US production long after it was profitable- the Gap started

the outsourcing in jeans and all the other names followed suit. Levi's at risk of closing shop finally changed. They were the last holdouts. I blame the Gap and the others who bought products from unregulated vendors at 1/3 the price and charged a bit less retail and used the ruinous profits to buy off legislators left right and center to reduce tariffs on textiles and apparel. Don't blame the victim.

And every consumer who shopped at Walmart in the 90's has guilt on their hands as well.

[doc03]

37. Exactly we bought them. As long as it wasn't our jobs

being shipped to Mexico we didn't care.

[doc03]

36. They still sell them don't they? They looked at their

competitors making jeans in other countries with a far greater profit margin and moved the factories to Mexico for their own survival. Back in the 70's all our manufacturing jobs were going to the scab labor states in the south. Then the corporations saw they could get even cheaper labor in Mexico so they lobbied for NAFTA. The Republicans could have never passed NAFTA it took a Democrat to pass it. But the bottom line is we bought the products and today you have little choice. Us Steelworkers were fighting for our survival back in the 70's and nobody gave a damn.

[Hannah Bell]

39. nope. the owners shipped the jobs first. it's obvious; you couldn't buy the cheaper products

before the jobs were shipped.

the owners, not the people, lobbied congress for loosening of trade restrictions also.

[anonymous171]

44. We had to. Our wages were stuck at shit levels. nt

[reggie the dog]

53. no, it was not you and I who did it.

The investors who held majority shares in many companies decided to move production overseas even when American factories were making profits. It is unethical captialism at its sickest. Strangely Japan seems to keep as many manufacturing jobs as they can, many people keep their jobs for their whole lives, and wages are high. Their capitalists seem to have a bit more morality, they have not sold out their country or their people for short term profits.

[sarge43]

21. Maybe this

England transferring its cloth production to India. Plenty of other factors played havoc with its economy like two world wars to pay for and an upstart former colony, but it certainly had a devastating effect.

A couple of classics:

Roman land owners throwing free men off their farms and replacing them with slaves. Jobless men and their families became a heavy burden on the economy and society. Long term effect, slaves had no vested interest in the society nor any motivation to work to better themselves or produce more than necessary to survive.

Following the Reconquesta, Spain exiling Jews and Muslins (when they weren't killed). A lose of a productive, innovative, educated group that could have been the matrix of a modern middle class. Many historians believe that's one of the principal reasons Spain became a backwater beginning 18th century.

[Hannah Bell]

50. ? Britain transferred India's cloth production industry to England & turned

former India weaving industry into low-wage cotton growers, thereby impoverishing the once-rich territory of India.

[sarge43]

56. Thanks for correcting a duh. I knew someone was screwed over. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

57. :>)

[lpbk2713]

22. Native Americans gave up their tribal lands for false promises.

It wasn't their fault, they were deceived into expecting a lot better than what they got.

Those who didn't fall for the false promises were ultimately forced off their land anyway.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Almost all empires outsource and then become dependent on their colonies.

The colonies then become weary of paying the way for their masters and kick them out.

[KittyWampus]

31. Wrong- almost all empires use bankers to finance their expansion and can't pay interest

on their loans.

It's isn't just about plundering abroad.

It's also taxing citizens at home.

And China can hardly be called an American "colony".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. Colony or not, we're sure dependent on them.

If not for the Chinese financing our economy we'd be in a helluva lot more trouble than we are now.

Of course, they're not doing out of any sense of altruism, they're buying up resources around the world with all the dollars they have and want to keep it afloat as long as possible. We've outsourced our manufacturing to them and the rest of the emerging markets and we can't do a thing about it without bringing down our own economy while, at worst, wounding theirs.

They've proven to much more adept capitalists than we are.

[Hannah Bell]

42. "we" are "them". about 1/2 of chinese exports are from foreign corps

manufacturing in china.

so who's dependent on who?

china holds about 700 billion in us debt.

us workers hold about 2.4 trillion in the form of the Social Security Trust fund.

And the PTB would like to borrow even more from them, in the form of increasing SS tax rates, decreasing benefits, & lifting the cap.


shiny objects.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

45. The difference being that they can afford to lose money. We can't.

Their dependency on us is for a market for the goods they produce, whether by International corporations, or domestically. They have recently signed "free trade" deals with other Asian nations which will broaden their markets.

If they break off trade with us or, worse, stop buying our debt, our economy will collapse. If we break off trade with them through trade restrictions, they'll suffer but remain intact.

Catch-22 for American workers either no work or work for less.

