LA Times: Promise of globalization fades

[marmar]

In Levi factory town in Hungary, promise of globalization fades
Hungarians wait to change money in Budapest, the capital. The currency has plunged against the euro and the nation is in danger of defaulting on its loans as globalization overruns its fiscal structure.

By Jeffrey Fleishman
March 29, 2009


Reporting from Kiskunhalas, Hungary -- Nearly everyone old enough remembers that day when Levi Strauss & Co., whose jeans evoked the rebellious allure of the West for millions of youths trapped in the Soviet bloc, opened its doors at the edge of town and began hiring box men and seamstresses.

It was 1988. The Berlin Wall was months away from tumbling down. And there was Laszlo Varnai, a worker at a state-owned cooperative farm, watching with delight as spools of thread and crates of indigo blue were hauled into a factory beyond a row of trees.

"It was a grand miracle of the times," said Varnai, recalling how road signs went up pointing traffic to the plant. "They brought a production mentality and a way of working that was alien to the socialist system. It changed us."

The town grew. Varnai became mayor. But the fable-like quality has vanished. The Levi factory is closing.

The company's troubled balance sheet is another creak in the global economy, but Kiskunhalas, named for a clan that centuries ago sharpened swords on this furrowed land, is bitter that its fate is woven into market whims. Nearly 550 townspeople, many of whom ride bikes to work, are expected to lose their jobs in June.

"It's the suddenness that's unacceptable," said Varnai, sitting in the town hall with a big hole in his budget and a lot of worry outside his door. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hungary-levis29-2009mar29,0,3266649.story

[DJ13]

1. The Times used the wrong title

It should have been:
"The THREAT from globalization fades"

[UndertheOcean]

2. The Hungarians don't deserve a decent life anyway .... they should be happy being poor.

[tama]

4. Real wealth

is absence of want and scarcity. What capitalist greed hypnotism creates best is want and scarcity.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. At least they're not SOCIALISTS any more

They believe in the wonder of Manufacturing American Products, just like we do here at home.

Remember, corporatism is a value in and of itself that people should be WILLING to starve and die for, just like nationalism was in the past.

Personal freedom, self-determination and all that rot comes secondary to economic liberty, as Fareed Zakaria argued in a book recently.

The argument that we brought a "free market" to Hungary etc. is questionable... what we brought was intensely regulated corporatism, a finely tuned system of development, zoning, licensing, permitting, and bookkeeping irregularities that brooks no error and no room for differences or irregularities. It's an exported system every bit as much as the British Imperial system or the Roman garrison towns. Like any forcibly imposed system, it has very little to do with freedom, economic or otherwise.