War was raging half a world away when this killer, incubated in China, made its way onto the world stage. It first appeared in early spring, and was noted not so much for its seriousness as it was for its highly infectious nature. Many just called it the three-day fever, but it spread like wildfire. Eight million people in one nation alone were infected in a single month. Then, as soon as it had appeared, it vanished without a trace.
But it was a killer like the world had never seen, and it came roaring back in the fall of 1918 to claim more lives then any epidemic in recorded history. It claimed more lives then all the battles of World War I and more died from it than all the lives lost to the Black Death (Bubonic Plague). This killer was what we call the flu, influenza, …a virus.
By the time the 1918 flu had run its course 25% of all Americans had contracted it, and 650,000 had died. Worldwide an estimated 70 million died, the majority of those in the 15-34 year age group. Clearly the movement of men during World War I had helped to spread the virus worldwide, and our returning doughboys had inadvertently brought the killer home.
Today the incubator of China’s Guangdong province has brought forth a new virus, a variant of what is believed to be a corona virus, a relative to the common cold. World health officials call it SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). How it spreads, how people pass on the infection, is still unknown. Speculation includes an airborne virus spread by coughing, or being spread by touching infected objects, maybe sewage and water systems, and now even the lowly cockroach is considered a source. In any case says Dr. W. Michael Scheld, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) “it can be highly contagious. Its rapid spread around the world ‘is alarming to a lot of people.’”(Business Week “One Scary Bug”)
Other health officials calmly note that the outbreak of still unknown origin seems to have diminished, this even in the face of still rising deaths and more cases of those reported ill. These same health officials also note the “low” mortality rate of SARS of around 4-5% as positive, forgetting their history and the even lower mortality rate of 2.5% for the 1918 flu epidemic that killed 70 million worldwide.
The greatest worry so far for America’s elites? Well they are beginning to worry that maybe China was not the best basket in which to place all of America’s manufacturing eggs. Serious disruption could occur to factory orders if people are ill or plants are closed to stop the spread of SARS.
Globalization’s chickens are coming home to roost.
China withheld information about SARS for many months, helping to spread the infection to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada. Yes, America’s strategic partner and Corporate America’s production center has proven itself to be unreliable. And not just unreliable as a civilized nation, but unreliable as the manufacturing base for Corporate America’s global dreams of cheap labor and soaring stock valuations.
Corporate America’s mantra of exporting jobs and importing workers begins to show some serious problems with the assumptions that were made.
First assumption, that cheap labor is an untapped reliable resource in third world nations just waiting for Corporate America to exploit. A nation’s cheap labor is cheap for a very good reason. All of the societal constructs, all the heavy lifting that has been done by the United States and other western nations to build a free and healthy society, are absent in the cheap labor nations. Hence third world nations are susceptible to a multitude of risk that Western nation’s are not.
Second assumption, all of the risk associated with third world nations can be ameliorated with healthy doses of American capital investment. While infrastructure may be absent and can be bought, how do you buy protection from wars and pestilence? (Well through liberal uses of American tax dollars and the American military, but that is another story)
Third assumption, that national borders no longer matter. As this nation receives a flood of illegal and legal immigrants (projections call for 170 million more by 2050), and as this nation’s elected officials and their bureaucratic worker bees ignore their collective responsibilities, the problems of the world will spread unchecked across America.
Final assumption, Corporate America is infallible. Half of Corporate America is in Washington DC asking for economic pump priming that comes from deficit spending, and the other half is begging for taxpayer funded bailouts. Of course even with their hands held out, CEO’s make millions and seek millions more in bonuses. In the meantime a growing number of American taxpayers are finding themselves unemployed or underemployed, and tax revenues are shrinking.
SARS is the final mockery of all of globalization’s assumptions. SARS is a brutal killer for which there is no smart bomb technology. SARS will not go away and may already be more widespread then we know. SARS demands a steely-eyed resolve to stop its spreading danger, but all we have is Tommy Thompson.
Corporate America has wagered a bet on globalization, and the White House and Congress have backed that bet against the better wishes of We the People. If we stick to that bet SARS will make us all losers.