I wanted to analyze noam chomsky in this
video and what he's talking about poor
people in the United States and how
they're potentially manipulated he talks
about globalization and the impact that
it's had on them I my question has to do
with the category of globalization and
worker fear as you mentioned in your
speech your thoughts on the offshoring
of Technology jobs and also the h-1b
visas 1.3 million in the last three
years that have displaced technology
workers here in the US including me well
actually there's an interesting op-ed in
The New York Times about this this
morning by a good econ a very good
economist Jagdish Bhagwati that's also
it not only a fine economist but a very
decent person that really wants to help
the poor and important things and what
he's saying is that people who are
objecting to outsourcing just don't have
their economic straight if they
understood economics they would know
it's a good thing and why is it a good
thing well because it increases
efficiency and efficiency increases the
economic pie and that's good for all of
us and if you don't allow corporations
to outsource they mate so Chomsky brings
up a good point in highlighting that
just because the economic pie overall is
bigger does not mean that it benefits
all people you can have a bigger pie but
if the wealthy take four-fifths of the
pie where before they took 3/4 then
people are still going to be worse off
even if it's bigger Chomsky highlights
these kinds of ideas an Anglo is Asian
that's literally what happened what is
happening is you are having the
wealthiest individuals are literally
able to make more money than ever before
even if the pie grows bigger they make
or they get a larger slice of it
so overcoming this well everything he
says is true in some abstract model of
the International economy which has
actually no resemblance to reality
but in that model it's true and you can
probably prove a theorem about it in the
actual economy it's very innovative but
not because of private enterprise it's
its innovative yes because of massive
state intervention exactly what's
blocked for everyone else but the so
called globalization rules so we're
gonna do it because we do anything we
like but others can't do it and
furthermore that's the whole history of
the modern world that's like India
India's that it was a disaster and
Britain became rich it's because of
those relationships and so it goes so in
the real world yes we're innovative but
not for his reasons furthermore even on
his own terms objecting to supposed to
this book let's take this abstract model
that he's talking about suppose that
corporations die in the United States
well just means they're inefficient so
that means that he and I and you can all
get kicked out of our institutions
because they're just not competitive and
we can apply for jobs as janitors that
80 hours a week no pay or you know get
locked into factories and so on by
factories owned in more efficient places
like Thailand and China and so on I
maybe that will increase the economic
pie you know so why not advocate that I
mean you know who cares if the
corporations here died furthermore the
outsourcing has nothing to do with
economic efficiency outsourcing is one
of the operations that take place within
command economies the country the
economy is run by a network of command
economies called corporation I mean what
goes on internal to a corporation or a
mega corporation is not free trade it's
a command economy that
the corporation's a totalitarian
institution you know has a board of
directors at the top a manager gives
orders one follows them down to bottom
the very bottom if you're lucky you can
rent yourself to it and get a job and if
you're sufficiently propagandize you may
even buy some of the junk they produce
and so on but it's certainly not there's
nothing to do with what you know any
classical economists would have called a
free-market outsourcing is just part of
the technique outsourcing is internal to
the corporation right the corporation
picks some supplier to outsource to and
keeps them under control because then
they can get much cheaper labor hideous
working conditions don't worry about
environmental controls they get inputs
to themselves which are very cheap that
increase for those of you who studied
economics you know that that increases
productivity if you get artificially
cheap inputs that increases productivity
because productivity is measured in
terms of you know value produced divided
by the number of workers so you get a
nice measures of productivity which has
nothing to do with productivity they
just have to do with the fact that
you've got Chomsky brings up how
outsourcing often though it can save
business a lot of money they are doing
in a way that many could argue is less
than ethical eyes they have horrible
working conditions in areas like India
Bangladesh China so you have people that
are working in these factories making a
couple dollars a day
filthy working conditions sometimes very
unsafe working conditions you have
American workers that are negatively
impacted while it is increasing the
profits of the corporations themselves
which are very cheap that increase for
