To start this week's blogpost, let's go back to my "Aliens"(1986) reference. Considering that most of you looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned the film, I thought I would provide a link to the trailer.
It's great. Sigourney Weaver as the heroine, caught between a vicious alien species and corporate lackeys only interested in harnessing and weaponizing this new organism. Bill Paxton's role as the paranoid Colonial Marine is also memorable. But I digress....
As I mentioned in class, the premise of the film is that "The Company" establishes a mining colony on a distant planet with the insidious goals of exposing their colonist-employees to a new, unknown organism. Once the Company loses contact with its colony, it requests help from the Colonial Marine Corps, with Weaver's character as a reluctant adviser (she had previous experiences with these creatures in the prequel). The Marines go in and hilarity ensues.....turns out the Company is just trying to obtain an alien for their own research and development purposes at the expense of hundreds of lives. Below is a quote that might be a good jumping off place for our readings this week:
Burke (corporate lackey): [Discussing the alien organisms] Look, those two specimens are worth millions to the bio-weapons division. Now, if you're smart, we can both come out of it as heroes and we'll be set up for life.
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver's character): You're crazy Burke, you know that? You really think that you can get a dangerous organism like that past ICC quarantine?
Burke: How can they impound it if they don't know about it?
Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them [screwing] each other over for a [damn] percentage.
Now yes, "Aliens" might be a stretch for our purposes (and yes, don't worry, "Aliens" will not be on the exam), but the idea of the "Company" and its cold, calculating logic that Ripley refers to does relate to the problems of corporate colonialism over the natural world. With the last two week's of readings in mind, do American corporate interests utilize "percentage" logic to rationalize their operations or do they try to conceive of their operations in higher, moral terms? Of course, please share any other thoughts or questions you might have. Thanks everyone.
While American corporations might have thought that their operations were moral, they were definitely using "percentage" logic to rationalize the way that their operations worked. For example, even though the United Fruit Company knew about the dangers of monoculture farming, they still forged ahead with huge one-species banana plantations that took away land from many indigenous populations. However, they viewed this usage of resources as moral, as shown in "Our Neglected Tropical Neighbors." They spun the issue in a way that made it look like anti-imperialist Americans were being selfish by not trying to take advantage of Latin American resources. It even tries to show how hard it is to work in a corporation, as there are so many risks that exist in the tropics. However, they are definitely thinking about money the entire time, as the piece outlines exactly how many dividends the stockholders receive year after year. While the money is spent in the "higher" notion of growing more bananas for the American people, it neglects to mention what the banana industry is doing to the indigenous populations.
ReplyDeleteThis also occurs in the rubber industry. The high taxes of the Dutch and the Brazilians are viewed as "unmoral". However, this makes one wonder if that is only because the Americans are not directly benefiting from it. They also think that they are running their corporations in a way that is beneficial for the workers. However, the workers are basically indebted to the white Europeans, and don't really have a choice in how much they get paid or what they can even do with the little money they get. The corporations say that they are taking these starving people and giving them a place to work, but, in reality, they are just using them so they don't have to do the dirty work themselves. The fact that they have separate hospitals for Europeans, and the managers have access to clubs to relax in means that the money is not being distributed equally.
Therefore, the corporations try to show off a moral front, while they are actually only worried about how much money they can make and how much they are able to exploit their "free labor."
These last two weeks of readings present a valid argument describing american corporate interests and their utilization of percentage logic. Adams' piece (aptly titled "The Conquest of the Tropics") describes this percentage mentality. Throughout the entire piece, Adams rationalizes the conquest of the tropics from an economic standpoint describing the supply-demand chain of the banana crop. He analyzes the percentage change of land owned by the British, Dutch, and Americans, as well as the percentage of profit made through the sale of bananas. Ironically, the TSR of bananas actually drops for a while, creating a negative profit margin, and thus, hindering the percentage logic. However, Adams strongly argues for more American intervention in Guatemala and Honduras arguing the untapped potential in both areas, Honduras being the much more difficult challenge.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly more than one way of rationalizing corporate America abroad. The percentage mentality is present in Hotchkiss' article detailing American Rubber Company's operations in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. This piece is rationalizes corporate colonialism both through economic and morality reasoning. Economically, Hotchkiss advocates for British price control due to the shortage in rubber trees. However, Hotchkiss further implies that corporate colonialism will in turn help the colonies as well writing "money will automatically flow to every tropical country that is economically able to compete and the world will have all the rubber that it needs". He rationalizes that corporate colonialism improves the healthcare of the locals--although they bring in most of their own free labor--through government hospitals and that working as indentured workers provides them with valuable skills for future work. He argues that coolies are better off in the tropics under their control than in their own homeland using the statistic that "about 85 percent of the men and 60 percent of the women exercise the privilege of engaging [. . .] the coolie is always better off physically at the end of his contract because of the personal care that he receives".
