TRIO Thirty: Rod Amis

G21 Staff Writer

Inside & Outside The Fence

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The LABOR MARKET ORIENTATION Edition: TRIO: ROD AMIS returns to the column to talk about the future of the global economy in "INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE FENCE." POWERSBOOKS: BOB POWERS talks with author, Barbara Goldsmith. POLICY MATTERS:, This week ADAM SMITH looks at our government's approach to the tobacco/nicotine issue and how it's symptomatic of wrong-headedness. VOX POPULI, the E-mail alternative to our Message Board, is updated again, because you're flooding our e-mail box! Hey! Hey, you! Use the Message Board! IRISH EYES: In Part One of a Special Two Part Feature, JOE O'NEILL talks with BERNADETTE DEVLIN MCALISKEY about the prospects for the Peace Agreement. Another G21 Exclusive Interview! LONDON CALLING! FLISS USSHER on May Day in England, then and now. STONEWALL VIEWS: PHIL MARTIN talks about the "LABOR MARKET & SEXUAL ORIENTATION." TRIO: RADIO RAHEEM is back and STILL OUTRAGEOUS. This week, "WORKING FOR DUMMIES." VOX POPULI, the E-mail alternative to our Message Board, is updated! HOUSE OF CARDS has a brand new Joke of the Day. The DYING TO BE COOL -2 Edition: In/Out SEA OF DREAMS: ZENCYN returns with a comprehensive guide on choosing your Dream Symbol Book. For the Non-Framed version, GO HERE. ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in THE HOUSE OF CARDS! POWERSBOOKS on "KAKUTANI OF THE TIMES." TRIO: THOMAS HART says "ADDICTED? AREN'T WE ALL?" LONDON CALLING! FLISS USSHER provides a seering, intimate portrait of young "birds" Dying To Be Cool! For rapid response, use The Message Board HOME

SAN FRANCISCO - It's May Day, and I'm wondering where are lot of people are.

Inevitably, when I get into a conversation with someone about the future of our global economy, it leads to talking about the people who will live inside or outside of "The Fence." The Fence is my metaphor since the publication of that quasi-scholarly, right-wing propaganda book, The Bell Curve, and since presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan floated the idea of raising a fence between the United States and Mexico. It has been a handy metaphor, easy for most people to comprehend.

It has not been as easy for people to deal with my automatic extrapolation on this notion, my idea that the time will quickly come when guard towers and gun turrets will have to adorn The Fence in order to keep the economically disenfranchised at bay.

I guess an idea like that latter still makes gentlefolk cringe, reminiscent as it is of the Berlin Wall.

By my lights, the Mesopotamian is already on the wall. The southern hemisphere, with the notable exception of Australia, is being plundered and left behind, most inner cities in the United States are decaying and being abandoned to the underclass, and we have as many beggars on the streets of our nations as there were almost half a century ago. The very notion of social justice is being called into question by lackey conservative governments, puppets of multinational corporations, in favor of the new social Darwinism. You do not have to be scholar of Near Eastern languages to translate this handwriting on the wall. For the last fifteen years, the watchwords of the global, multinational conglomerates have been "competiveness" and "down-sizing." In other words, fewer workers at less cost(to the corporations,) and some poor suckers inevitably starve to death.

If you are outside of The Fence, you are one of those poor suckers.

The rub of this scenario is that any reasonable person, like --- say --- a CEO or CFO, has to recognize that a time will come when you will get mad as hell, if you are one of the poor suckers outside of The Fence. This reasonable person will decide that there need to be guard towers and gun turrets.

Let's look deeper into my crystal ball: there are certain cities which the corporations will want to maintain for themselves. For reasons of economy of scale, in order to celebrate their latest mercantile triumphs, and so that their henchman and courtiers will feel appreciated, these mega-companies will need centrally-located hubs. The cities in question will be inside The Fence. For example, I suspect that our global mercantilists will maintain New York City(at least, Manhattan,) London, Berlin and Tokyo; they already have extensive infrastructure in those cities. Streets are being torn up to lay fiber optic cable. On the other hand, if the name of your city begins with a "D" --- unless you happen to live in Dallas, or Denver --- watch out. I fully expect Duluth and Detroit are doomed to be outside of The Fence.

I won't burden you with the entire list of doomed cities, but let us put it this way: in the year 2020, Pittsburgh will be a ghost town.

Lansing, Lima, San Juan, Bombay: ghost town, ghost town, ghost town, ghost town.

These people --- remember, people are what a city is --- are being pushed outside of The Fence. You will not have to be in the southern hemisphere of this planet to be marginalized; it just helps. While workers in Bangkok are making payments on new hover vehicles, former workers in Des Moines will be dodging either militia or hoodlum bullets because they were left behind and outside of The Fence.

This is not meant to be a Jeremiad. I want to believe in a more positive vision of the future of our societies and our monolithic economy. But I see scant signs of encouragement.

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