Workers seen as a cost

In his Dec. 17 letter to the editor, Eldon Barr seems concerned about whose interests our politicians serve with American household appliances being manufactured overseas. Could it be that worker cooperatives in the Mondragon region of Spain produce the appliances used in the United States? That doesn’t seem likely, but it would be kind of funny, wouldn’t it? You’ve got to watch those Europeans every second or they’ll reorganize production cooperatively, and with great success.

Meanwhile, it’s far more likely that millions of American jobs have been lost to 12-year-old girls in China, Mexico and elsewhere, who manufacture American goods for about 12 cents per hour just to feed their families, even as American CEOs fret about where they might find cheaper 12-year-old girls. Moreover, these antagonistic political “interests” will persist as long as labor is a cost of production.

Alternately, has anyone considered restarting the “American Machine” as a network of self-managed worker cooperatives to drag the manufacturing base of our economy back home? In the process, we might effectively teach the rest of the world something about economics, independence and democracy. But that would be totally “socialist” – wouldn’t it?

Good job, America. Ya fell for it again.

David Kendall

Spokane Valley