In the end, percentage logic and morality play important roles in rationalizing corporate colonialism. Businesses need to rationalize that their work overseas is profitable, while a good public image dictates that morality and charity should be important parts of a business' mission and practices. Whether these rationalizations are actually based on solid evidentiary support is a completely different story.
I'd like to start by saying I love the Aliens references. But:
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think that the percentage logic is used in United States to rationalize their operations. I think there are hints of it throughout how the United States approaches its relations with countries and how it obtains certain resources, but I don't think that percentage is a focus. When the United States is colonizing and collecting resources, such as rubber, the main focus is maximizing the amount per cost. There also needs to be stability and equity of laws that govern "corporate colonialism" so the United States is maximizing profit. Of course operations will nto always be conducted normally, and there is an effort to keep immorality behind closed doors. The conquest of rubber was done in a mechanized fashion, much like the operations of the British and the Dutch. The reading stressed the need for professionals in this operation. A corporate colonialism strategy needs professionals much like a public health project in a new colony because there needs to be an extremely high level of knowledge in order to carry out the operation and solve any problems effectively along the way. Because rubber cannot be grown in the United States, they relied on foreign rubbers. This dependence on foreign resources seems very similar to the dependence on foreign oil that the United States would see develop in the mid-20th century. It is possible that the United States is using solutions that they employed for the foreign rubber problem today. Transition from natural to mechanized production was difficult, but the United States still established an effective colonial rubber system that would meet their needs at the time
American motivations of corporate colonization are, on their face, justified by morality. As Frederick Adams declared in his book, The Conquest of the Tropics, the development of the United Fruit Company was “a story of the peaceful and honorable conquest of a portion of the American tropics, and one of which every citizen should be proud” (Adams 13). This statement seems to be coming from something close to truth. Adams, through his exceptionalist attitude probably really did believe that American presence in the tropics, setting up massive plantations and destroying the land’s natural ecology, was desired by all natives, not just those who invited them. However, if we look at what actually occurred during corporate colonization from our present and distant perspective — the unfair treatment of laborers, the destruction of massive areas of forest, the enabling of disease spread — it is hard to see the role of morality. Instead, what seems much more logical, is that the American conquest of exotic regions around the world had the ulterior drive of monetary gain. During this time in America the emerging middle class had extra money to spend, and a cultural desire emerged to display status by owning food and goods from around the world. Had their interests been different, say if they wanted to show their wealth by owning vast quantities of American harvested food and American tailored clothing, corporate colonization of the tropics may have not had such a strong force.
ReplyDeleteThe development of the American rubber industry further displays their concern over financial outcomes of conquest. As we discussed in class, when rubber was first being cultivated on a commercial scale, the British and the Dutch dominated the industry. This fact worried Americans immensely because they had very limited control over rubber prices. H. N. Whitford in his work The Crude Rubber Situation, discusses a response to this threat: “It is hoped that a way may be found, in some of these countries, to start a rubber plantation industry, either by investment of American capital or by way of inducing the local governments to encourage their own people to engage in rubber planting” (Whitford 150). It is quite apparent here that Americans are hardly concerned with how the development will help the communities in distant region. Whitford says in a rather straightforward manner that Americans want to develop rubber plantations so they can protect their capital.
I think it is very easy for one to see the “percentage Mentality” in the past weeks readings, but one article stood out to me among the rest, the Hotchkiss article. In the Hotchkiss article which talks about the American Rubber Company’s business with the Javanese and in Sumatra, it wasn’t so apparent as to whether the “Percentage Mentality” was being applied by the American Rubber Company in its dealing with the native workers and getting the most profit it could out of the rubber it was producing. But then a couple things caught my eye that surely exemplified the “Percentage Mentality”. First was the fact that Hotchkiss was making the American Rubber Company’s care and treatment for their imported Javanese workers as solely for the benefit of their workers with phrases like “at the cost of the company” and such, but then I started thinking about it and what the company was doing in terms of care for the workers was really for the benefit of the company. First, the workers are brought in and taken care of for about a month so they can rid them of any disease or illness, but in my opinion this is just as beneficial to the company as it is to the workers. The company wouldn’t want its workers too all succumb to an illness or disease like hookworm. This could be a big problem as a large portion of their workers could not perform their duties thus resulting in a large drop in profits. Next was the fact that they were making life “so much better for them” that 85% of workers wanted to stay. Again, this is good for the workers, but providing basic amenities like nutritious food and health care again keeps the workers satisfied (since they would not be able to come across this type of stuff elsewhere) and keeps them wanting to work for the company. This cuts cost down for the company as it does not need to constantly import workers and provide them with the 1 month care treatment. And finally the fact that the author mentions the company’s 85% success rate in keeping their workers satisfied is a very apparent “Percentage Mentality” as they feel that 85% is good enough, so why strive to do more for their workers if most of them are satisfied?