those of you have studied economics you
know that that increases productivity if
you get artificially chief inputs that
increases productivity because
productivity is measured in terms of you
know value produced divided by the
number of workers so you get a nice
measures of productivity which have
nothing to do with productivity they
just have to do with the fact that
you've got twenty year old women off the
farms and China locked into factories
and working until they die in a couple
of years that is very healthy for the
economy but it's all internal to big
command economies that's one of the
reasons why the concept trade is so
ridiculous
I mean what's called trade would
certainly not have been called trade by
Adam Smith like you know the outsourcing
happens to send goods across the border
into the United States but it's under
the control of a command economy in fact
a network of command economies which
work the way it is quoted you know the
oligopolistic competition and strategic
integration and the same is true of most
of what's called trade we don't have
nobody really studies this much so you
don't have really accurate numbers but
if you take the numbers that our guest
at by the economist would look at it it
takes a NAFTA I one of the great things
about NAFTA supposed to have been that
it increased trade between the u.s. and
Mexico
well it certainly increased cross-border
transfers of material objects but is
that trade well it depends you know it
turns out that the percentage of
interaction that's intra firm internal
to a command economy went from about 50
percent before NAFTA to about two-thirds
after NAFTA that's not trade any more
than if GM shipped something from
Indiana to Illinois you know happens
across an international border so that
you can take advantage of rotten working
conditions and low wages and no
environmental constraints but it's no
more trade than if the Kremlin moved
something from you know Poland Hungary
or something like that it's and in fact
it's very possible if anybody ever
bothered to study it that actual trade
is even declined since NAFTA I mean
nobody studies it because it's the wrong
questions to ask you know for
ideological framework that we're
supposed to accept but if you did ask it
you might very well find that just as it
turns out after NAFTA that and you know
another great thing about NAFTA for
Mexico is that foreign investment shot
up which it did but a little footnote is
the total investment decline because
Mexican investment declined even faster
than foreign investment went up for the
simple reason that Mexican businesses
can't compete with highly subsidized US
corporate systems so when you go back to
the outsourcing story it's just you know
in an abstract world what he's
describing is true in the real world
it just doesn't having to do with what's
going on should we approve of it well
you know that's not the only question
there are other options for example
another option is to work to improve
working conditions labor standards
environmental conditions and so on in
the places to which they are outsourcing
okay that'll tend to equalize the
conditions is that a utopian measure not
at all it's been used there look at the
European Union before the European Union
integrated efforts substantial efforts
were made and substantial costs were
assumed to raise the level of the poorer
countries Portugal the Spain and Greece
to raise Labor Standards raise wages
improve conditions enough then get to
the northern standards but enough so
that when they finally integrated there
wasn't a very severe blow against the
wages and living standards of northern
workers well that's because they have a
kind of social market economy in a
more or less functioning democratic
system and the same could have been done
with regard to NAFTA in fact it was
proposed by the US labor movement but
never entered the discussion and the
same because corporate media against it
and the elites are against it but and
the same could be true of the whole
outsourcing story so there are other
options it's not either let the command
economies maximize their own profit and
power or else you know you don't have a
job there are there other options so
towards the end he highlights that NAFTA
could have been created in a way that
would be looking out for all workers he
highlights that the European Union they
worked it out to make sure that the poor
countries that their labor standards
were raised and the unions in the United
States the individuals in labor they
were trying to advocate for this but
NAFTA but his claims that some of the
corporate elites didn't go along with
that want to talk about the concept of
elites you watch fox news watch Sean
Hannity you watched Tucker Carlson they
talk all the time about literally it's
what they don't mention is that they are
on the side the wealthiest individuals
in the country to the working class they
try and paint this image of liberal
elites indicating individuals that are
really well-educated well some of those
educated individuals don't even have a
fraction of the wealth and power that
some of Fox News's biggest contributors
and supporters have so really we have to
ask ourselves who are the elites
