Stacking up Sandbags on Labor Day
Bob Wickizer
Ecclesiasticus 38:27-32
In the earliest days of this country, some of the original thirteen colonies were referred to as the ''commonwealth'' of Massachusetts or Virginia and so forth. Long before the colonies even formed though, the King of England granted a corporate charter to a group of investors called ''The Hudson Bay Company.'' Their objective was to take animal furs and other resources from North America and ship them to Europe for sale. In the charter of that first corporation on these shores, the King specifically sets forth the reason for their incorporation to ''promote the common wealth.'' That corporate charter recognized the shareholders' ''rights'' to earn a profit, but it is remarkable in its insistence that a corporation should go beyond the interests of the owners and do something to support the people living around it, that is, the ''common wealth.''
Fast forward to High Point, North Carolina. After graduating from seminary we moved to High Point where I served as the assistant rector for three years. For over a century, High Point had a proud manufacturing history as the furniture manufacturing capital of the world. By the time my family arrived in 1998, international trade agreements had gutted the town. The Rolls Royce dealership was two blocks down the street from the church. Two blocks in the other direction you entered the ghetto.
I won't go into the details of why Germany did so much better with international trade liberalization than the United States did, but the net result of American style global trade was to take towns running at full employment and throw the working class population out of work. People who had been making $18 to $30 an hour in the furniture industry as skilled craftsmen (and women), and some of them were third generation workers, were suddenly confronted with competing for a handful of minimum wage jobs at fast food stores or dive into the underbelly of sev ...
Bob Wickizer
Ecclesiasticus 38:27-32
In the earliest days of this country, some of the original thirteen colonies were referred to as the ''commonwealth'' of Massachusetts or Virginia and so forth. Long before the colonies even formed though, the King of England granted a corporate charter to a group of investors called ''The Hudson Bay Company.'' Their objective was to take animal furs and other resources from North America and ship them to Europe for sale. In the charter of that first corporation on these shores, the King specifically sets forth the reason for their incorporation to ''promote the common wealth.'' That corporate charter recognized the shareholders' ''rights'' to earn a profit, but it is remarkable in its insistence that a corporation should go beyond the interests of the owners and do something to support the people living around it, that is, the ''common wealth.''
Fast forward to High Point, North Carolina. After graduating from seminary we moved to High Point where I served as the assistant rector for three years. For over a century, High Point had a proud manufacturing history as the furniture manufacturing capital of the world. By the time my family arrived in 1998, international trade agreements had gutted the town. The Rolls Royce dealership was two blocks down the street from the church. Two blocks in the other direction you entered the ghetto.
I won't go into the details of why Germany did so much better with international trade liberalization than the United States did, but the net result of American style global trade was to take towns running at full employment and throw the working class population out of work. People who had been making $18 to $30 an hour in the furniture industry as skilled craftsmen (and women), and some of them were third generation workers, were suddenly confronted with competing for a handful of minimum wage jobs at fast food stores or dive into the underbelly of sev ...
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