Mail Call

More Globalization, Anyone?

Gordon brown dismisses protests against capitalist globalization as "an angry resistance to change--old-style Luddism, in other words" ("We Need to Be More Fair," Sept. 18). Your readers may be interested to know that the original Luddites were weavers in early-19th-century England who opposed, unsuccessfully, the introduction of new technology that, in the social conditions of the time, deprived them of their livelihood and threw their families into poverty. The propertied classes who put down the Luddites were themselves resistant to social and political changes, such as the extension of the vote to working people, the formation of unions and the reduction of working hours. Today's workers have good reason to be anxious about how capital moves around the world in search of low-paid, nonunion workers without effective legal rights. Brown's globalization manifesto says nothing about the need for effective laws to protect workers from overwork and hazard-ous conditions, and for free, independent unions in all countries.

Richard Abernethy

Kidlington, England

Gordon Brown's article might sound very convincing to those who can rely on a settled life. But it is very far from people's needs in the former communist countries. What has political freedom brought to Poles and Hungarians? Insecurity, poverty and dwindling chances--even for the young and well educated. At home they are confronted with unemployment, wage dumping and an ever-rising cost of living. If they try their chances in a "vibrant civil society" like Britain, even the highly qualified have to take unskilled menial jobs that allow them to survive at the bottom of society without any chance of finding decent work and housing. Thousands of young people in Hungary and Poland are lured by shady employment agents into coming to Britain, only to find themselves dependent as illegal workers with no opportunity to alter their situations. It seems we are on our way to modern slavery. We have to be more fair, or rather, Europe's politicians must look at people's basic needs and give them fair chances.

Helga Leszko