ReplyDeleteIn the end it is very apparent that the American Rubber Company is utilizing the “Percentage Mentality” just the results are almost the opposite of the movie “Alien”. Where in the movie, lives were being sacrificed in order to produce the capture of Aliens, the “Percentage Mentality” utilized in the American rubber company is that a decent percentage of their workers are more or less satisfied with the care they are provided (regardless of quality since they would be hard pressed to find it anywhere else) so why bother changing it. Also, the costs are effectively cut down and profits are bumped up when keeping the relative majority happy, so they really only continue to do so as to keep their profits up, not because they genuinely care about their workers.
Looking at “Operations of an American Rubber Company in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula”, Hotchkiss’s reasoning regarding the Stevenson Act as a regulation rather than a restriction puts the United States Rubber Company in a more positive light. He states how the previously cheap prices of rubber led to little planting of new trees, and as consumption and demand grows, the United States would face a shortage in a few years. While the planting of new trees associated with higher rubber prices is closely associated with preventing disaster for the company given a future shortage of trees, it is good to see that Hotchkiss has a better grasp on how to not exploit the land and its valuable resource. He is not looking for fast profit, as seems to be the case with the United Fruit Company’s exponential growth of plantations and monocrop agriculture. By taking the future of the crop and “an exhaustive study of the country” into consideration, Hotchkiss’s methods shy away from inadequate rationalizations found in “The Conquest of the Tropics”. This is not to say that he is looking at the situation from a moral standpoint, but rather a more sustainable approach that protects both the company and American consumer interests. Similarly, when acquiring land in Sumatra, the Company faces higher prices as land becomes scarcer. This sets the U.S. Rubber Company farther apart from fruit companies in Central America because the environment they’re dealing with does not allow them to simply pick up and move to a new location once the soil has been depleted. This also explains why Hotchkiss must take a more systematic approach towards planting, as this abuse of the land is not necessarily an option. While Hotchkiss may not be making decisions from a moral standpoint himself, the differences in location and the situation seem to make more of the decisions for him.
ReplyDeleteThe last two week's readings show that American commercial interests in the American tropics and Asia were primarily concerned with production, data and profitability, including tons of rubber or other products produced, availability of cheap labor, number of acres cultivated, controls to stabilize falling prices when production exceeded consumption. Nonetheless, most of the writers also justified American exploitation of the natural resources of other lands with rhetoric regarding the white man's gift to the undeveloped world.
ReplyDeleteWhitford, who wrote for the US Department of Commerce, is all about business, but Hotchkiss, of the US Rubber Company, while also concerned with explaining how rubber plantations should be organized and run, felt obliged to justify how the company did business. For example, he explains at some length how the company's use of indentured laborers, so called "coolies," provided a better life for the local population In his rendition, coolies arrived at plantations emaciated and left in much better shape when their three year stint was over. This is due, according to Hotchkiss, to the much better sanitary conditions on the white-owned plantations than in the laborers' own homes. Hotchkiss also praises the company for providing hospitals, not only for Europeans but also for local "Asiatics."
In needing to point to a higher mission behind the commercial exploitation of the Asian environment, Hotchkiss' piece resembles Adams' description of United Fruit's exploitation of the tropics for banana production. While clearly interested in statistics relating to banana production, consumption and business, Adams also stated that "The great nations of history are those which encouraged their citizens to go out into the world and develop it commercially and industrially." Thus exploitation of the natural beauty of the tropics was the white man's "obvious and patriotic duty," not just profitable commerce. The use of technology to conquer nature was the ultimate achievement of the "age of invention" in which "war was declared on useless labor, and the peace genius of the nation set itself to the problem of perfecting the Machine." The Machine, in turn enabled United Fruit to establish huge plantations across unspoiled land. Adams also praises United Fruit's hospitals, wages, supervision of workers and its "civilizing influence" on native populations. United Fruit was not just a large company, but the "economic salvation" of the countries where local people were too ignorant to take advantage of their own resources. According the Adams, United Fruit wouldn't just make money, it would "breed in Guatemala and in all of Central America, strong, self-reliance and progressive races of people, and with those traits will come that sense of responsibility and real patriotism which ever serves as the foundation of orderly government and national advancement." Greed and profit clearly were not viewed as a sufficient rationale for American actions.
