Shrinking Violets in the Global Village

American trade unions along with their socialist/environmentalist counterparts are taking Indian trade unions for a ride. This is done under the guise of ``global brotherhood of workers and socialists``. Lack of forward thinking views among Indian trade unions leaves them unable to see beyond their noses.

Indian trade unionists and their left-supporters such as Vandana Shiva, Arundhati Roy, Sainath and others get a lot to play on US college campuses and on radio stations like Pacifica. Their talks genrally center around ritualistic attacks on George Bush and US mutinationals, followed by how ``Indian workers`` are being ``exploited`` under slave labor conditions and damage to environment in India. This makes for good airplay in the US.

As you can guess, I am pretty well plugged into leftist orgs :-)

#62

Are you kidding me!! Members of my family have with heroic ability tried to keep their small scale units alive in W.Bengal. Stories of their interactions with Bengal trade unions and the communist leadership will make your skin crawl.

These stories of the ``incorruptibility`` of the left, is part of leftist myth-making.

#62

I have some familiarity with Bombay trade unions as well. ``Socialist`` TU leaders like Datta Samant and GF were as corrupt as you can get.

bongdongs #67,
Ofcourse, any leader be it of a trade union or a political party in India is buyable. I mentioned the unions in comparable terms. In Bombay the Shiv Sena unions are the worst of the lot.

I personally think the ideal system for India would be somewhere between USA style capitalism (where things like insurance is a big fraud) and European style socialism (where the working people are penalised with high taxes so that unemployed can stay unemployed).

Re: # 65
Bongdongs - I`ll take ur word for it! :)

Thats why Datta Samant was killed :)

I don`t know if its just politicians or a whole bunch of brainwashed people who seem to think capitalism is the best thing since sliced bread. Sigh. They are everywhere. The level of discussion among people on this subject can be pathetic and juvenile. Its the way we`ve been educated in school - a little better outside the US than in, I think, but since the collapse of genuinely pluralistic, egalitarian ideals in our part of the world, the difference has probably narrowed. I had hopes for the World Social Forum but am now beginning to thonk its just a bunch of kids from the first world (and the intelligensia from the third) trying to have it all ways. They excluded the Zapatistas, the FARC, the PWG - anyone who actually *did* something to redistribute resources among people. It doesn`t take a big sacrifice to march and shout slogans. The WSF has reach and visibility but they need to radicalise. I have no illusions about politicians. Any change has to come from people.

One small point I think is relevant is that India does have a more advanced capital markets system than china and the net inflows of FII`s are a result of that. Working capital for these companies an create just as many jobs and allow for personal wealth creation if the capital markets side of the equation is kept up.

Also, India unlike china isn`t suffering from speculative growth in the RE sector and the banks aren`t as highly leveraged. Slow and steady privatization has been the reason for the latter in India. With voer $750B in NPA`s in the chinese banks...it would be interesting to see how that impacts the monetary policy in China.