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Multinationals And Globalism
Many anti-globalization interests, Jay Walljasper writes in the latest Utne Reader, have coalesced in the belief that growing poverty, environmental destruction and social breakdown, with continuing bloodshed seen around the world, are the direct results of an international political and economic system that places most of the world's wealth and power in the hands of unaccountable and powerful corporations. "To these activists," writes Walljasper, "a new era of global peace and justice can be achieved by reinvigorating local communities and creating a new international system that promotes cooperation over competition."
Sounds great. In fact, it sounds like the early Wired Magazine manifestos about the Net, some of which I wrote. But would such a system work? Even if it did, who would pay for it and maintain it? And who will curb those corporations whose economic, lobbying and political power far outstrips any of those groups protesting their existence? Why would citizens in the west pay to "reinvigorate" local communities elsewhere and create a new international system? Globalism thrives on the contributions of corporations who want to profit from it, not from the efforts of governments or civic groups advancing democratic ideals.
The idea that globalism could even bolster those ideals is a view not widely held by fundamentalists or by certain educated elites in Europe and the United States. The institutions that to most minds represent the global economy -- the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization -- have become reviled and distrusted in these circles, their meetings developing into bloody standoffs. Political leaders in economically-advanced countries can no longer meet to talk about trade or economic issues without sparking riots.
The protesters opposing them represent a variety of causes, from the loss of good domestic jobs to the lowering of global wages to denouncing sweatshops to decrying environmental desctruction. They have quieter allies, too; even in prosperous Western economies, support for trade liberalization has declined and governments are accused of caving in to business interests. Liberal politicians from Bill Clinton to Britain's Tony Blair have expressed puzzlement and frustration at this sometimes anarchic, unthinking political fury; they claim such organizations are vital if wealth, technology and economic opportunity ever gets equitably distributed around the world.
Moreover, an editorial in the Economist magazine argues that anti-business protesters have their arguments upside down -- with genuinely dangerous consequences for the sometimes just causes they hope to advance. On the whole, says the Economist, stricter regulation of international business won't reduce profits. "What it may well do, though, by disabling markets in their civilizing role, is to give companies new opportunities to make even bigger profits at the expense of society at large." Companies pressured to increase wages will simply move, close overseas plants or charge more, thus make more profits. Afterwards, "The companies, having shafted their third world competition and protected their domestic markets, count their bigger profits (higher wage costs notwithstanding). And the third world workers displaced from locally-owned factories explain to their children why the West's new deal for the victims of capitalism requires them to starve."
If you follow these violent and confusing protests -- many now organized online -- you get the impression that some of these demonstrators confuse globalism with corporatism, since large companies are among the most vocal advocates of globalism and so far are its primary beneficiaries. The trappings of corporatism -- using technologies to create low wages and new markets, while suppressing individual enterprise and distinctive cultures -- have already encircled the world. McDonald's is much more symbolic of globalism than a small village in India getting wired for the Net, even though the latter may ultimately be more significant. And many political scientists equate Afghanistan's poverty, political extremism and instability to the fact that globalization hasn't yet reached the country.
The world's biggest companies sometimes appear more powerful than the world's biggest governments. (Microsoft's long and successful battle with the U.S. Justice Department is a good case in point). In the United States, they control our media and popular culture and are the primary contributors to the political system. Their lobbyists are the single most influential political force in Washington.
It's not surprising that many people feel instrinsically uncomfortable with globalism. Humanists aren't the spokespeople for globalization -- economic interests are. Corporations appear to be unchecked, and corporations have little inate social responsibility. They exist to generate profits, not advance social agendas or protect the environment, so they inevitably spark enormous resentment in foreign cultures whose citizens want jobs but are then puzzled by their own resulting lack of prosperity. These foreign workers also find that new globalizing technologies undermine their own national identities and religious and political values, all increasingly subsumed by the homogenized Disneyfication and Wal-Marting of the world that has swallowed up U.S. popular culture and countless small business, from pharmacies to family farms. The U.S. comes to seem like a remote, sometimes monstrous, always greedy and insensitive force.
But Giddens argues that democracy -- and the globalism inextricably linked with it -- is the most powerful emerging idea of the 21st century. Few states in the world don't call themselves democratic now, even when they aren't, like China and North Korea. In fact, the only countries are explicitly refer to themselves as non-democratic are the remaining semi-feudal monarchies or fundamentalist entities -- Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria.
Democracy's spread has now in fact created a bloody confrontation with fundamentalism, a holy war. Both sides refer to one another in evil blasphemers. Lost in this confrontation is the idea that Democracy isn't only about multi-national markets, cheap labor and business opportunities. It's about the liberation of information, freedom of religious and cultural choice, and a brorader value system with a complex civic structure. Yet another good reason why multinationals ought not to appear more powerful than governments (they aren't) and become the sole face and voice of globalization.
Have multinationals hijacked globalism? (Yes.)
Done.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
If we are going to have globalization of business profit making, should we not also have globalization of ethical awareness too ?
It is easy to dismiss this because it happens far away in another country, but the events of September 11th should have given us a heads-up that we need to pay close attention to the poorer parts of the world if we are to avoid our own destruction.
There are 34 pages from 'No Logo' available by following the Amazon link I have included above. Read them. You might not agree, but you will be better informed.
Realizing I'll get flamed to hell and back...
Please please please, all of you liberal, or socialist, or leftist, black-mask wearing protesters please read the Economist article.
Would you really stop large corporations? Would you really want to deny people in the 3rd world a chance to move ahead far more quickly than America ever did?
I totally agree that cultural homogenization is horrendous, but the vast majority of people the world over apparently don't agree! That doesn't prevent small, unique businesses and institutions from existing! There are still mom-and-pop ISPs out there! There are still small manufacturing companies!
Why do you folks insist that the world is coming to an end, and that multinationals are taking us there?? Reading too much cyberpunk fiction?
(note: I hate the homogeneity. I abhor Walmart, McD's, and their ilk. I'll buy by stuff from tiny stores when I can. Because I want to support local, unique business, even if that means I have to pay a few extra bucks. How about you?)
Ya know, if you can't pay it back, maybe you just ought not borrow the money in the first place. Why is the first world supposed to be a charity who gives and gives and gives to people who can't get their own shit together?
Globalism is never a problem for anyone -- it allows competition to level the paying field for even the poorest nations as long as they have the people who want to work for it.
Where globalism, capitalism, and "Big Business" get ugly is when the government (any government) intervenes in any way: whether its a subsidy, a tariff, an embargo, even a bailout (a la airlines). The minute a government steals from the citizens in order to help a business, the system falls apart. Those who worked hard to make their business profitable get hurt for their smarts (Look at the airline industry, there are numerous airlines HIRING right now, and some of which who are still profitable). Instead, our government takes the biggest ones, with the worst track record of profitability, and bail them out, hurting the little guy who was making it work.