In the reports we read for this week, it didn't seem like the natives and "coolies" had much of a say for how the rubber and banana industries were going to work. It didn't seem like they were in the conversation at all, similar to how the "aliens" didn't have a say in how the "Company" acted. As with all power relationships, one end will most likely have more power than the other, and therefore will have a greater say in the decision to, say, invest in a rubber or banana plantation. If the US Rubber Co. had thought about the environmental and social impact they might have had in Java or Sumatra (deforestation, threats to biodiversity, isolating workers' lives to the plantation), they may have acted differently. But it says something that they chose not to consider the impact they might have on the natives and "aliens," but rather acted for their own financial benefit. Even in the article "Operations of an American Rubber Company in Sumatra and Malay Peninsula" where they intentionally describe the benefits that they provided for the workers (medical care, cheap groceries), they simultaneously build evidence to demean them, calling them simple and "ignorant" to make it seem that controlling their every aspect of life is absolutely beneficial to them, although not considering what their lives had been before the US Rubber Co. entered the picture. For example, they attribute one coolie rebellion to the worker being a "poor, ignorant coolie that didn't know any better"--practically sympathizing with his low intelligence. They don't consider why he might have rebelled--perhaps a poor work environment? Or perhaps he was sick of being treated as if he was unintelligent. In this article they also describe wishing they could wipe out the mosquito, but what impact might this have on the ecosystem of an environment which they don't know well enough? Additionally, as Rachel stated about the high taxes of the Dutch and the Brazilians as being viewed as "unmoral," it seems that the US was using a scale of morality to backup what was actually going to be beneficial to them, irregardless of what one might actually consider moral or immoral.
ReplyDeleteAnnie, I really enjoyed that you noted the positive perception of American involvement in the tropics at the time it began. When I was originally going to respond to Noah’s question, I could only think negatively of U.S. fruit businesses in Latin America and rubber businesses in Sumatra, which definitely reflects my modern-day bias. In reality, American businessmen in the early twentieth century did have some moral motives when entering into Latin America and Southeast Asia. In his evaluation of British and Dutch rubber companies, Hotchkiss claims that if (and when) American businesses enter Sumatra and the Malaysian Peninsulas, they should maintain a higher standard of living for workers. He asserts that American companies should develop rubber plantations, and provide good housing, amusement, entertainment, and good hospitals for the worlers. He clearly exhibited an awareness of the negative side effects of exploiting the tropics and demonstrated some sense of moral consciousness.
ReplyDeleteIt is not my belief that corporate businessmen go into the tropics with the intention of demoralizing the natives and exploiting the natural resources so drastically as to alter the environment permanently. That being said, I do believe that the constant demand for tropical produce commodities mixed with the extreme social and cultural disparities between American businessmen and Latin American or South East Asian areas allows for a gradual and systematic exploitation of these lands with little ethical concerns. Morality gets lost somewhere in the bureaucratic scheming for profits. Once business are wound up in the process of reaping incredible benefits from the abuse of the tropics, it becomes much harder to see any ethical dilemmas from any sort of objective standpoint.
While the ethically and morally questionable behavior and action that took place on the part of many American businessmen and venture-capitalists may not have been intentionally damaging, their role in both the environmental and social climates in all of the tropical places that they colonized and developed was devastating. In Adams' book, "The United Fruit Company and the Conquests of the Tropics," the titles of the chapters tell the whole story. The American viewpoint on the issue of corporate colonialism was that it was almost a responsibility to go into these tropical nations and make use of all of the untapped resources the the "ignorant" natives were not utilizing and taking advantage of. Chapter titles like "Our Neglected Neighbors" and "The Awakening of Guatemala" just reinforce American exceptionalism and perpetuate the idea that these tropical countries are in desperate need of American saviors. The most ironic part about this standpoint is that once American businessmen were involved in these tropical regions, they did the complete opposite of saving the native people and the native land. All of the development in these regions completely decimated the land because of monocrop agriculture. In addition, the American presence in these countries heightened racial and ethnic tensions especially because of competition for jobs which were usually delegated to imported laborers.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is certainly possible that American corporate colonialists did not have these intentions when they originally entered the tropical lands in both Central America for fruit and Southeast Asia for rubber, the damage that they did there was immeasurable. The only thing these businessmen gained in destroying the local economies and local lands was profit, which was clearly the only thing that they were interested in from the beginning. Like Jackie mentioned in her blog post, morality and fairness get lost in the shuffle of commerce and distribution of goods, and that is exactly what occurred in all of these tropical areas, in both the rubber and fruit industries.
The primary reason for the Americans creating these plantations is to benefit from the production. Americans in this time period love bananas and also have a high demand for rubber. The Americans feel the need to control these industries for their own consumption so that they can show their power over both nature and their own needs. In terms of the rubber company Whitford says, “It stands out as a stupendous example of a man’s control over nature”. He also discusses the fear of European power and control over the rubber industry. His main concern expressed here is that they may exploit our interests to make more money from their rubber plantations, and that one day we won’t be able to afford it. In that regard he is justifiying the practice of these plantations by saying it is for the good of the American people.
ReplyDeleteHotchkiss does a lot of justifying of the practice by saying that indigenous populations are actually lucky to have us there because we provide a sanitary, safe work environment. A few quotes from the text, As a matter of fact, the indentured labor is much better off on an estate than in their own unsanitary kampongs,” “The coolie is always better off physically at the end of his contract, because of the personal care that he receives from both employer and Government,” show this opinion that we are helping the laborer as opposed to the other way around. He also says, “As an estate grows older, it tends to become more healthy, for jungle clear-ing and malaria go hand in hand.” This shows that he think the Americans are helping the country, but they have not thought about the long-term consequences of land clearing.
