Selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.

A version of this sent to The Globe and Mail, May 8, 2016. Unpublished.

Plans are under way for a sale of $15-billion dollars worth of light armoured vehicles from a Canadian manufacturer to Saudi Arabia.

Objections to the transaction have emerged. Cited are Saudi Arabia's human rights record, its execution rate, its war in Yemen, and the fear the vehicles may be used against its own people.

By those criteria, Canada should suspend trade with China. That nation's human rights record is a source of shame, it will not reveal its execution rate believed to be high,  it has waged war and occupied Tibet, and it has used tanks against its own people in Tienanmen Square.

By those criteria, Canada should suspend trade with the United States. That nation's human rights record against its black citizens is a source of shame, its execution rate is on the same level as that of Saudi Arabia, it has attacked and/or exploited every nation in the Western Hemisphere, and is currently equipping its municipal police forces with surplus military light armoured vehicles for use against its own people.

The objections are a confusion of morality, law, politics and business. Trade with Muslim countries continued during the so-called Crusades. Need we love those with whom we do business? Need we approve of their behaviour? And they of ours? We should not hesitate to deal with the devil it it redounded to our benefit.

Democracy not for Everyone

Unpublished letter to the Toronto Star:

The clamour about Justin Trudeau's comment of Chinese success is misplaced (Rookie mistakes still hamper Trudeau's chances, Nov. 14). The complaint is based on the belief that democracy is the best form of government for all people everywhere and at all times.

Does anyone believe that, if China were a democracy, so many millions of its citizens would have been pulled out of poverty, and so quickly? To achieve such success in so short a time, those in charge had to be ruthless. (Thomas Hobbes would agree.) China is the envy of Western democracies because it is a tyranny, a tyranny with which those same defenders of democracy are most anxious to do business.

The noise extends to Trudeau’s admiration for Cuba’s American-inflicted struggling to get out of its economic and political past. Complainers object to the torture perpetrated on that island. Yes there is torture, but it is done by the American military in Guantanamo naval base. Does that mean one cannot express admiration for the United States?

Race to the Bottom Revisited

At the height of the Great Depression, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno  in which he advised that " the right ordering of economic life cannot be left to free competitive forces."  

The recent disaster in a garment factory in Bangladesh should cause Western nations to re-examine their overseas purchasing policies. Chinese coastal factories are moving menial labour westward into the nation's interior. The workers in the eastern factories went on strike, got raises, then saw their jobs move inland in a kind of insourcing the outsourced.  

This story appeared in an 800-word report in The Globe and Mail, but nowhere did it mention "outsourcing."   In the spirit of euphemism, it's now "manufacturing movements" or "moving operations offshore."

China, the world's largest recipient of outsourced business, is itself outsourcing to even lower-wage nations such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia.  One can imagine the leaders of these nations making their presentations to rich Western corporations: "Our people are poorer, more plentiful, and more exploited than the other guy's people."

Vying for poor country status constitutes a race to the bottom.  The result is seen in that November 2012 fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh sweatshop that killed 112 women working in unsafe conditions.  They are part of the 300 workers who have died in garment factory fires since 2006 in that country.

Tazreen Fashions made Mickey Mouse sweatshirts for Walt Disney, Faded Glory children's shorts for Walmart, and items with the ENTCE label for Sears.  These corporations claimed ignorance of conditions in the source of their products. Of course, if one closes one's eyes, one cannot see.

The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights stated that nothing will change unless clothing companies protect workers as vigorously as they protect their brands.  "The labels are legally protected," a spokesperson said, "but there are no similar protected rights of the worker."   That might increase the price to the Western merchants by an estimated 25 cents per garment.  Cheap clothing comes at a high cost.