Big Business will always fail with no government intervention, eventually. 10 smaller companies in a co-op situation will always do better in the long run if they have the competitive edge and no sanctions to hurt them or subsidies to help the Big Business competition.
It's evident that totally free trade can "save the world." It's more evident that our country will never allow it. Sanctions against Iraq destroyed that country (NOT Saddam Hussein as the media and government portrays as the culprit). Sanctions and subsidies destroyed the wheat crop in Columbia, then destroyed the coffee crop. What was left? Coca. Now our government intervenes to destroy that crop.
In order to have a peaceful society, we need to get government ENTIRELY out of free trade. Let businesses and people deal with whomever they want, bar none. I can understand if government may want to limit arms sales, but other than that, I can see no reason to ever limit or subsidies trade or business of any kind. In a totally free economy, there will always be winners and losers. Unfortunately, government intervention makes losers into smaller losers, and the winners into big losers. Tell them to stay out, and you'll see happy people all over the world, able to buy and sell their wares at prices that they deem proper.
We believe that without the government, prices would skyrocket (they wouldn't, supply and demand and competition prevent that), or we'd have shortages (again, suppy and demand and competition would help), or we'd see our economy fail because other countries do it cheaper (they do, and better, sometimes its even our unions that make our businesses unprofitable, not necessarily our business tactics).
I am under the impression that a great part of the fustration felt by the demonstrators at G7 meetings (and others) is due to the fact that these meetings are held in private.
If there was a rule that all meetings involving representatives of a democracy must be open to inspection by the voters then I believe there would not be so much fustration.
Of course the reason these meetings are held in secret is that the G7 leaders (and others) are discussing and agreeing things that their voters would not agree with. So much for democracy.
In my experience, this is more true of the confused and lazy reporting about "anti-globalists" than of the actual activists.
The activists have sincere, complex concerns that don't reduce well to sound-bites. So the media reduces them to sound-bites anyway, for their own purposes, and then commentators use these sound-bites to complain that the activists are simplistic.
I mean, heck, if you get your information from the news media, you might have the impression that a coalition of government representatives working on regulating the global market is really an organization in favor of free trade.
Hell, even the Libertarians are falling for this one. A little hint for the Randoids: You get a bunch of governments together in a room to agree on a set of rules and regulations about the economy and I guarandamntee you that "free trade" isn't going to come out the other end.
Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
"Corporations appear to be unchecked, and corporations have little inate social responsibility. They exist to generate profits, not advance social agendas or protect the environment"
The same can be used to describe more than a few politicans, but in the U.S. and abroad.
This may be an unpopular idea, but it seems that one of the only ways to preserve local cultures is to somehow limit the expressive possibilities of global media. i.e. limits on corporate or mass-marketed speech. This happens in France with its film industry to some extent, IIRC.
Is this what we really want? Are thoughts/images/ideas produced by U.S. media automatically suspect or hegemonic? Eventually you will have, in any given country, the government or "cultural review board" decreeing that ideas developed within to be preferable to ideas developed outside the borders.
Hopefully I'm not the only one who finds this disturbing.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
A study contracted by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was released this month discussing the effects of globalization on poverty. One of the key points to the study was:
The evidence also shows that international income inequality has narrowed over the past 30 years when countries ' population sizes and the purchasing power of local incomes are considered. The very poorest countries now represent less than 8 per cent of the world 's population compared with just over 45 per cent in 1970.In countries that have embraced the opportunities created by integration with world markets, globalisation has enabled stronger income growth. But national policies have not always been sufficient to ensure that the benefits of this growth are enjoyed by all.
The study can be found at: www.dfat.gov.au/publications/globe_poverty/index.h tml
What really saddens me now is that with this terrible government bailout of the badly run airlines, we are setting two precedents:
:) I'm a fan of theirs too, haven't flown it though :(
1. That people have a right to fly airplanes cheaply (you don't).
2. That people have a right to keep their jobs even though its their fault that the companies are doing bad (overhired workforce, union regulations preventing company from reorganizing or lowering salaries, too many forced benefits, etc).
I can't believe we sat back and let this happen. This is the United States, not the U.S.S.R... The government should have paid the airlines for the days that they grounded them (understandable) but all airlines should have been prepared to cut their staff in the event of tragedy. It'll be shortterm anyway.
Good point about Jet Blue
Either learn to play the game according to the rules which are quite fair, or fuck off and retreat into isolationism. Grow your own goddamned corn and feed yourselves, and build your own industrial infrastructure, and your own educational institutions, and call us in 200 years.
Number 347 -- "In fact, it sounds like the early Wired Magazine manifestos about the Net, some of which I wrote."
Real writers do not feel the need to refer to themselves constantly.
Real writers can lucidly get a point across; So JonKatz, are you in the Globalization is evil camp or the Globalization is not evil and going to happen anywy camp?
This
grep -ri 'should work'
Ok, oblig disclaimer - I'm white, privately educated, English, live in Kensington, London, and once worked for Rupert Murdoch. Hence, on paper at least, I'm unusually evil.
Having said that...
Globalisation can only, in the end, work out as a force for good. I say In The End, so bear with me a second...
Klein's NoLogo theories (nicely offset by having her name in massive print, and her picture on the back, *sigh*) are nice, but forget the fact that Globalisation works on all levels: education included. As corporations spread across the world, so does the rest of the world come badck to the corporations. Sept11 is an extreme example of this, but so is the Globalisation'd media reporting on Nike sweatshops in Vietnam, or human rights abuses in China. Anything - anything at all - that forces connections between different cultures can only add to increased understanding.
Whether that understanding is developed in the first instance as a tool to exploit is somewhat irrelevent, because the same globalisation process is used by those who want to help.
You really only need look at the change in mindset that has been brought round by globalisation. Take a generation or two back - little knowledge of the rest of the world compared with today (well, at least in Europe).
A silly example: food. Look at food from 30 years ago: Spaghetti Bolognaise was an exotic dish in the UK. Now I can get Sushi at the corner shop. 30 years ago it was John Wayne, now it's John Woo.
Taco's hobby is obscure Japanese animation, my wife loves African guitar music. THAT is just as much globalisation as the spectre of nasty corporations.
The third world countries borrowed money when the rates of the goods they were exporting were high. Then the rates went down ; now the third world countries can't pay back their debt. Third world countries had no real control over those rates, yet they should live in poverty forever? It is the first world's job to cancel those debts, not out of charity, but out of solidarity and fraternity. Because they really deserve being able to develop, and that is not possible in stateless countries.
The problem with globalisation, or capitalisation, or anything is that people do not apply common sense when purchasing.
When I buy a bag of coffee grounds I automatically go for the fairtrade bag as I know the grower gets more money than the Kenco bag.