We're on the road to a "level playing field" but the Chines and the rest aren't going to raise wages and improve working conditions for their workers because their economies are built on cheap labor and they aren't about to destroy their economies to save ours.

I'm not saying it's right, moral, or humane, it's just the way it is. And, IMO, there is not a damned thing we can do about it.

[Hannah Bell]

49. no, our economy won't "collapse".

China's empty threat

If Wen Jiabao stops buying US debt, China's currency will rise – which is what America has wanted all along

Dean Baker guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 March 2009 18.00 BST

When China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, expressed concern about the ability of the US government to repay its bonds, his comments prompted headlines everywhere. The newspapers were filled with gloomy warnings that China may no longer be willing to buy up US debt, which supposedly would have dire consequences for us all.

Unfortunately, too little thought was given to what these "dire consequences" might be, and who would end up suffering them. Suppose that China stops buying US government debt. That would mean that the dollar would plummet in value against the yuan. Chinese imports would suddenly become much more expensive for consumers in the United States, making domestically produced items far more competitive.

The opposite would happen in China. Goods and services made in the United States would suddenly be much cheaper. As a result, we would expect to export much more to China, and see many more Chinese come to the United States as tourists or for business purposes. The reduction in imports from China and the increase in exports would substantially improve our balance of trade.

In other words, if Wen was threatening to stop buying dollar-denominated assets and therefore let the yuan rise against the dollar, he was threatening to do exactly what the US government has been demanding that China do. He will stop "manipulating" China's currency – meaning he will stop deliberately intervening in the market to keep the yuan's value from rising...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/30/us-economy-china-debt


The US rants about chinese "manipulation" of their currency, but one must conclude that some factions in the US wish for it to continue, because they're making super-profits selling their Chinese-made goods in the US.

[grantcart]

25. So when other people in other countries buy our products instead of those that

are manufactured by their own manufacturers, like Europeans and the Japanese did after the war that was a just economic arrangement and they were using their brains but when Americans buy Japanese cars now its a country that is selling itself out for its elites?

Currently IPods are manufactured in China and sold all over the world. Of an IPod assembled in China only about $ 10 remains in China. About $ 70 goes back to the US for developmental costs, overhead and profit, even those that are sold in China. about $ 120 goes to distribution and retail costs, 100% of the American sales stays in the US but about 20% of the overseas distribution and sales costs still come back to the US. So even though it says it is "made in China" Apple computer in the US retains a lion's share of the revenue.

Another example. Would you prefer to be a Japanese manufacturer that manufactures a TV that a family buys every 8 years, with the likelihood that the next TV will be made in China and the one after that made in South Africa or would you rather be an American entertainment company that manufacturers the entertainment that goes on the TV every night, night after night, year after year?

If you consider entertainment, including movies, TV, computer games and so on, as a product (its not a service so it should be considered as a manufactured product)and you factor in the "net value" that is kept in manufactured countries (like the IPod explained above)and add the 'repatriated profits' that go back to the United States, the US remains the largest exporter in the world by far. The Japanese have long since tired of the traditional and lopsided way that the US calculates 'balance of trade' by looking only at boxes of stuff and cars etc. and has another model that shows entertainment and makes allowances for the actual retained value in manufactured countries and the repatriated profits (for example billions sent to Kentucky Fried Chicken every year in repatriated profits even though nothing is actually manufactured in Kentucky) and the US continues to have an overwhelming trade balance.

I am sorry that your area and the traditional products manufactured in your area have dried up. If somebody in your areas invents the worlds best electric car then they would be making it and sending it all around the world. If it is manufactured somewhere else then the profits would be repatriated here.

The problem in the US is not primarily a manufacturing problem (although our lack of a single payer and lack of value added tax exemption puts our manufacturers at a disadvantage) it is a problem of income distribution in the US and undermining earning standards (by both undermining unions and illegal immigration). This country is awash in wealth its just that countries that concentrate 80% of the wealth in 5% of the population end up with lots of social and economic problems.

Our problem is not that we give away our assets its that we have fetishes for trite political saying that fit onto bumber stickers and think that it means something. We think that gearing an economic system that sucks from the middle class and poor and subsidizes the wealthy (agriculture and military manufacturing are two obvious examples) is a manifestation of freedom.

This is a country that is in love with its guns, its bibles and at war with science, objective thinking and the idea that a species that is a social creature living in social societies doesn't somehow advance by taking care of each other. Its not because we gave up manufacturing labor intensive low paying jobs - like garments, shoes and tires.

We still make the worlds aircraft, software, medicine, and entertainment.

[Junkdrawer]

26. 19th Century Britain. Manufacturing and Agriculture...

