Subject: Economic Propagandists Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 16:12:53 -0500 From: "Tony Rawson" Organization: datApex Network Systems To: Dear Mr. Deardorff, After reading the anti-anti-sweatshop campaign letter distributed by your group (ACIT) I felt compelled to write you a letter. Though it sometimes turns my stomach, I often find amusement in reading the PR (i.e. propaganda) disseminated by persons like yourself and the organizations they maintain to fight citizen action against the scourge of modern corporate oligarchy. I'm sure you have the basic understanding required to see your position supports a pro-sweatshop stance, but as is the case with all hacks that are paid to promote an unethical or incorrect point, either ideology or ignorance must form the basis for such a ludicrous position. I would assume that an economist living in Michigan would be familiar with the campaign of moving manufacturing to locations with the least regulation and lowest pay as a method of increasing profits. I imagine your justification for this trend is a Reganesque trickle down theory coupled with the illusion that a third worlder earning their country's minimum wage will benefit from global exploitation. I assume ignoring the impact on the U.S population caused by a loss of manufacturing jobs and the flight of capital also plays a crucial role in your pro-globalization stance. I imagine the only form of cosmic justice for someone like yourself would be the loss of your job and your replacement by a third world economist performing your work for only a fraction of the cost. Then again, I'm not sure if fudging weak analytical models to produce expected results qualifies as real work. As scientist trained in real forms of analysis such as field and catastrope theory I find your field of study quite a joke. Adam Smith had a better clue about what was going on several hundred years ago than you appear to have today. Unfortunately your tenure and your role as a key player in globalization will probably keep you where you are for a long time to come. Then again, "work" such as yours is not suprising from someone low enough on the ethical totem pole to have worked for the CIA. I assume that the chance of you forming a conscience and changing your ways is not very likely. Perhaps the most obscene part of reading your on line bio is your definition as a "Professor of Economics and Public Policy". While your Ph.D might confirm that you have a basic understanding of mathematics and "economic theory", the idea of you being an expert in "public policy" is a scary one. Its about as bad as a rapist teaching dating etiquette, or an embezzler acting as a portfolio manager. I leave you with a quote from a much better economist than yourself that was as true then as it is today. It also quite accurately describes the system and corparate activities you promote. "The whole, or almost the whole public revenue, is in most countries employed in maintaining unproductive hands... Such people, as they them-selves produce nothing, are all maintained by the produce of other men's labour... Those unproductive hands, who should be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of the people, may consume so great a share of their whole revenue, and thereby oblige so great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour, that all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be able to compensate the waste and degradation of produce occasioned by this violent and forced encroachment." Tony Rawson datApex Network Systems http://datApex.Com (904) 271-3312