When I buy apples I buy British ones, not South African, as it makes no sense, to me, to kart apples half way round the world when we grow perfectly good ones at home.
When I buy clothes I try to establish where they were made before buying - and buy only from reputable manufacturers.
I'm not saying this is easy, theres not a label on Nikes saying 'sweat shop and child labour likely used to make these', but come on, if we don't buy the products the practices don't make them money.
I object to Time-Warner-AOL so I don't go to see films, I don't buy magazines or videos by that company if I can avoid it (I buy Fortune - shoot me!).
I buy 90% of my food from local, often farm, shops. It costs me a couple of extra hours a month in shopping time, and maybe 10% more. I don't drink Coke, I dont eat McD.
Apply a little common sense. If you think something is wrong have principles. Its not the companies that are at fault - its the man in the street for letting it happen.
Dont let Bush trash Alaska. Seriously. Don't!
It's all based on faulty concepts that government knows best, build infrastructure and a powerful economy will magically appear.
Meanwhile, silly laws penalizing companies remain in place, heavy handed things more for the purpose of allowing local officials to extort money, and silly environmental regulations to appease the western masters all make the country a place no sane corporation would go, and no local one to form in the first place. When everyone and their brother gets a cut before you, the business man, does, then, surprise surprise! To hell with it.
And thus no economy develops to pay back the loan. They are juvenile attempts to ape a strong economy by duplicating the window dressing rather than the hard working guts.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
What it gave me was an admiration for the corporations, and how they will co-opt anything, even forces aiming at their own destruction.
When corporations do truly evil things, activist groups can act as checks and balances against them.
But it's important to note that if you want the people of desperately poor countries to thrive, they need to start at the bottom and work their way up. Rich countries don't spring up in a day; in early America, there were appalling working conditions, which gradually got better as the nation got richer. The same general pattern occured in Japan, South Korea and just about everywhere else that's prosperous now.
The nations that turned their back on capitalism and trade have fared far worse; consider India, most of Africa and the Middle East as examples. We complain about people being paid $ 0.50 a day for their work; in Afghanistan that would feel like wealth.
In the end, capitalism may be a terrible system, its main virtue being that every other system is worse. The way capitalism works is that people try and do as well as they can. If the jobs given by the multinational corporations were really bad, well, they can always try and find work elsewhere. Often the reason wages are so low is that there isn't work to be found. This is hardly the fault of multinational corporations!
I am not saying that multinationals are perfect, but this is an imperfect world, at best. The multinationals have provided opportunity in desolate places where opportunities are scarce.
And I must admit to disliking the homogination of the world, the McDonalds and Burger Kings and the like. The best way to fight this is simply not to eat there. The only way American culture and businesses can succeed is that people want their products. Somehow it doesn't seem like depriving people of what they want is going to make the world a better place.
It may be very colourful and very idealistic to protest the WTO and trade, but trade produces an improvement in the status of everyone in the world. If those poor people don't make our stuff, they'd probably be picking rice in a paddy, working 12 back-breaking hours a day.
D
I only regret that the other rioters weren't shot too.
Yes, you have a right to PEACEFUL protest, that does not mean you can go march up to the doorstep of the G-whatever meeting and bang on the windows where the world leaders are meeting with your 10000 closest friends, many of whom are violent anarchists. As soon as you lose track of the fact that your rights only extend to peaceful protest and not to violence (unless somebody is committing violence against you, that is a somewhat different scenario), you deserve a smack down.
I'm not saying I approve of all corporate activities, a lot of them are morally despicable. But that's why we have laws. If you want to get things changed, and encourage more responsible corporate behavior, you could try making the UN something other than an anti-semitic whining camp run by third world rights violators and jealous Europeans. An effective governing body that put a real global framework of trade laws in place to force fair play on everybody - international tariffs to enforce passing equitable worker's rights laws in the third world countries that supposedly have lots of "exploited" workers, etc. etc.
Of course, no country wants to give up any portion of its sovereignty, even the weak and poor ones. Furthermore, the big problem with the UN is that since many of its members aren't representative in any way (non-democratic) the body as a whole does not necessarily represent the best interests of the people of the world.
Oh, and did I mention that many of said third world countries being so dreadfully "exploited" don't see anything wrong at all? They are getting cash infusions, their workers are employed, and they don't want to scare off the companies that are supporting local economies there. Maybe that's why it hasn't happened.
In other words, the only way to prevent corporate exploitation is to get a consensus that such a thing exists. There is no such consensus because it doesn't seem to bother those who are exploited, and the exploitation is purely voluntary in nature. The people that seem to be really bothered are the whiny protestors who go around destroying public and private property and then don't seem to understand why they are more hated than the corporations they are protesting against.
The news out of the demonstrations was that thousands of people were protesting so-called "free trade" where representatives of powerful business interests met behind barricades to further the process of allowing multi-national corporations to flout national sovereignty through shadowy, unaccountable organizations that can overrule laws and regulations designed to protect laborers and consumers (i.e. people) as "anti-competitive."
Quite a number of these protesters promote the idea of "fair trade," i.e. globalism that raises the standard of living for the vast majority of the people on this planet through better working conditions, more healthful products, and a cleaner environment.
Mr. Katz, if you're gonna rag on people over vocabulary, at least get it right yourself
I, for one, get tired of hearing all this hub-bub about how large corporations are "supressing" local culture or somehow magically putting mom-and-pops out of business (with the implication that they're superior). The simple fact of the matter is that, by and large, where these corporations prevail, the corporations are prevailing with the will and consent of each and every one of their customers. The local culture or shop may do one or two things better, but overall, the failing institutions are failing for a reason: the disruptive corporation/culture is providing something the individual prefers, on the aggregate. People don't go and do business with corporations that they think are worse; they shop the shops that do the best by them on the aggregate. These choices are made on a wide variety of grounds: speed, price, selection, quality of service, novelty, consistency, and so on. No matter what poor judgement you feel these choices are made with, they are just that, choices, many of them. Rather than allowing the individual to exercise free will, a vocal minority wants to regulate and legislate this choice out of existence.
It's the highest form of snobbery and arrogance. If you don't like the choices made, then try to enlighten the individuals; bring hard evidence to the table. If you feel the companies are succeeding because of unethical practices, then fight those unethical practices and/or push for greater transparency.....But do NOT try to assert your value system on other people by force and the rule of law. It's unfair and inefficient.
I agree with you. I'm just scoffing at the people who think that the first world countries should do all that hard work FOR the third world countries, fork over a huge chunk in taxes, just to have it handed over to third world countries, who then squander it with miraculous ease, make no progress, then DEMAND along with every whiny euro-liberal that the first world is blood-sucking the third world dry, and the first world is obligated to forgive these debts. If they didn't know what to do with the money, they shouldn't have borrowed it. Borrowing money for unproven projects is ALWAYS risky. Deal with it.