[starroute]

27. The decline of the Netherlands in the late 1600's has parallels

http://books.google.com/books?id=t2seAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA339&lpg=RA1-PA339&dq=netherlands+decline+national+debt&source=bl&ots=_ah2OrDk_W&sig=JvlC5QFsjfTZOJt501y2NhnIuow&hl=en&ei=41HGSsnPGcSa8Ab7wcg2&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The Netherlands were rapidly becoming a capitalist country, which lent its funds to foreign industries and foreign nations. This is not a desirable but a deplorable state of affairs. It will appear in another chapter that it is exceedingly dangerous for a nation to rely for its subsidence not on its productive industries but on its trade, which is an uncertain resource, and on its invested capital, largely invested abroad, which is a still more uncertain resource. Such a nation places its whole economic existence at the mercy of foreigners, and its wealth may vanish in a night.

[KittyWampus]

32. It's about using Banks and Credit to finance expansion and then taxing citizens to try and pay off

debt.

[Hannah Bell]

51. +1. but no one's listening.

[AngryAmish]

29. Britain ended the Raj

I know it was expensive to run the empire but India made them a lot of money.

[Xithras]

38. Rome qualifies from a more closely related aspect too.

Toward the end of the Roman Empire, the Romans were importing EVERYTHING. Wood was imported from North Africa and Gaul, pottery from the Middle East, grain from Egypt & North Africa, and so on, and so forth. Rome even had it's equivalent of the H1B, with low cost workers (and slaves) imported from the far-flung reaches of their lands to perform the manual and expensive work of maintaining their Empire. The result of this was skyrocketing unemployment, which led to an explosion in crime and prostitution as people tried to make ends meet. Records still exist indicating that, in the city of Rome itself, the Emperors kitchens used to feed 100,000 unemployed Roman citizens every day because they couldn't find work. During that same period of time, there were over 250,000 slave workers in the city.

It had a lot to do with why Rome fell. Rome, at the end, produced nothing but "leaders". From this point to the very end, the importance of Rome itself began withering in the empire. Rome simply became unimportant.

[Taitertots]

41. We have sold ourselves out

Then we just call any opposition to it protectionism or isolationism. It is the new communism, the red herring thrown against anything which doesn't benefit the oligarch overlords. It doesn't even make sense anymore. Being against protectionism made sense when we built stuff and wanted to ensure access to natural materials and markets.

Americans are just too stupid to avoid buying cheap foreign cars and fancy toys.



Just don't forget, if everyone gets poorer, but they still get richer compared to us then they still win.

[Odin2005]

43. Outsourcing today is equivalent to the development of slave-worked plantations in Rome

Indebted farmers got thrown off their land, and it came into the hands of the rich aristocrats, who "outsourced" the labor to slaves.

This is the ultimate reason the Roman Republic succumbed to tyranny.

[blindpig]

46. It's never happened before

because this is advanced, late stage capitalism. Lenin saw it coming, but I don't think that even he could conceive how batshit crazy it could get.

[rug]

47. Cooperating with slavers comes to mind.

In Africa itself, sporadic raids by Europeans soon gave way to regular commerce. African societies were drawn into the slavery system under duress, hoping that, once inside it, they would be able to derive maximum benefit for themselves. Nzinga Mbemba, ruler of the Kongo Kingdom, is a good example. He had converted to Christianity in 1491 and referred to the king of Portugal as his brother. When he came to power in 1506, he protested strongly at the fact that the Portuguese, his brother’s subjects, felt entitled to rob his possessions and carry off his people into slavery. It was to no avail. The African monarch gradually allowed himself to be convinced that the slave trade was both useful and necessary. Among the goods offered in exchange for human beings, rifles took pride of place. And only states equipped with rifles, i.e. participating in the slave trade, were able to resist attacks from their neighbours and pursue expansionist policies.

The African states fell into the trap set by the European slavers. Trade or go under. All the states along the coast or close to the slave trading areas were riven by the conflict between national interest, which demands that no resource necessary to security and prosperity be neglected, and the founding charters of kingdoms, which impose on sovereigns the obligation to defend the lives, property and rights of their subjects. The states involved in the slave trade strove to keep it within strict limits. In 1670, when the French requested permission to establish a trading post on his territory, King Tezifon of Allada made the following clear-sighted reply: "You will make a house in which you will put at first two little pieces of cannon, the next year you will mount four, and in a little time your factory will metamorphosed into a fort that will make you master of my dominions and enable you to give laws to me (5)". From Saint-Louis-du-Sénégal to the Congo estuary, the local societies and states mostly succeeded in pursuing an ambiguous policy of collaboration, suspicion and control.

http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa