The UN, US and capitalism

Tim Brown writes: "On Steve Torok's understandable defense of his former employer, I also support both the Foreign Service and the Marine Corps, so it is to be expected. The worker bees were often quite different from the executives, which is how I could remain friends with them. But, the executives I worked with were extremely biased against the US, or capitalism for that matter, almost to a person. I enjoyed the diplomatic life more than I would have the business rat race, and almost every American business person I knew abroad was making twice what I was, or much more. But they did not have job security, could be fired almost at will, and did not for the most part have good pension plans. My comparison was between US government officials and International organization officials, not between private industry and them. Every year the US Government is required by law to do a survey of comparable private sector positions and then adjust USG salaries to match them, and every year since I can remember the President has said yes, but not this year because we have a fiscal crisis. The last time I looked before I retired, the gap had grown to about 40% on the average, not counting benefits. As to the importance of the US presence in the international organizations mix, I agree entirely. But SteveTorok's hope that our presence could ever overcome the biases and built in ideological and bureaucratic limitations of all but a handful of international organizations is, in my view, unattainable utopianism. As long as the US continues to give massive amounts of money to people who dislike it so they can spend it pretty much as they will, these organizations wall remain largely black holes and unreformed. RH: I am trying to reconcile Tim's statement with Carmen Negrėn' report that officials ae not allowed to criticize other countries. My guess is that, if one takes a belligerently American-First attitude, a negative response can be expected. Likewise, an aggressive, uncritical defense of capitalism will elicit a critical answer. Even the capitalist Economist which devotes its lead article( (6/28-7/2/03) ro "Capitalism and democracy" recognizes its shortcomings. I doubt that there are many Commies in international organizations.

Ronald Hilton - 7/5/03