Don't be, it will all clear up in the next episode of "Soap", er JonKatz...
Seriously, though, it seems to me that the trend towards globalization at least partially stems from an economic fundamental: people (all of them) are trying to increase their utility (that's econ-speak for health, happiness, money, and everything you might want bundled into 1 quantifiable mathematical construct). This means that corporations want to go after other markets (to market their products, lower their costs, etc), and people in other countries see the prosperity in the west and in particular in the US and want to mimick it. I say this as a respectful resident alien (who invented that term? I'm pretty sure I have no antennae). It is a natural process that people will freely choose. The only way it will reverse is if by some miracle other markets become unattractive to corporations at the same time as their inhabitants' standard of living increases. This is a little bit of a contradiction...
I couldn't agree more. But, that would be (deep breath) bad for the economy. And as we all know from watching the President, the economy is apparently the only important thing in the country right now. That's why the citizenry is being exhorted to consume, consume, consume!
I'd rather have short-term economic upheaval, and then long-term economic growth as smaller and more agile airlines take up the slack, but then again I haven't lost my job as part of the recession. yet. knock on wood.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It is important to note that often the money was borrowed by long-since removed corrupt regimes. As an individual you are not responsible for your father's debt but as a country you must pay for the gambling losses of every psycho that has ever run the country. Therefore there is a case to be made for the cancelling of third-world debt in some cases. Countries like the US and Britain have similar problems historically theselves. [1], [2],
Your point seems to be that "so long as a nation is willing to allow their citizens to be exploited, there will be healthy competition" -- instead of the idea being "so long as there is healthy competition, the playing field can be leveled". The fact is, governments can either work for or against healthy competition, capitalism can either work for or against healthy competition, and even "big business" can work for or against healthy competition. Gee, a theme here... leading to the further question of "what is healthy competition?"
My definition: healthy competition raises the level of all those participating in the competitive process -- which is where most big businesses and gov'ts fail. [Notice that I deliberately left out 'capitalists', because they are usually allied with one of the two other groups -- and it is often the capitalists who find ways of leveling the playing field -- by investing in the newer competitors to the established concerns.]
Then we come to the idea that taxes are something stolen from a citizen to help a business. Face it, in the 21st century, taxes are what we use to pay for services we all want, but usually with less efficiency and much more corruption than the private market would deliver. However -- no private company seems eager to provide an equality of services to all comers like fair governments are ostensibly supposed to do.
The system falls apart when instead of the common good, governments, capitalists, and big businesses only look to further their own interests, regardless of the damage done to those outside their respective domains. In other words, by participating in unhealthy competition in which one set of participants must lose (and lose regularly) in order for the other side to gain.
Thus my contention is that it isn't free trade that will "save the world", but equitable trade -- for example, that allows a well run farm in Iowa to get a fair price for his products without requiring that a well run farm in France go out of business. With true globalism -- both farms must improve to compete -- so the issue isn't trade -- but unfair trade -- which is where we come back into agreement.
IMO most multinational companies aren't interests in free trade-- they are interested in gaining unfair advantage for their own constituent interests. Usually making their alliance with government interests suspect at best and undeniably evil at worst.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Organize boycotts, and create consumer awareness programs if you want the sweatshops to stop. They'll listen to the bucks, but probably won't listen to a bunch of angry tree huggers.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Regardless of whether globalization is good or evil,
from the point of view of the little guy, globablization appears synonymous with the words 'You will be assimilated'
I won't discuss the issue, as I feel that the discussion that is already posted is VERY good. I hope that everyone will read some of the great responses to this article.
Here is a good website discussion the issues concerning world trade. They are against, mind you.
http://www.citizen.org/trade/index.cfm
This issue is far less complicated than people make it out to be. We don't live in an amoral vacuum--there are absolute rights and wrongs (goodness and evils) which define issues such as this. To deny the existance of an absolute truth and absolute moral standard is to declare one's own insanity by a mere logical fallacy. So given this construct, I think we all would agree that:
- Greed, the pursuit of excess beyond our own comfortable survival and at the expense of others, is wrong.
- Environmental gluttony, a form of greed of the earth's finite resources which as the human race we must respectfully steward, is wrong.
- Exploitation of human life for ones gain, yet another form of greed, is wrong.
- Constriction of human rights and freedoms for ones own gain or lust for power, such as performed by the Taliban or the riaa/mpaa/etc, is wrong.
So does this mean that "globalism" is good or bad? Neither. To generalize is to be an idiot. It's not globalism but the approach taken. If that approach is one of the philosophy that people matter and that ethics come before economics, there is nothing wrong with it. So for example, if a multinational corp. sets up business in a poverty stricken country and in the process of supporting itself, builds infrastructure in that country that improves the quality of life for its people--hence giving back to the community--this can only be seen as a very good thing. Does it usually happen this way? Probably not. But that doesn't mean it can't be done this way. So in the end, it all comes back to greed. It's as simple as that. So fight greed, not globalization.
- "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
The third world debt problem couldn't be because kleptomaniac leaders stole a good portion of the money and wasted a large portion of the rest could it? No, that would imply that it's at least partially their own fault. Cancelling debts makes it harder to borrow in future and encourages the 3rd world government thieves to keep right on stealing because if they mismanage things badly enough, fraternal, compassionate first worlders will just cancel their debts again in order to help those suffering 3rd world people.
They deserve to be able to develop and they *are* able to develop, they are just cursed with leaderships that choose *not* to develop, having a preference for luxurious living over the welfare of their people. I don't know how we are supposed to fix that besides reinstituting colonialism and I doubt anybody wants to pick of "the white man's burden" (thank God).
DB
If by globalization you mean the spread of information and knowledge between nations, companies, individuals, etc. then that is a good thing. The sharing of knowledge from western industrialized countries with our less fortunate neighbors is obviously a good thing to do. But when you're talking about corporations and governments working to extend their control then that is a very bad thing.
Just as a monopoly is a bad thing, so is a single conglomerate, or a club of corporations, with their fingers in too many pies. Power should always be decentralized and spread as thinly as possible. When this is the case freedom is possible. When too much power is held in the hands of too few, tyrrany and abuse of that power is the result. This is why what is commonly called globalization is such a threat. The consolidation of power into the hands of a small group of corporations and governments whose goals and agenda's are too much aligned leaves anyone whose goals aren't the same very much out in the cold and possibly in great danger.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
this is great for globalization, since ineffectual government avoids doing anything dramatic to multinationals, except the usual extortion/tax.
what's missing? the real goal should be liberty, not democracy. sure, democracy might be a means to liberty, but it's NOT THE GOAL. they're orthogonal - liberty is about policy (principles); democracy is about mechanism.
there's a "meta-politics" that's not being discussed - that's why this is such a fuzzy topic. why is terrorism wrong? what is the real conflict between the West and Taliban-style fundamentalism? the principle of individual liberty - that if you want to live a Wahabi life, you're perfectly free to do so in the West. you just can't coerce someone else into doing it. liberty/non-coercion is what we should be talking about, not democracy.
and this is relevant to the undercurrent of discussion about how the net will effect society in the future. it's obvious that strong crypto, peer-to-peer, net-communities are powerful forces that, in the absence of some kind of apocalypse of talibanhood, will become dominant. they have a sense of historic inevitability. they're also profoundly liberty-based, self-organizing, non-coercive. even anti-authoritarian. and globalizing.
but how can that be? wasn't seattle supposed to be the rise of a non-hierarchical, self-organized political force devoted to overthrowing globalization? there's a contradiction there: absence of hierarchically imposed limits are what permits these anti-globalization people to demonstrate. (and demonstration != democracy!) the anti-globalization freaks are opposed to commerce being the "working fluid" of globalization. it's not the multinationals that they oppose, it's the fact that MN's are based on an international currency market that in effect makes my 8-hours of labor in the West incomparable to 8 hours of labor by someone in the 3rd world. this seems irrational to me, or at least based on principles I don't share (ie, more "from each according to his ability" rather than "to each according to the market price of his ability").
if online/crypto is a globalizing force, it's not necessarily going to cause a redistribution of wealth, or a replacement of property as the measure of wealth. and that's the tip of another iceberg - that some people want ideas to become as ownable as property; not surprising, these "idea hegemonists" are large, Western, multinational corporations...
So if your analogy were carried through, then those regimes should pay back until they have 0 dollars and 0 assets left, and then whatever remains should be cancelled.
Also note that private individual interest rates are different than the interest rates paid by countries PRECISELY because of this kind of difference in risk level. The lenders will lend to a country because they know that the lifespan of a country is long while the lifespan of an individual is unpredictable.
That is so spot on. I spent several years in the late 80s in Peru, and that was definitely the case there. They have plenty of natural resources, a very hard working population, but their system was so corrupt that it was impossible to run a business. Foreign companies especially had to be continuously on their guard for fear of being nationalized.
Why would any sane person invest there?
Especially when they could move a little further South and invest in Chile. I lived in Chile for several years in the early 90s and was surprised at the stark difference. Levels of corruption were much lower, and the people were far more educated (on average). Because of that business was booming.
Unfortunately, the people in power in Peru aren't interested in cleaning things up. After all, they have made millions extorting money from the Peruvian people. It's a sad fact that until the corruption of the Peruvian political system is cleaned up that no amount of money is likely to do the economy there any good.
You don't have money? You ain't got no right. That's libertarianism.
No, that a gross misrepresentation. (but who would expect anything less)
Libertarianism isn't "he who has the most power (in this case money) wins." That's a form of anarchism. The little guy has just as many rights under libertariansim as the big guy. In fact, I'd argue that a big gov't gives more power to those with big $$$ since their $$$ influence those who make the laws. Why (if you live in the states) do you pay more for sugar than what it costs on the global market? Because the sugar industry (esp the Fanjuls) pays a LOT of money to both parties to keep the tariffs high. A bigger gov't is a gov't that can be bought.
It always amazes me how folks think that people who work for a corp work only in their self interest, yet people who work in the gov't only work for the greater good. Sorry, it just doesn't happen. People are people and they fall somewhere in between those extremes. Businesses spend a lot of money on PACs because THEY WORK. And there in lies your problem. A smaller gov't with tightly defined roles and responsibilities is less influenced than one with broad, arbitrary powers.
The only thing I'd agree with in your list of moral "absolutes" is that you shouldn't constrict fundamental human rights and freedoms. But as much as I may hate the RIAA/MPAA cabal, I certainly wouldn't put them on a list of human-rights violators because they are trying to prevent folks from stealing media products that don't belong to them...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
They did it again durring World War II. Every time it captured a piece of German technology, the US exploited it. Tha atom bomb--they didn't invent it, but we cajoled their scientists into creating it after they defected. The space race--the V2 was VASTLY supperior to Godards little rockes. When we captured their bases and convinced Von Warner to join us, we entered the space age long before we would have.
The US industrial-military complex has stollen every piece of IP it could get its hands on. It has been utterly ruthless in this regard, and THAT'S why it is top dog.
science is a religion
However, I likened this above to the same analogy - if your father borrows a bunch of money and squanders it, then his assets are up for grab to creditors before you inherit them. Likewise, the creditors should be able to come in and grab assets from the government (not from private citizens obviously) to pay off the loan. The reality is that if we all looked at it the way you do, and we did not hold governments responsible for any length of time longer than that of one particular regime, NOBODY in their right mind would lend a penny to a government. Of course, the US government and people have to live with the various responsibilities, debts and consequences of past leaders, but obviously those stupid third world people are not capable of assuming responsibility for anything they do. In that case, we should just come in and patronizingly determine for them how their money gets spents and make sure they don't hurt themselves.
We have people on one side, saying globalization is the only way for third-world countries to climb into the light of financial security is globalization and free trade.
We have people on the other side, saying large companies exploit the resoruces and workforces of small countries, all in the name of profit.
Guess what? They're both right.
One facet of lassez-faire economics is that "capital goes where it is respected and appreciated." If a country's government promises that investments won't be stolen or confiscated, and backs up those oaths, then investments will be made and industry will develop. If investors fear the loss of their capital (especially when other investors have had assets nationalized previously), they will invest in business elsewhere, and that country will not have the opportunity to build industry. Government-sponsored industry growth works about as well as government-sponsored projects anywhere -- poorly. It takes the watchful eye of someone risking his own assets to run a truly successful business.
*gasp* But then the big corporations move in, building factories, mining out the land, paying piss-poor wages, exploiting the country! The free market doesn't work! We can't let these things happen!
I don't deny these incidents happen. But the fact is, they don't happen because of the free market. Many large corporations are mercenary in protecting their interests, and happily exploit corruptible government officials to further their bottom lines. When soldiers move in to suppress labor actions, or land is confiscated to build factories, this isn't an action of lassez-faire economics but of government interference.
It is easy to heap blame on the companies involved in such activities, but that wouldn't be the proper target for eliminating the problem. If graft and greed are the rules of the game, a corporation that won't play can't compete with one who does. Without the cooperation of corrupt officials, and a governmental system able to carry out the deeds, this interference couldn't happen.
The libertarian solution would therefore be to open a free market in property and labor and keep it open, while limiting the scope of a country's government to a point where its resources could not be misused to exploit its citizens.