I think overall everyone involved in both the banana and rubber plantations are aware of the fact that the main purpose is for American consumer interests and international power through controlling the trade. With the amount of justifying Hotchkiss feels the need to do, it almost seems like he has a guilty conscious. He clearly knows that it doesn’t come across as a project that seems very charitable for the indigenous population, so he tries to make it seem that way in his paper. I think he really does believe in what he says, but there is no denying that the primary interest is an interest of power and holding a part of this international trade.
Per Hannah (part I):
ReplyDeleteIn Adams’ “The Conquest of the Tropics,” I noticed a sense of moral obligation to the colonies. Of course, these feelings ultimately have more to do with the United States’ interests than the colonies’, but the sense of obligation is still there. Adams argues that the ignorant attitude Americans have towards the tropics has led to the underdevelopment and low success rate of their tropical colonies, especially compared to those of the European nations. I found it interesting that Adams seems to praise Europe and criticize American “exceptionalism”. For instance, he remarks: “We are so sure that the United States is the greatest country in the world that we are inclined at times to act as if it were the only country in the world” (3). I think it’s the first text we’ve read in this class so far that takes a negative view of this ideology, which permeated American imperialist thought during this century.
In effect, Adams argues that Americans should care about the tropics because the events that transpire there directly affect the U.S. At one point, he even says that the tropics will insure the “happiness” of American citizens, but only if the tropics are developed properly (115). However, I disagree with Adams’ statement that the United Fruit Company is “a story of the peaceful and honorable conquest of a portion of the American tropics, and one of which every citizen should be proud” (13). The deforestation of the tropics to make way for banana plantations, led to “dead” soil. Americans at the time knew of these consequences, so we simply cannot give the United Fruit Company a pass here. They also knew of the dangers of monocrop agriculture, as the “fusarium” root mold had devastating consequences in Panama, yet they made this same mistake again. This is not at all “honorable,” as Adams refers to it. However, the United Fruit Company cannot be blamed for everything, since the local regimes gave the U.S. unlimited power, which included proliferate tracts of land, and called in U.S. railroad developers on their own accord. Perhaps this is why Adams denotes it as “peaceful.” But it’s difficult for me to imagine that the conquering of any region would be completely placid. In fact, Adams does not mention the rigid hierarchal labor system, with had Jim Crow laws in place. If one didn’t have the background information that we were given in class, one may indeed view this conquest as cordial based on Adams’ article. He portrays the Americanization of the region as a positive attribute, when in fact it actually seeks to destroy their culture.
Per Hannah (part II):
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, while Adams focuses on a false sense of moral obligation to the tropical regions, the articles on the rubber industry are more apt to concentrate on “percentage” logic as justification for their operations. Whitford’s article on “The Crude Rubber Situation” discusses the small portion of rubber production Americans own (compared to Europe), in relation to the large role Americans play in its consumption. They are dependent on foreign rubber, which Whitford denotes as dangerous. In this way, Americans are similar to the tropical civilians, who are also dependent on the rubber plantations of foreign nations as well. The fear of a possible shortage of rubber in the United States’ near future is a threat Whitford notes, but one in which he foresees resolution if the consumption and price of rubber both go down. Similar to Whitford’s, Hotchkiss’ article about the rubber plantations in Sumatra and Malay also has a heavy, if not sole, focus on the economic aspects of the rubber industry. Unlike Whitford and Adams, Hotchkiss mentions the labor system and how the “coolies” are treated like “virtual slaves” (157). However, he also mentions that the local government protects the laborers, which is something we don’t see elsewhere in the tropical world where the U.S. has more governmental control. One must consider though, what is the extent to which this was actually true? One last question to consider is: why do some authors present this notion of a higher, moral obligation to the tropical world, and others focus solely on monetary concerns? Why do both of the articles on the rubber industry focus on the latter, and do you think all Americans involved in this particular industry held the same “percentage” logic reasoning?
After reading both the article on the United Fruit Company and both articles on the American Rubber Company, my initial belief that both of these American based companies were "percentage" based was changed. While it is true that the reading for United Fruit helped to solidify my belief that they were only concerned with the bottom line, that is the profits of their company, American Rubber seemed to care more. United Fruit would pick up and move their plantations whenever the soil ran dry of alluvia, and rarely gave a thought to lasting effects of their mass planting of trees. What struck me as interesting in the course of the "Operations of an American Rubber Company in
ReplyDeleteSumatra and the Malay Peninsula" was the amount of thought and preparation that the company put into their operations, as more than just a business venture. Before they set up a plantation, "There must be scientists,
engineers, practical planters" Furthermore, when discussing their labor supply in these tropical areas, American Rubber understands that a healthy working force is the best kind. They also invest "approximately $60
gold per capita" into their workers and know it is fiscally sound to get them to return. Finally, due to the long time it takes to see a return on rubber trees, the American Rubber Company had to be environmentally smart about their plantations and keep the soil in a somewhat reusable condition
The American Rubber Company and the United Fruit Company’s operations in Sumatra and Central America, respectively were examples of corporate colonialism – the union of capitalism and imperialism. Although there might be moralistic language used in rationalizing or justifying their exploitation of another country’s land and labor, they are capitalist ventures, concerned first with profit. American consumer demand is what drives the expansion of the UFC’s plantations in Central America.
