CUBA, SI O NO

This new development with Cuba has led me to consider some thoughts about moral thinking.  Those who are opposing the establishment of diplomatic relations with the island nation cite the human rights abuses the Castro government has been guilty of for so many years.  These have included, according to our government, the killing of dissidents, the intolerance of dissent, the expropriation of private property, the jailing of those who have acted against the regime, and the list goes on.  Whether the extent of these abuses is as draconian as those opposing the Castro government would have us believe is open for debate.  I am sure that a great deal of it is true.  The opponents of recognizing the Cuban government couch their opposition in moral terms – good enough. 

Those who have argued in favor of reestablishing relations seem to base their position on several factors, not the least being that relations were suspended back in January, 1961, fifty-four years ago.  A lot has happened in those years.  We have established relations with other “sinful” regimes; China and Vietnam come to mind.  And yet the policy toward Cuba has remained and has included a strict embargo against trading with that communist nation.  The goal, ostensibly, has been to cause enough pain and weakness in Cuba so that the Castro brothers would be forced to change their policies or be overthrown.  It has not worked.  Even the opponents of the new policy argue that that regime is as oppressive as ever.  So the Obama administration says:  let’s try a new way; let’s establish relations; trade with them and try to influence them into making the desired changes.  That’s their argument.  So I ask:  is it immoral to deal with such a regime?  For conservatives, this is quite a difficult question.

Earlier in this blog, I reviewed the difference between thinking about moral questions from a categorical approach versus a utilitarian approach.  To quickly review that difference:  categorical approaches see moral positions as fairly uncompromising.  Acts are either moral or immoral by the mere fact that they abide by a moral value or they transgress a moral value.  In order to determine the morality of a value, a question is asked of it:  what would happen if everyone behaved in accordance with the value; could a society sustain such behavior?  For example, what if you valued lying?  If everyone lied, there would be no trust and a society would not be sustainable.  Therefore, lying is immoral and any value that supported it would be immoral.  On the other hand, truth telling, as a value or a behavior, does not threaten a society and, therefore, is moral.  Once this type of review is made of any value and its resulting behavior, one can determine which values and behaviors are moral.

Utilitarian reasoning is quite different.  With this approach, the question is one in which a person calculates how many people find a behavior and its corresponding value useful.  That is, does the behavior accrue some result which a person wants?  A moral choice is one that provides more usefulness than what’s otherwise available.  For example, if choice X satisfies 51% of the population and choice Y satisfies 49%, then choice X is the moral choice.  Each person is free to determine what constitutes usefulness or satisfaction for him or herself.  As can be seen, this approach is significantly different from the categorical approach.

Now let’s apply this to Cuba.  I believe the Cuban situation provides us with an interesting dilemma.  Categorically, a believer in democratic values would tend to see any relations with a dictatorial regime as immoral.  The policies of the Castro government have been immoral by the standards democrats hold.  Now, of course, this becomes a bit complex; one needs to justify democratic values, but that’s not my aim in this posting.  Let us just accept the morality of democratic values.  Conservatives, those who might oppose opening relations with Cuba, might take the posture, and many do, that this change in US policy is immoral.  But a central problem with categorical thinking is its tendency to not compromise.  There are times, though, when moral values come into conflict.  While conservatives might hold uncompromising democratic values, they also might very well value profits.  After all, profits provide the necessary motivation for us to engage in entrepreneurial activities.  Without those activities, democratic societies cannot function, since they count on individuals to freely decide to engage in economic activities.  By doing so, they create the goods and services people need and want and also the employment that provides the wages used to buy those goods and services.  The only other option is to abandon democratic values and structures and force people to engage in economic activity – the very type of policy many conservatives accuse the Castro government of enforcing.

With opening relations with China and Vietnam, we opened markets.  Conservatives of the more libertarian persuasion might see such actions as providing more usefulness than a categorical posture that would disallow such relations.  With more markets, business activity increases and more people will benefit and that goes for people in all of the countries involved.  Conservatives who rely on a more utilitarian moral view will tend to favor opening relations and would probably extend such reasoning to Cuban relations.  As I said above, this turn in Cuban relations provide us with an interesting dilemma for many, but especially for conservatives.

YOU WANT TO MEET MY BOSS?

Congress is currently considering foreign trade rules.  The President is asking for authority to extend free trade relations with a broader array of nations, particularly with those of the Far East.  I will not pretend to understand the ins and outs of such legislation; I dare say most Americans don’t either.  But what Americans do understand are the results of past deals such as NAFTA.  Thanks to a columnist in the Indianapolis area, Esther Cepeda,[1] I can report some of the most current consequences of that legislation in that area of the country.

When I think of Indiana, I think of corn, not a bad thing.  I also think of friends and in-laws.  But what I should also think of is a former industrial area, especially related to the car industry.  As a matter of fact, my wife’s dad was a retiree of General Motors.  While alive, he was proud of that fact.  He oversaw the development of technical manuals and presentations.  But the Indiana and Mid-West he knew is very different today and the process by which those changes took place is still going on in large measure due to trade agreements such as those being considered in Congress.

Cepeda reports the following:

·        Goodyear, in Akron, Ohio, is building a $550 million manufacturing plant in Mexico.  With that move, the result is fewer jobs in Ohio and more of them south of the border.  There, workers will be paid “a pittance;” that is, on average, $200 a month.

·        Mondelez International, producers of snacks (chips, cookies, and the like) will lay off half its workers from its Chicago production plant, taking advantage of the $46 million cost difference between Chicago and Mexico.

·        Ford Motor Company is planning to move its small car production to Mexico in the near future (2018), again resulting in significant job losses in the US.

She also points out that this type of moves is beyond blaming unions, as differentials outstrip reasonable cost savings and cross over to what observers might call oppressive.  Her point is that the benefits to Mexican workers, in our examples, provide almost subsistence wages to Mexican workers.  Let me quote her about how typical defenders term such developments:

During a visit this past June to Juarez, Mexico, I saw firsthand the marvel of these mega-manufacturing facilities, known as maquiladoras as a lifeline to workers.  They said they offer not only steady work at competitive wages but also health insurance (including onsite medical care), on-site K-12 education, professional development, bonuses and transportation to and from work. …

[Despite this] [f]or many in Juarez, the cost of living far exceeds their pay.[2]

She then quotes a policy researcher who points out that wage gaps have not closed between Mexican workers and those of the US.  He says that Mexicans are making starvation wages and that such treatment of those workers reflects what he terms class attitudes – that lower class people deserve no better.  This is far from the image the US wants to project in foreign lands.

Two postings ago, I wrote of “minimum dignity.”  Such reported moves by American business interests negate any image our nation might want to broadcast to our workers and the workers of the world:  that we, as a people, holding cultural beliefs and a policy bias, have a concern for minimum dignity.  The political, economic, and cultural elites of our federalist union have long demonstrated they have little concern for such dignity.  But we the people, maybe because of our innate understanding that our own long term interests are affected, or maybe because we feel a federalist partnership with our fellow citizens, have pushed and passed legislation that at least addresses the issue such as is the case with minimum wage laws.  We seem to be in the afterglow of the Reagan, neoliberal, libertarian era in which the strength of the natural rights bias for individualism seems to have dominated our public policy choices, but is beginning to be challenged – see the Bernie Sanders phenomenon.  But, there is still quite a bit of strength in that view which dictates such moves as reported above, yet another reason for our schools to change their curricular choices, especially when it comes to social studies and civics.

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[1] Cepeda, E.  (2015).  Factory moves hurt both U. S., Mexico.  The Indianapolis Star, August 10, p. 13A.

[2] Ibid.  Italics added.