Let me add that this is opposed to the World Bank's solution, which is to simply throw cash at governments, while trying to impose rules that keep them from confiscating capital. This replaces voluntary investments, where capitalists would be making sure their assets were used in the most effective ways, with involuntary investments (of tax revenues, yours and mine no less) that the government has no personal interest in protecting. And then they wonder why their intervention flops.
Please, before posting your rambling manifestos about the vile evils that abound in a future of globalization, do a little research and try and see both sides of the argument.
Here's a quick history lesson. England's empire was built with the idea that raw materials (cotton, sugar, spices, ores) would be cheaply exported from its colonies back to the homeland by a group of powerful corporations (such as the hated "East India Company" whose tea was dumped over board in Boston harbor). To this end it forbid/discouraged the manufacture of these resources domestically. So no cotton was weaved in the states but raw cotton was sent to England, and if you wanted to buy a shirt you'd have to import it from there. Moreover, farmers in America (and later colonies) had to sell their crops to chartered conglomerates who controlled prices, and when they placed orders for manufactured goods, they had little control about the price or quality of what was shipped to them. Washington once ordered a carriage, and by the time it arrived, he opened a door and the whole door came off in his hand. Many people were very pissed and had a revolution.
Immediately afterwards, large tarrifs and sometimes embargoes were passed so that the states could develop their own industries. That is how the US developed. In the industrial revolution, especially. There was lots of cronyism, but it was aimed towards the native conglomerates as opposed to the foreign ones. Carnegie went to Europe where the Bessemer process for smelting steel had just been invented and when he returned to the states, congress passed high tariffs against european steel. Carnegie then began to build native steel plants, married the daughter of the secretary of the Navy, and another "self-made" billionaire was born. We got a steel navy and lots of factory jobs out of the deal. So, a lot of cronyism, but directed at national interests, helped to develop our economy. Another example: England banned Indian textiles because it couldn't compete on price, then they conquered the country, burned down all the cotton "gins", cut the thumbs of the home-weavers, and reimported massive amounts of cotton back home. Then, and _only_ then, did they proclaim the need for "open" markets. Wars were similarly fought to "open" china. You do your own research.
So the story is the same. All countries which have _ever_ developed _any_ industry have done it with large govt. subsidy as well as a protective wall of tarrifs. I challenge you to cite just _one_ example of this not happening (wheras I have cited several examples when this did happen). The examples of the Asian tigers, as well as china, shows this playing out in the 20th century. Those nations which followed a "neoliberal" process have all ended up in shambles. Before nafta, 25% of mexico lived below the poverty line. That figure is now 50%. You can look at Indonesia, central america, brazil, the congo for more examples.
Now, we (the US) are doing the same thing to much of the third world that England has done to us:
We forbid or overthrow their govts. if they try to control their own resources (i.e. Iran nationalizing the foreign imposed oil "company" which has a monopoly on extracting oil, or Zaire taking the diamond monopoly from DeBeers, etc.)
We try to prevent them from raising tarrifs to protect their own industries (like the US forced on Japanese automakers, or the steel example citied above, or the ban on mexican tomatoes we had just a few years ago, or the current tarrifs against lamb from new zealand).
We punish those (foreigners) who subsidize their domestic companies. Note that the US still gives many billions to _our_ farmers, accounting for about half of median farm-owners' incomes. US corps pay only 10% of govt. expenditures. Recall the bailouts of chrysler or the many subsidies that we pour into high-tech sectors and aerospace. The 70 billion we're giving US comapanies now because of 9/11 is another example of this double standard.
The above are the policies. We don't have colonies such as Britain, but we enforce these policies on the rest of the world through our military (we put "our guys" in power) in some cases and purely institutional pressures in other cases:
IP laws allow us to monopolize key technologies.
Large syndicates such as cargill engage in price-fixing for many raw materials.
the "loans" US taxpayers send to third world dictators (many of whom we've put in power) make the third world reliant on us and institutions such as the IMF. In order to get more loans to cover the interest, we force them to engage in the economically suicidal practices cited above, thereby insuring that they will remain dependant on future loans, and so not develop independent economic policies.
free flow of foreign capital ensures that investments flee at the first sign of economic nationalism.
One significant difference is that while England assembled the raw materials at home which provided more higher paying jobs and gave birth to their middle class, modern conglomerates use the sweatshops in the third world. These are far from "heavy handed" laws such as minimum wage and environmental protection. So that we in the US don't even get the benefits that the British got 150 years ago.
This is why many oppose "globalization" as it's practiced today. It has nothing to do with trade and comparative advantage. It's just the modern version of the East India Company wrecking havoc on both our own country and on the third world.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
In most cases the loans were made for political reasons, to buy influence in the cold war. They were made in the full knowledge that the criminals running the country that nominaly received the loan would steal most if not all of the money.
Banks don't lend money to companies run by crooks because they know that they risk loosing their capital. However when they loan money to a government the loan is in effect underwritten by the people of that country.
Meanwhile several of the banks that are demanding the repayment of the loans are the same banks that helped the dictators steal the money and are currently keeping it safe for them in hidden accounts.
One of the checks and balances of capitalism is that you lose your money if you make a bad investment. The old adage is still true, if you owe the bank a thousand dollars you have a problem, if you owe the bank a million dollars the bank has a problem, if you owe the bank a billion dollars you own the bank. All the third world debtor countries are doing is using the legitimate leverage of owing a vast sum of money. If the banks did not want to be exposed to that threat they should have exercised more care in their lending decisions.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I think what bothers me to NO end about Jon Katz' views is the very fact that he wants a return to provincialism.
This, IMHO, is an extremely stupid idea. All this does is create xenophobia, and you know that leads to too many ugly wars in human recorded history.
Maybe Katz needs to read three books by Alvin Toffler--Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift. Toffler's views on the rapidly changing world are some of the MOST insightful I've ever read.
Indeed, The Third Wave rightfully predicted that changes in technology will cause all kinds of changes to the world. The very existance of the Internet has meant political views drowned out in the daily newspapers and television networks in the past are being heard. Why do you think political web sites catering to almost every political group are springing up on the Internet like mushrooms after a rainstorm? The Third Wave also predicted that multinational corporations will quickly change to adopt to new conditions; look at how General Electric is so amazingly successful in everything from jet engines all the way to corporate financing.
What Jon Katz is talking about are groups of small, but very visible people trying to turn back the Third Wave of change to humanity; in the longer run, these groups too will have to adapt to this new reality.
One of the best ways to put these people out of power is not to loan them huge amounts of money which go into arms used to control the local population, and into swiss bank accounts to guarantee the well-being of these leaders.
For all our armchair quarterbacking, it's damn hard to overthrow a well-armed tyranny. And on those rare occasions when it happens, the victors should have the option of building a new stable government. Instead, the first thing that greets the new government is an IMF/World Bank kneecapper, coming to collect the money that the bank foolishly (and unethically) loaned to some tinpot dictator. When the new government can't pay, the IMF either destroys that country's credit (and ability to exist), or forces them to get rid of pesky things like the minimum wage, or child labor laws, in order to a) pay back the accumulating debt that they never agreed to take on, and b) make things cheaper for the West.