ReplyDeleteRhetoric is important in allowing American companies to continue their exploitation of a foreign territory. Hotchkiss tries to argue that the American Rubber Company benefits its workers, “The indentured labor is much better off on an estate than in their own unsanitary kampongs. The dwellings provided for them are well arranged and clean; they have best of medical attendance and are assured of an ample supply of good and nourishing food.” (157) It is important to make it seem that Americans are benefiting the land they are exploiting. This sort of language fits right into the very American idea of progress and their civilizing influence.
In addition, the success of the rubber industry abroad becomes even more important as it becomes a question of national security. It is necessary, then, to secure rubber production however possible. If framing the operations of the American Rubber Company in moral terms helps the success of the industry, then that is what is to be done. What Hotchkiss’s piece shows above all is that it is pure self-interest driving the American companies.
It seems that American corporations were primarily concerned with “percentage,” but at the same time justified corporate colonialism with moral truth. In the United Fruit Company reading, for example, it is clear that the primary motive of American corporations was to utilize as much of the natural environment as possible for monetary gain. Frederick Adams uses a pioneer mentality to justify the utilization of the tropics for American profit. As Adams wrote in his Conquest of the Tropics, “The day has arrived when we have the choice of accepting and profiting by a legitimate opportunity, or of neglecting it and reaping thereby a harvest of misfortune and a loss of national prestige” (12). He additionally is very supportive of the United Fruit Company, and criticizes those who consider the American presence in the tropics to be exploitative, stating, “Central America needs an influx of more corporations that are able and willing to ‘exploit’ her natives by paying them eleven or more times the prevailing legal rates of wages, and whose productive operations will pour a flood of revenue into impoverished national treasuries” (203). From this quote, however, it is also evident that Adams considers the US monopoly over the Central American banana market to be beneficial to the inhabitants of these tropical regions. He envisions the United Fruit Company as a paradigm of the American pioneer mentality- through corporate colonialism, the United Fruit Company is developing previously undeveloped territory, extracting profit from the land, and helping the native peoples in the process.
ReplyDeleteHotchkiss similarly demonstrates a certain “percentage” mentality when discussing the rubber industry. For example, he was very much in favor of regulating the industry, and notes the importance of having engineers, micrologists, soil analysts, foresters, and genetic botanists to increase the yield of the plantation. He first states that the average yield of an acre throughout the East is probably less than 350 pounds, and then writes “it is theoretically possible to bring this up to over one thousand pounds an acre” (156). He thus seems greatly concerned with the amount of rubber that can be extracted from a small piece of property.
Yet at the same time, Hotchkiss seems to believe that this industry is beneficial for the “coolies,” the laborers imported from Java to work in Malaysia. He thoroughly defends the system of indentured labor, and works to dispel any notion of the labor as being exploited by arguing that overwhelming government regulation makes exploitation virtually impossible. In addition, he notes, “When coolies arrive in our Sumatra estates, they are usually emaciated… The first step, therefore, is to put them in a rest camp for approximately a month and treat them for hookworm and any other diseases they might have”(157). He believes that these foreign laborers, signed into an indentured contract, have better medical treatment and are more cared for than they would be as free laborers on their own island. He also notes that at the end of their contract the laborers have the option of re-engaging for a period of two years at increased wages, and that “85 percent of the men and 60 per cent of the women exercise the privilege of re-engaging” (158). This implies that the men and women laborers enjoy their work and are happy to continue in this indentured system. He believes that thanks to American corporation, these laborers are better cared for, more fairly paid, and happier in their work. Thus there seems to be a notion of a higher moral duty associated with rubber interests in Southeast Asia, although the desire for increased rubber production is the driving force behind the care and concern for the laborers.
All businesses are ultimately very concerned with the bottom-line figure because they obviously want to make a profit. This motivation becomes a disturbing one when obvious environmental effects are neglected. United Fruit had no problem in exercising monocrop farming and as a result diseases manifested themselves and lands were ruined. The Adams article makes it perfectly clear that the Americans will likely only plant bananas in Central America because that is where they will grow best. Also, we learned that it doesn’t hurt that these countries are removed from the Caribbean and thus black workers can be imported into a new environment (for apparent economic reasons, not moral ones), showing even more of a zealous concentration on calculations and money.
