·
Hire only
workers of certain age, no families, no elderly, no sick, already educated and
skilled. No one else allowed on island.
“They are exploiting a natural resource without
replenishing it. Their strategy is not sustainable.” (186)
·
Folbre
asks if we really have only two choices:
1.
A
patriarchal society in which women provide the care.
2.
A society
in which care is only provided by the market (for money).
·
Immigration
and Guest Labor as forms of Corpornation
1.
Canada
has a point system based on education, knowledge of French, occupations in need.
2.
U.S.
& other countries bring in guest workers that have no rights, no labor
protection, no benefits and cannot stay.
(California recently denied drivers’ licenses to Mexican guest workers. This way they would find it more difficult to move between employers. U.S. firms doing business in Mexico, on the other hand, were discovered having women injected with depo-provera to avoid the maternity leave obligations that pregnant women are legally entitled to. The U.S. imports nannies to care for the children of the rich. These practices may become more routine – the Bush Administration is moving to provide permanent identification cards for guest workers, i.e., a permanent underclass. A recent article by a UCSD scholar discusses the importance of the undocumented driver's license issue.)
3. Migrant & immigrant remittances back to home countries are the
fastest growing income source.
Rules
of Market System set against Caring
·
Mass
firings are in the nation’s (system’s) welfare
Benign terms for being fired: downsizing, release of resources, career change opportunity, involuntary separation from payroll, i.e., these are all good things.
·
Resources
devoted to your family’s needs cannot be sold (lowers your income)
·
Same for
nation (“families with kids are like little welfare states”)
·
Corpornation
wins every race
Two
responses to footloose capital: Jihad
vs McWorld
·
Conservative
fundamentalists à
a. trade barriers b. immigration barriers c. women back to homemaking
·
Free
market ideologists à
every person for himself. An “unobstructed set of exchange relationships.”
Folbre’s
Response:
·
“If
collective welfare is a responsibility in a family, it should also be a
responsibility in a nation state.”
·
An
attempt to democratically define and enforce responsibilities for care.
·
Fair
trade, not free trade.
·
Penalize
countries that deny basic human rights to their citizens or fail to enforce
environmental safeguards.
Investors’ perspectives à
free markets great, profits shd be maxed, regulations hurt profits.
Citizens’ perspectives à
free markets work best in democracies that protect human rights, profits a
source for productive investment, regulation is crucial to protect workers,
consumers and the environment.