The Invisible Recovery

Henwood: People treat computers and other gadgetry as if they were directly productive in themselves. Just because computers are getting faster and faster, this is supposed to provide some great economic or social payoff. And it does to some extent. But if you think more seriously about that--McKinsey is a consulting firm with an in-house think tank that did an 800-page study of several industries to look at what the productivity revolution of the '90s meant. The star of the study turned out to be Wal-Mart.

And yes, they are very aggressive about using technology, but what that technology enables them to do is create an enormous structure of exploitation, from grossly underpaid and sexually-discriminated-against workers at their retail stores all the way to supplier plants in China where they pit one factory against another to see who can supply Wal-Mart for less. It's a system of relentless exploitation and cheapening of labor, and technology is one means that makes that possible. But so is violation of labor law and old-fashioned cheating and squeezing. The technology makes it sound sexy and new, but it's really in a lot of ways just the 19th century revisited.

Jonathan Stavole

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• Doug Henwood
• Wall Street
• Noam Chomsky
• U.S. National Economy
• National Economy

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CP:We've been talking about a number of discouraging signs. Are there any encouraging signs you can see of brewing political resistance?

Henwood: There are these global movements, the anti-globalization movement, the global justice movement, that are deeply involved in economic issues. And they're really developing global connections and a global way of thinking. One thing that these technological miracles of our time have made possible is instant communication with people around the world. While that enables Wal-Mart to engineer its system of exploitation, it also enables a countermovement to organize itself across borders. It at least offers the possibility of true international labor solidarity, which we've never seen before.

The development of these movements and their novel approach to organization is a very inspiring sign. I don't know where it's going to go or whether it'll be able to resist the endless war on terror and the economic troubles. But it's encouraging to see the antiwar movement of earlier this year that developed in large part out of these movements.