That Bolivian Miner

I lie here trying to sleep at night and as it so often does, my mind turns to the miners of Potosi in Bolivia. Since Heather is away for the night and I've finished uni for the year, there is no reason why I can't get out of bed again to release the thoughts.

Before I go on, I want to ask any conservative readers (or self-named realists/pragmatists) to try, for the moment, to divorce their minds from their passion for free-market economies and distaste for anti-US sentiments.

Ask yourself, is it fair, in this day and age, with the wealth that the world holds, for a man to spend his entire life toiling deep underground. For days, sometimes weeks on end he will try, often in vain, to chip away at a possible mineral vein that might earn his family a little extra income. His wife brings him food and water while he works, he sleeps when he can work no longer, in the same crevice in which he has been chiseling away at for weeks and will continue to do so for weeks. It is a life that the any animal in western society would be saved from. Perhaps I'm not portraying the image clearly enough in all it's horror to properly conjure up this sad, sickening and disturbing reality for the miners of Potosi.

The mine is foreign owned and the workers are paid a pittance for the minerals they extract from this antiquated mountain of death and misery. Some might argue that you can't blame the company, others might not. Some think the nationalisation of Bolivian industries like this one is a backward step and a crack at the US administration, others consider it a necessary step to improve the quality of life of some of the hardest workers on the planet. Isn't that fair? Isn't it just that hard work be rewarded?

I feel ill when I realise how many people will try and justify why they think this scenario is fair, or perhaps just retort - life isn't fair. Then another wave of sadness hits when I realise that no appealing to these people's emotions will make a difference, they don't care if they are called heartless. Water off a duck's back. Another dead child, 'hmm a sad reality', another dead miner 'hmm life isn't fair'. If I argue with these people and try to understand and communicate with their self centred universes I get nowhere. If my anger boils over I get called a communist. Note that 'self-centred' implies the fact that they place decreasing importance on people and things the further they are (geographically or cognitively) from themselves (my theory of the concentric circles of compassion). Did these people never think about the principles expounded in the children's stories they read growing up? or the bible if they are christians, or the Qu'ran etc etc. Isn't being self-centred a bad thing? An uncharitable, selfish character trait? Why is it so acceptable? I hear people say about voting 'I vote on how the policies will affect me' Answer: What is 'selfishness'?

I take some heart from the expanding EU and the possible development of similar international co-operation in other regions. Some conspiracy theorists think the Rockefeller foundation is behind a push for a global government. I doubt this, but a convergence towards a system of international co-operation that makes decisions based on the human interest, rather than the national interest is something that I wish for.

That's about all I have to say about that for now. Maybe a quick macroeconomic discussion.

Government driven rises in wage rates (due to those damn unions!) is often blamed for driving up inflation. But what about market driven wages rates - ie. the massive salaries paid to undeserving executives (let's not pretend they deserve it - it's who you know, not what you know). The inflationary pressure caused by this mechanism is sure to rival, if not exceed the pressure from meagre wage rises for teachers and nurses.