Yabby,
The purchasing price of the sugar mills and refineries was miniscule compared to the amount of money spent over the years on developing the farms, developing the sugar mills, and developing the irrigation projects and ports. The multinational company then steps in, and reaps the profits from all the money previously spent.

For free trade -> read multinationals.

579, Jorge,
Labor costs are not that great and over emphasised. They represent about 20 to 25% of total costs of production. Reducing everyone’s pay by 50% would only reduce total costs of production by about 10 to 12%.

Microsoft actually went to India, not because of low labor costs, but because there were more available programmers, and a less feminist and less hopeless education system. In other words, more skilled workers, and not necessarily less wage costs.

Yabby,

China has been growing steadily at a consistent pace of around ten percent annually - and, consequently, is diabolically polluted. (70 percent of their river systems can no longer sustain fish life).
Do you believe it is possible for that country to continue on the same tack without the reality of such a degraded environment impacting the well-being and productivity of the lower orders who are the ones that provide the manpower for the manufacturing of the West's trinkets?

Poirot, I don't think that the Chinese will continue polluting as
they have been. They are in fact clamping down on many industries
and changing their ways. The thing is, now they are rich enough
to feed their people, unlike 30 years ago. They are also rich
enough to do something about pollution.

I remind you that the West went through a similar period. Today
the air in places like London and much of Western Europe, the US
etc, is much better then it was 100 years ago. London used to
be covered in coal dust, no more.

Vanna, the farms, the ports, the irrigation systems have not been
sold, the way I understand it. Just some very old sugar mills.

CSR did ok out of sugar when they had a bit of a monopoly. No more.
Today anyone can build a new state of the art sugar mill and buy
from farmers. They are not compelled to sell to one mill.

This piece makes much more sense (thankfully) than Holmes' screed on Marx vs. Hegel (and Marx admired David Ricardo in many ways actually, for that matter); but the solution proffered, again, doesn't grasp the essence of the matter: here (the likes of 'comparative advantage' and the other joys of "free trade" aside), simple national protectionism -- however intelligently and diligently adhered-to -- will not long be able to stand up to the predations of international capital in its advanced state of senile decay (which we term "imperialism"). Local production, et al., should indeed re-establish its pride of place in the schema of human society, in general. Where it makes most sense. However to fixate on this particular petit-bourgeois pipedream as the required strategic solution to the present problems of humanity, is to ignore the necessity -- and desirability -- of INDEED rationalizing social production on a world scale: except this time on a *socialist* and democratic basis.

And since the ideologs here will obviously violently disagree on that essential point -- I'll simply stop here. No point wasting my time further with a partisan and unreceptive audience, without cogent feedback first.

Yabby,
The "very old sugar mills" that were bought were some of the most advanced sugar mills in the world, and Australia produced some of the best quality raw sugar in the world (normally in competition with South Africa to produce the world's best quality raw sugar).

The concept that we need foregin multinationals to improve quality and bring in technology is not necessarily the case. When the Belguim company took over Bundaberg sugar (and subsequently Bundaberg Rum) it brought no new or improved technology into the country. In fact it probably took technology out.

After the sale to a multinational, the sugar farmers and mill workers are now left as workforce fodder for that multinational, with probably much less say in their future than they ever had in the past.

Yabby,

This report is just out, although it's based on data from 2007.
It seems China's ecological footprint is ballooning instead of being reined in - mainly due to the new affluence.

http://www.brecorder.com/news/latest/15772:carbon-emissions-swell-china-s-ecological-footprint-report.html?limitstart=0