oops. completely forgot to write yesterday until I was already going to sleep, and didn't at that point feel inspired to perform a last-minute save.

I had another conversation yesterday (with my mom this time) about the possibility that usa civilization may be starting on the decline, specifically re: sending so many jobs overseas, and what then will be left for americans to do? Will we become a nation of the rich people who run the world-dominating corporations and the government, and the rest of us who make goods and do services for them? Whither the middle class?

and the thing is, it is really hard to think of any way to make it happen differently, because it's so big, so many people acting in individual self-interest, it's like a force of nature.

if it were more clear that this job migration would result in everybody in the world achieving a more equitable average standard of living, i wouldn't have a problem with that. it might be like a variation on what happened in the industrial revolution on a vaster scale, seems to me. which took a while to shake out, through a period of social and economic chaos and lots of unfair practices, but after people began to get used to how things were newly working (need for unions, establishing fair labor laws), resulted in higher standards of living in the affected countries.

i am curious what will happen, more than anything else.

copyright 2003 carrie lynn king.