Planned Misery
I want to briefly address what Professor Susan Marks, of the London School of Economics, calls ‘planned misery’. [1] In her writing, planned misery “denotes misery that belongs with the logic of particular socio-economic arrangements.” [2] To me, this definition invites reflection about how global capitalism is structured such that human, labor and environmental rights abuses perpetrated in developing countries in industries like mining, textiles, and electronics seem unavoidable. There is a very positive side to globalization over the past 30 years. Namely, the combination of increased foreign investor protections and lower trade barriers have increased the flow of capital to poor countries, redistributing industrial resources from rich countries to the global poor, and increasing standards of living throughout the developing world. The quintessential contemporary model for this story is China but there are many other examples. For instance, China’s economic miracle might be put ...
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