ReplyDeleteEven though the American Rubber Company noted the environmental impacts of the monocrop system, they still destroyed thousands of acres of forests and its wildlife while treating their “coolie” workers very poorly. In Hotchkiss’s article, he states that the “coolies” are not treated anything like slaves but he simultaneously states that “If [the workers] break their contract and abscond, their employer is protected in his agreement by their arrest and return to the estate.” This sounds very similar to the bounty hunter system that was employed in the American South for its slaves. Hotchkiss then goes on to discuss how the workers are far better off working for Americans than doing almost anything else. The attitude held by American businesses of how they are a blessing to these foreign countries due to the advancements and sanitations that they bring is an amusingly misguided one. There are benefits that the Americans bring, but do those economic benefits outweigh the intangible costs? On a side note, I thought the Adams’s article’s explanation for the abandonment of a great Mayan city as being caused by an immediate genetic link between the Mayans and the Japanese was comical. This link resulting in the Mayans returning to Japan was simply a ridiculous claim at which I couldn’t help but to chuckle.
With the last two week’s of readings and thinking if American corporate interests utilize “percentage” logic or moral terms, I feel there is a combination of the two. Reading the Adams article, in chapter 1, which is named “Our Neglected Neighbors” he stated that it is regrettable the people of the United States know and care little about Latin America because in “most of Latin America a feeling of resentment, suspicion, and unfriendliness towards the United States.” Right away Adams discussed that the United States should pay more attention to Latin America in moral terms. Then in the very next paragraph Adams said, “Some of us are so narrow minded and think that the U.S. is the greatest country that we don’t understand why we would invest a dollar outside the confines of our country.” This states that the U.S. should be more invested in Latin America because this is a very profitable place and should utilize “percentage” logic to become interested in these countries.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 11, Adams references an issue of the National Geographic Magazine of 1913 by W.F. Sands which represents the morality of the operations but also the profits the United Fruit Company will gain. Sands discussed the opening of the Quirigua ruins in Guatemala to the United Fruit Company, who cleared away the ruins to “leave behind their own legacy.” Beneath these historical ruins with soil ideal for planting, “a more inspiring spot can hardly be imagined.” With this operation, the United Fruit Company will benefit from it because “this will result in the creation of a tropical park distinct in its attractions form any in the world.”
Like Cosette, I was also taken aback by the shift in tone within Adam’s work. He initially seems to condemn the ignorance of many Americans about United States colonial possessions, but it soon becomes apparent that he largely is scolding them for their lack of interest in becoming more efficient consumers, not more ethical ones.
ReplyDeleteThe paternalistic attitudes adopted by many of the plantation owners in Southern and Central America are exemplified by a symbol of America itself, Henry Ford. The automobile capitalist actually attempted to start his own rubber plantation in the Amazon, called “Fordlandia.” Rather than simply hiring workers; however, he sought to “Americanize” those he encountered, forcing them to live in houses ill-designed for the heat, providing all meals, and even building schools for children to attend. The project was a complete failure, there were several strikes and most workers abandoned the project.
Ford’s desire to start his own plantation is an example of more than the condescending racial attitudes of the time, it also reflects a growing American desire to have a stable source of rubber.
Rather than looking at the logic of operations as a dichotomy between ‘percentage logic’ and ‘a higher moral purpose’ I would say the two are facets of the same logic, a logic which worships the higher moral purpose of a capitalism that let’s nothing lie unused. In the opening of Adams’ “The Conquest of the Tropics” he identifies great nations as those that immediately send out merchants and capitalists on the heels of their invading forces (pgs 3 and 4). ‘Greatness,’ to Adams, is possible only if a nation possesses an eagerness for business which drives it to immediately identify resources, take them, and waste no time in making use of them(—because it would be a sin not to harvest where you can).
ReplyDeleteAll the attributes of businessmen become virtues under this logic: they are pioneers, adventurous, enterprising, resourceful individuals possessing astounding ingenuity that strengthens the nation via cooperate expansion. Plantation owners are equally lauded as “…stupendous [exemplars] of man’s control over nature (Whitford 149).”They are, in short, the antithesis of the slothful character of the tropics. National pride in the virtues of corporate imperialism makes ‘percentage logic’ a moral value.
‘Percentage logic’ leads to the glorious end of a nation with all the necessities of modern life: a steady supply of rubber, coffee, cacao, and exotic fruit, so how could it be less than moral? Oh, and it’s a favor to the tropics too, after all it “encourages them” toward developing local industries (Whitford 150) so percentage logic not only raises the quality of life of the American nation, but those of the tropical laborers as well. [Never mind Hotchkiss’ description of the practice of corporate indenture of coolies and Javanese in the rubber industry of Sumatra (157) there’s probably a trickledown effect to the local economy.] The mission for a better bottom line takes becomes a higher moral purpose because it is through business that luxury, comfort, and thus greatness, is achieved.
The idea of cold, immoral, calculating corporations is a common notion in the 21st century. I believe the United Fruit Company and the American Rubber Company acted ruthlessly toward the environment. As it has been discussed, the American entrepreneurs knew of the dangers of monoculture, despite this knowledge, they used this method in the production of both latex and bananas. After the crops failed and the soil was ruined, the American businessman moved to the next area and deforested it and began monocrop agriculture again. The destruction and lack of concern for the environment does paint the American Rubber Company and the United Fruit Company as cold, immoral companies only interested in utilizing the resources for their bottom line profits.