Dontcha think it's incumbent on the bank who made the loan to insure that the regime to which they're lending money is stable, and likely to invest it in ways that will pay them back? Or that they should bear a certain amount of responsibility (and risk) if it doesn't happen?
then the real fun begins... we export the sales, too.
When was the big growth in America? During the 50's, when no one had the toys.
Who currently doesn't have the toys? Third-world nations that are going first-world.
Where will the big markets be in the near future? India and China.
What will happen? First, product manufacturing goes to those nations. Cheap labour. Second, sales go to those nations: newly-wealthy population wanting the toys they've been making. Third: America goes TitsUp.Com, because no one here is making money (the jobs fled) and no one here can buy toys cheaply (the sales fled).
Whoo-hoo! What fuN!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I'm all for doing good things that are right. The US government should probably do more, but frankly, a LOT of money is given away purely as aid. If you still want to borrow money from the US government, that's fine, but that doesn't mean all debts should always be forgiven. The concept of blanket debt forgiveness is silly, it will just encourage more terrible borrowing and lending practices. I fail to see how this could be a good thing.
I read the Katz article and I am at a loss as to what the actual point was. Is he for/against multinationals? What does this have to do with our current war, recession, or the troubles in Caladonia?
Beware the wood elf!!!
Would you really want to deny people in the 3rd world a chance to move ahead far more quickly than America ever did?
Do you call Nike's sweatshops and government assisted oppression of attempts to break them "moving ahead far more quickly than America ever did?"
Yup. They are moving along faster. Nobody said they got to skip steps. Nike is a good example of this. They have to keep moving sweat shops to more and more primitive countries. In the 60's it was "made in Japan". Now it's *way* to expensive to manufacture things in Japan. Cheap labor moved to Korea, got too expensive, moved to Malaysia (where it still is AFAIK). I think Korea got through the most brutish part of the industrial revolution a lot faster than the US or UK did.
Sure they still have some sweatshops in places like Korea, but so do we. Some of the worlds worst sweatshops are 1/2 hour from me in downtown LA's jewelry and garment districts. Overall and over the long term it's more positive than negative. The people working in those sweatshops (excluding the outright slaves) are there because they think it's the best way, for right now, for them to get ahead and make a better life for their children. In a lot of cases they are probably right.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Thus my contention is that it isn't free trade that will "save the world", but equitable trade -- for example, that allows a well run farm in Iowa to get a fair price for his products without requiring that a well run farm in France go out of business.
Well, here is the point, while people are running socialist-supported farms in Iowa and France, people in Africa who could be farming are living in squalid poverty because of trade barriers.
Infact, people in France have the "gaul" to complain about globalization when it is these trade barriers that are keeping an incredible trade in foodstuffs from Africa to Europe from happening. Screw them!
Maybe the people in Iowa and France should go work doing infosecurity or something. Why the hell should our tax dollars go to support inefficient family farms? We don't support the family automobile maker any more.
A relative of mine built a plastic bag company in El Salvador from the ground up. Now that the damn government there has finally woken up to the fact that it is good for him to export, he's able to expand and hire workers. These people would be toiling in the fields or just walking around San Salvador aimlessly if it wasn't for his factory.
Most anti-globalists have no clue about business or economics. Profit is good for everyone, it means that value is being created.
Every economic exchange is positive, it means that both sides are getting something more from the deal. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen.
The IMF does not work this way. The IMF demands that sovereign countries send their annual budget and other fiscal policies to the IMF before they are announced, so they can be vetted for "conformance".
For instance, the IMF does not lend money to countries if they intend using the money to improve their education infrastructure (the governments believing that investing in education today is far better than investing for short term gains). There are cases where the World Bank was willing to lend to a country but couldn't because the IMF would not give that country a good credit rating for the simple reason that the government in that country did not check with the IMF before implementing a recent fiscal policy.
The biggest participant in the IMF is the US. The US government policies are largely decided by what big corporations want. Guess whom the IMF helps with its loans to poor countries?
How would you like to gift away your control over your life to a lender even though you were dirt poor but believed you had a way to climb out of that poverty by yourself with a loan from a willing lender?
I agree with your comment that there are simply not enough raw materials ON EARTH for these things. One more reason it's past time to enlarge the pie. Jovian planets are basically *made* of hydrocarbons, many asteriods are big hunks of decent grade metals, etc, etc.
PS: figuring in exponential growth we don't have the recources to live like starving peasants either.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Power should never be THAT consolidated. If there is one lesson that is proven time and again throughout the history of mankind, it is that power corrupts man.
We shouldn't be allowing SO much power to conglomerate in the hands of so few people. It's far too dangerous.
Plain and simple.
It's amazing how many American and European bourgeois here know what's best for the third world. Have you even ever visited a third world country, beyond the Club Med's if they had one? If not, I wouldn't have the chutzpah to open my mouth and pontificate on what they do or do not need. If you want to know, ask the democratic people's organizations in these places and they'll tell you.
c .a ctivism.progressive
One funny thing in reading all of the replies are the the people in the high-rated posts on this thread complaining that people in the third world are whiny for complaining about not getting bathroom breaks and that "if 'they' don't want third world debt, DON'T BORROW IT", plus many other posts derogatory of people who live in third world countries. So this is the attitude of the people who are _supporting_ globalization? The "fuck 'em, we're just going to globalize them"? Well, with that kind of attitude, and the provocative US army bases around the world (in Guantanemo Bay, Okinawa, Saudi Arabia, Vieques, Germany etc. etc.), you can't be surprised at the sometimes violent reaction people have to that kind of imperialism and colonialism.
Speaking of bathroom breaks and people talking about the "efficiency of the marketplace" ruling supreme, you are truly living in a fantasy world. The main problem is not bathroom breaks, the main problem is that people who advocate organizing unions in these countries are KILLED. Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, anywhere you see big corporations (Nike, Shell etc.) you'll see a lot of dead labor activists. So please include the caveat "efficient markets, which means killing labor leaders once in a while" in your analysis. If you want to read some stories, go to
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=mis
and type something like "labor killed". You'll get lots of wonderful stories about corporate efficiency from around the world.
This is NOT democracy. Killing labor organizers is not democracy. It happened regularly in the US and Europe until about the 1930's when the NLRB was created to mediate corporate/labor disputes and other measures. Some of these so-called democracies have labor leaders killed regularly.
