THE RECORD

September 22, 1999

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Every time we open a paper, switch on a radio or TV we're bombarded with the corporate pro-competition propaganda: "We must become more competitive to sell our goods!." "Competition reduces costs and prices!." The great Mulroney's free trade warcry: "Prosperity through competition!", and then we come to the textbook jargon of economists: "Competitive equilibrium."

The problem with all these slogans, promises and theories that they are physical impossibilities and to a very great extent lies designed to lead the public into a false sense of euphoria. A kind of drug addiction. All forms of competition, including economic competition, always increase costs and prices. There's no way out. The purpose of economic competition is to steal away the resource base of another sector which could be the workers of a business, or the properties of others, be they homes, businesses, or future lives.

The concept of "voluntary trade for the satisfaction of all" disappears with monetary competition, because the losers obviously won't be satisfied. In all the months since the Bowater debacle in Gold River I have yet to hear any former worker or business owner expressing satisfaction with the company's actions. Yet, Bowater acted well within the laws of economic competition: Knock down the other guy and take his property. So where's the Chamber of Commerce to justify it?

Have Mulroney's , or Chretien's so called "free trade" deals brough any prosperity to anyone we know, except a to few large multinational corporations with ever dwindling numbers of employees? No, because economic competition always increases and transfers costs on other sectors. That is the whole purpose. Even the propaganda used to sell it is part of the competition against people's minds to lead them up on the garden path and into traps from where they can not escape.

Globalized monetary competition is a new wave of colonialism without the invading foreign armies, but through the use of local quislings to pacify the natives. We have them here in the form of this nebulous BC Business Council fronting for an international power elite to misinform, brainwash and subdue the public with unreachable promises. Their weapons are the so called "investments." Imaginary figures created by banks containing the perception of power, but in reality containing nothing but a new set of the Emperor's clothes people are supposed to kowtow to and offer their properties and lives. The new version of the old human sacrifices to gods who once lived in volcanoes, and who now live in computers. And, like the old gods, will keep on living and demanding more blood as long as people believe in them.

Where are those fantastic cost cuttings and price reductions we were promised with the FTA and later the NAFTA? In the imaginations of propagandists and the gullible followers of screwball politicians. They keep on promising to "kickstart the economy and bring back good times" without the slightest hope for realization. The only things they can realize are fat cat corporate directorships after their retirements, like where the main players of the Mulroney gang are sitting now. The rest of the people will lose more of their standards of living, children lose their hopes for good education, old people to good health services and pensions. The real growths we can expect are in violence, illness, environmental destruction and human destitution.

Well, let's look at some prices everybody can relate to. A certain degree of monetary competition has always existed. It is healthy when businesses try to provide the best service or product for the lowest costs. But how much competition and what are the guidelines? There's no way to measure real costs as opposed to monetary costs, because money is a faith based concept, not a reality, without any firm foundations.

For example the price of a vehicle approximately doubled in the twenty years between 1955 and 1975, when I bought my one and only new vehicle, a Dodge Tradesman 200 van for $5,600. A similar vehicle and most others would have cost about half that in '55. The multinational takeovers, mergers and competition mania started taking off around the middle of the '70-s and into top gear during the '80s. Have costs and prices gone down?

In the next twenty years, to about 1995, the price of the same quality vehicles went up by about 600% to around $35,000. Meanwhile wages were falling behind as corporations needed more and more capital to automate and get rid of workers.

So, what have we gained in our wonderful, borderless world of global competition? Higher prices, lower standard of living, loss of our democratic decision making powers, more stress, more global warming, more destitution and more brutality.

What can we expect in the future,unless people are starting to wake up? All I can say is that I am glad I'm not young any more.

Copyright (c) 1999, West's International