ReplyDeleteThe degradation of the land and the laborers does not surprise me. More often than not, when a company goes abroad for economic reasons, cheap labor, plentiful resources, etc., the company exploits the environment and workers. This happened in both the Central American banana plantations and in the East Asian rubber plantations. The owners of the corporations exploited the laborers up to the point of the laborers getting hurt, sick, not wanting to work for them. The plantation owners keep the laborers in a mental and physical state hovering right above their breaking point; because once they “broke” the workers were no longer economically viable. This abuse of the worker is a common theme in corporations, capitalism, and plantations. Evident in the American South, with the cotton industry, the slave owners, the plantations and the treatment of the slaves, the United Fruit Company and the American Rubber Company were very similar in the use of monocrop agriculture, exploitation of the workers, and degradation of the land. All of these companies exploited the land and the worker for the sake of their own profits and the capitalist market.
As I said in the beginning of this response, the view of the corporation as immoral and solely caring for their bottom line is a unique view which we as a society have begun to develop after witnessing scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. As said when looking at history, hindsight is always 20/20; looking at the actions of the United Fruit Company and the American Rubber Company most people would believe that they were corporations solely concerned for their profits and “percentage” and had almost no regard for the wellbeing of the land or the workers, however, at that time, the behavior of the United Fruit Company and the American Rubber Company was seen as the standard.
Per Julia B (part 1):
ReplyDeleteAfter reading these articles, it seems that the companies were acting primarily for profit based on percentage, and using morality only up to a point that retained their workers and maintained a good public image. However, the banana and rubber companies were the main suppliers of the facts about their operations, so information could have been easily skewed to bolster their public image. I have a difficult time reading these articles without an extremely critical view, especially since the Adams article gets a lot of information from United Fruit officials and the Hotchkiss writes from the US Rubber Company, resulting in my inability to trust most parts of the articles. Therefore, I am basing my evaluation of the corporate colonialism of these companies by the language that the authors use and the likelihood of the facts they present.
Adams article describes how the United Fruit Company was indeed a relentless, efficiency-driven enterprise, which may be a favorable trait of a solely profit-driven company, but not a favorable trait of a moral company (one which is concerned about the well-being of its laborers and surroundings). Adams seems to want us to feel sympathy for United Fruit, saying, "Those who risk their lives and their fortunes in tropical investments have a right to expect that success will yield handsome returns," (99) and the company's expanding profits was "the realization of years of hard work, relentless energy, courage, and fortitude" (115). However, I do not sympathize with a company who blatantly did not care for the conditions of the land or people that it interacted with on its plantations. He may not realize the unfortunate language of his statement when Adams describes how the development of the tropics is to obtain money, and to obtain other tropical products to add to the happiness and raise the standard of living of Americans. He clearly does not care about the treatment or well-being of anyone or anything else, diminishing evidence for morality under the United Fruit Company. Furthermore, they probably exploited the natives and laborers by assuming that they are "ignorant and physically deficient" (204). The inadequacies of the non-whites gave the companies an excuse to treat them worse. Lastly, Adams describes how the ancient tribes "did not come into contact with civilization until it was beaten into them by the all-conquering Roman Empire" (211) to support his argument that United Fruit helped civilize and sanitize the natives. However, we likened the US to the Roman Empire during class, so I have trouble sympathizing with his point here.
Per Julia B (part 2):
ReplyDeleteLike Stephen pointed out, the treatment of the "coolies" in Sumatra was extremely reminiscent of slavery because if the labor under contract ran away, they were arrested and brought back to the plantation. Hotchkiss explains that without the government providing the punishment for disobedient labor, the plantations would revert back to abuses on past plantations. The slavery undertones of this situation are expanded upon when Hotchkiss explains that there was free labor in Malaya. In both cases of Sumatra and the malay Peninsula, the labor seemed to be very indebted to the company and to the land they worked on. The coolies were given housing, food, and medical treatment, which made them very dependent on the American Rubber Company because they had no established life or livelihood outside this company. For example, many laborers had hookworm before they came to work and the company would provide them with medical treatment during a month before they began work. This made them indebted to the company before they even started to work! This was clearly a favorable situation for the American Rubber Company, which controlled all aspects of their laborers' lives. As an aside, I am thoroughly intrigued by how the fear outlined in Whitford's article is that the American companies own 3% of total rubber production, but Americans consume 75% of world's production, creating a huge American dependence on foreign suppliers. This is uncannily similar to the situation the US is in today with foreign oil suppliers.
To conclude, Adams describes "The Machine" having relentless efficiency and crushing competition and how the banana was a product of "The Machine." The imagery of this machine can be applied to how corporate colonialism of the companies had the underpinnings of a relentless and crushing machine.