Spot the Difference
Quick quiz: What’s the most obvious difference between the Ansari X Prize and the newly announced “H-Prize”?
HT: Slashdot
HT: Slashdot
Corporatism Redux: Latin America, the Left, and the Church’s Challenge
Many are alarmed as Latin American countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia veer toward leftist class-struggle politics and socialist economic policies. But, as Sam Gregg points out, the potent combination of state-authoritarianism, populism, nationalism and xenophobia -- or “corporatism” -- seen today in Latin America was also present in European fascist governments in the 1930s, and later during the regime of Argentina’s Juan Peron. One encouraging sign: Catholic leaders are now speaking out against this corporatist agenda.
Read the complete commentary here.
Read the complete commentary here.
Free Workers, Free Trade
You can read my piece today responding to an article in the New York Times over at National Review Online, “Free Workers & Free Trade.”
The NYT piece passes on the allegations of numerous immigrant workers at garment factories in Jordan that they have been lured into the country, had their passports taken, and then forced to work long hours for illegally low wages. There’s an implicit critique of the free market system, and large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, in the article, blaming them for the de facto conditions of slavery.
I, in turn, examine the culpability at various levels, including the responsibility of the factory owners, the duties of the Jordanian government, as well as the “unique ability for American companies to use their economic leverage to push for an end to foreign labor exploitation.”
The NYT piece passes on the allegations of numerous immigrant workers at garment factories in Jordan that they have been lured into the country, had their passports taken, and then forced to work long hours for illegally low wages. There’s an implicit critique of the free market system, and large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, in the article, blaming them for the de facto conditions of slavery.
I, in turn, examine the culpability at various levels, including the responsibility of the factory owners, the duties of the Jordanian government, as well as the “unique ability for American companies to use their economic leverage to push for an end to foreign labor exploitation.”
Sun, 10/05/2008 14:27
Philip you speak the truth! Jesus said pick up your cross and fallow me. leave your possesstions behind. Why did He say [...]