bruce sandford
Hamilton 2001
Aotearoa - New Zealand
ICQ: 20816964
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Michael Papadopoulos
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 11:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] What Real Globalization Would Mean
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2000/05/04/index.html
Tom Paine
May 4, 2000
ANOTHER COLUMN THE NYT DECLINED TO PUBLISH:
This Time A Yale Professor Was Shut Out of
the Globalization Debate
What Real Globalization Would Mean
By David Graeber <[log in to unmask]>
In the wake of the massive protests at the IMF/World Bank
meetings in Washington, pundits have been painting
demonstrators the same way they did the protesters at
Seattle: as enemies of "globalization" -- and, by
implication, benighted souls trying to duck the tide of
history. Speaking as someone who stood on the barricades in
D.C., I can attest that, from the protesters' perspective,
the truth is precisely the other way around. If
"globalization" means the unfettered movement of people,
products, and ideas, then we're the ones in favor of it. You
didn't see any banners denouncing "globalization" in
Washington; what you saw were denunciations of "corporate
globalization" -- a system, embodied in organizations like
the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank, which is as much about
imposing and maintaining forms of protectionism than about
eliminating them.
Consider for a moment what real globalization -- the genuine
unification of our planet -- might entail.
* Free Immigration:
The globe today is divided up by invisible walls called
"borders," maintained by hundreds of thousands of soldiers
and police. As a result, if you happen to be a farmer born
in a country which is mostly desert, it is illegal to simply
move to one where there are adequate supplies of water. If
you have the bad luck to be born in a country there is no
decent school system, it is illegal to move someplace which
has one. As a result, most people in the world today feel
like prisoners. Real globalization would begin to take these
barriers apart. Proponents of corporate globalization demand
exactly the opposite. They want to maintain the invisible
walls, and keep the poor trapped behind them, so as to allow
Nike and The Gap to reap the profits of their desperation.
* The Global Rule of Law:
Real globalization would also mean creating the backbone of
worldwide legal institutions: for instance, permanent
tribunals to prosecute war criminals, enforce labor rights,
and protect the global ecosystem. But it's the protesters
who are pushing for such institutions; the U.S. government,
that great proponent of corporate globalization, which is
doggedly clinging to outmoded notions of national
sovereignty in order to resist it.
* The Free Movement of Knowledge, Cultural Products and Ideas:
As economists like Dean Baker note, the single most
significant form of protectionism in the world today is our
gargantuan system of patents and copyrights. If we had a
genuinely free global marketplace, whoever could manufacture
the best computer chip for the cheapest price would be free
to do so: whether they live in Chicago, Latvia, or
Bangladesh. Prices everywhere would plummet, and some of the
money freed up could easily be redirected towards publicly
funded research. Instead, the U.S. government, which
systematically violated English patent laws when we were the
ones trying to industrialize in the nineteenth century, is
now, like other proponents of corporate globalization,
trying to prevent others from doing the same: even going so
far as to threaten a trade war with China to preserve Warner
Brothers' right to charge workers who make sixteen cents a
day $15.95 for a Michael Jackson CD, or trying to tighten
patent restrictions on pharmaceutical production to prevent
Indian companies from continuing to manufacture medicine
that Indian people can actually afford. Real globalization
would loosen such forms of protectionism, or even eliminate
them.
This is not the only measure by which the protesters are
actually greater supporters of free trade than their opponents:
* Uniform Standards for Products and Licensing:
Governments and business organizations have spent decades
creating uniform international product standards. A screw or
a lug wrench made in Mexico or the Philippines is now likely
to fit an engine made in America. If it wasn't for this
painstaking groundwork, it would have been impossible for
American factories to so freely relocate to such countries.
However, there has been no similar effort to create uniform
standards in professional services: for instance,
qualifications to practice law, medicine, or accountancy. As
a result, sheet metal workers in St. Louis have to compete
with their counterparts in Tiajuana, but lawyers, CPAs, and
insurance claims adjusters there do not. If they did, the
public would save billions, but a lot of prosperous and
influential people would get upset. Corporate globalizers
want to protect the professional classes from international
competition. Real globalizers would demand that everyone
play by the same rules.
* A Market Principles in Banking:
One near universal demand among the protesters in Washington
was forgiveness for Third World debt. Really, this is just a
demand to apply normal market discipline to international
bankers. When a banker makes a loan, he is supposed to be
taking a risk. That's what entitles him to collect high
rates of interest. If a banker were to lend a million
dollars to Al Capone to build the world's largest toothpick
factory, and he skipped off with the cash, we'd say that
banker was a fool and deserved to swallow his losses. If
that same banker lends a million dollars to a Third World
dictator, he need never do so, because he knows the IMF will
always be there to squeeze the money out of the dictator's
former victims. (If millions of children have to go hungry
as a result, so be it.) Once again, as long as it is
Citibank's interest that's at stake, corporate globalizers
are happy to insist on the sacred principle of national
sovereignty.
It is time be honest. The real argument is not between those
who are for globalization and those who are against it. It
never was. The real argument is not about whether to reduce
the barriers; it's about which barriers to reduce, and how
far, and for whose benefit. Real globalization means
reducing restrictions on everyone. Corporate globalization
means reducing restrictions on those who are already rich
and powerful, and strengthening the walls which imprison the
poorest and most vulnerable. It is plainly immoral. That's
why so many thousands of America's young people having been
mobilizing to protest it, and demanding a form of
globalization which will actually benefit the vast majority
of people with whom we share this earth.
David Graeber is an assistant professor of anthropology at
Yale University.
Copyright (c) 1999-2000 The Florence Fund.
[Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other mailing
lists, as long as the wording/attribution is not altered in any way.
In particular, if there is a reference to a web site where an article
was originally located, please do *not* remove that.
Unless stated otherwise, do *not* publish or post the entire text of
any articles on web sites or in print, without getting *explicit*
permission from the article author or copyright holder. Check the fair
use provisions of the copyright law in your country for details on what
you can and can't do.
As a courtesy, we'd appreciate it if you let folks know how to subscribe
to BRC-NEWS, by leaving in the first five lines of the signature below.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News Articles/Reports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <[log in to unmask]>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: Email "unsubscribe brc-news" to <[log in to unmask]>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: Email "subscribe brc-news-digest" to <[log in to unmask]>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive: http://www.egroups.com/messages/brc-news
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions/Problems: Send email to <[log in to unmask]>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.blackradicalcongress.org | BRC | [log in to unmask]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