I can't explain the whole anti-globalization movement in a short post, so I'll get to the money borrowing. So "they" borrowed the money but "they" don't want to pay it back, huh? Are you sure the people who the money was lent to are the ones being asked to re-pay it? I'm not. How was the money given to them, was it divided up evenly among the population? Was it used to build and improve roads in rural areas? You've got to be kidding me. The money was handed over from the bourgeois of the US and Europe to the bourgeois of third world countries. Who knows what they did with it, they didn't spend it to improve the lot of the majority of the country, that's for sure. That's who's being asked to pay for it now though. The World Bank plan for repaying debt is simply to "globalize" the country. First, utilities like water, electricity, railroads etc. are privatized, another word for handing control of them to foreign corporations. Taxes are raised, social welfare is cut in order to repay the debt. Laws which allow labor unions and the like are ordered by the WTO to be revoked in order to allow a "flexible workplace".
"THE GLOBAL military reach of the US, with the support of its allies, is the flip side of the power of the multinational corporations that have spread their tentacles across the world. Former US State Department official Francis Fukuyama wrote in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center, "Microsoft or Goldman Sachs will not send aircraft carriers to the Gulf to track down Osama Bin Laden-only the US military will."
The multinationals, powerful states and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are locked together in maintaining the capitalist system. That system means that every day 19,000 children die in the Third World from undernourishment and disease caused by debt repayments to the bankers. Their deaths are no more accidental than were the deaths in Manhattan.
Presiding over the system that kills them are a few hundred multinationals and a few hundred billionaires. The business magazine Forbes published a list of 482 billionaires. It shows that the top 200 of them have $1.1 trillion of assets. The top three have the equivalent wealth of the 48 poorest countries.
The wealth of these individuals depends on their ownership of shares in the great corporations. Today some 200 multinationals, run by a few hundred super-rich people and a few thousand more rich hangers-on, have a combined turnover equal to more than a quarter of the world's output. The five biggest multinationals, run by perhaps 40 people, have greater output than the Middle East and Africa combined, and twice the output of all of South Asia. The few individuals at the top make decisions about what is produced, who has jobs, where money moves and who is consigned to poverty. That affects the lives of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people.
Most of the billionaires and most of the biggest multinationals are based in the US. They are not typical of people in the US as a whole. Some 60 percent of families in the US have seen no increase in their real incomes since the mid-1970s, despite a rise in the number of family members working and an increase in the average working year of over 160 hours. One in eight Americans now live below the poverty line, and nearly 45 million are without health insurance.
By contrast the CEOs (top bosses) of large companies have seen their wealth rocket. They got 42 times as much as the average factory worker in 1980. According to Business Week, by 1990 they were getting 85 times as much, and by 1998 it was 419 times as much.
It is these people who determine the polices of US governments, whether Republican or Democrat. They financed the bulk of the $3 billion spent on the last presidential election campaign. The links run deeper. They provide most of the members of US government cabinets. Through them they determine both US military policy and the behaviour of bodies such as the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.
That's why we have seen the monstrous growth of US military power alongside the widening grip of the multinationals and the imposition of neo-liberal policies, which in the Third World especially have brought so much destruction. Forty percent of sub-Saharan Africa's population-that's 290 million people-live in absolute poverty, on less than $1 (70p) a day.
Bush's "crusade" is designed to increase still further the power of those who are responsible for such obscenities. It will make it easier for the IMF and World Bank to impose Structural Adjustment Programs on weaker countries, which will face US military might if they refuse to comply. It will strengthen the hand of the multinationals. As Thomas Friedman, a journalist close to the US State Department, said a decade ago, "The hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US army, air force, navy and marine corps."
This system which kills even when it is supposedly at peace and constantly generates war is not new. A century ago it became known as imperialism. That word fits today. The drive for global economic and military dominance plunged the world into two world wars last century. It lay behind the countless interventions by great powers, protecting the interests of their corporations, in weaker countries.
That is why the struggle to oppose wars has always been linked to the struggle against the capitalist system that has now brought us a new imperialism - bigger corporations, more obscene weapons, more wars, and greater inequality across the globe.
The protests outside summit meetings of the G8 or the IMF are what most people think of as the anti-capitalist movement. But those demonstrations are linked to another movement - the series of mass strikes against the IMF and its policies. Here the list is as long as it is for the demonstrations. It includes Argentina, Brazil, Zambia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nigeria, South Africa, Honduras, Paraguay, Bolivia, Mexico and more.
What unites all these movements is hatred of the present murderous setup and a signpost towards something better. It is a protest against the people who will stop at nothing to maintain the flow of profit, the people who are comfortable with a world where 19,000 children die every day because of the debt system. It is a cry of rage against the fact that 900 million people are malnourished while the world's richest 200 people have doubled their wealth in the last five years. It is a defiant insistence that another world is possible, and necessary. We can have cooperation, peace and wealth enough for everyone's needs if there is genuine democratic control from below of global wealth and resources."
Excerpted from here.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The people/organizations that set the rules will set them in such a way that they benefit themselves. They may, or may not, also help someone else. Usually they do. At least their friends.
Evil? No, not really. But it can O But Definitely take forms that are a long stretch short of desireable to me, and to those that I tend to identify with. But evil isn't scheming for advantage for your side. Evil is scheming to put the other guy down without regard to whether or not it helps you. (As Good is scheming to help them, without counting whether or not it helps you.)
Good and Evil are rare. They happen, but immorality (e.g., scheming for one's own benefit without counting the cost to others) is much more common. And Globalism as practiced by big business seems to be definitely immoral by this definition.
This doesn't mean that all people will find the effects vile. (Even evil intentions can only occasionally accomplish that.) But it definitely means that there's a good chance that more than 50% of all people will be disadvantaged by any particular plan that these forces put into action. And after this happens a few times, one doesn't wait to figure out whether or not this time will be beneficial. An automatic check response is much quicker and safer. (They never conspire in your favor!)
Quick check: Sight unseen, and without reading the license: Would you buy a new product from Microsoft?
But Microsoft has a better track record than many of the WTC members. And that's why there are protests.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
He mentions that a globalist economy could be the only way to save the world from poverty and environmental problems.
I can not agree. A globalist economy is not an economy made for the entire world, it is an economy based on controlling the entire world. The corporations (and some national states (don't wanna mention any...)) have understood this and covers their hunger for profit behind a shell: "we just want to make the world one again, remove borders and so on."
I agree that if we're going to remove poverty and really do something about environmental issues, we need to think globally. Each nation cannot, any longer, be held responsible for its poverty or environmental problems.
But letting the corporations, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank and the richest nations control this development is actually a step towards the exact opposite than those goals. This will lead to even greater poverty - and uncontrollable destruction of nature.
If the companies get more power, wages will decrease, not increase. If the companies get more power, they will cut more trees today
(money today is more worth than money tomorrow).
Companies are made simply to earn money, not to take care of any poor people or Mother Nature. Remember that. We, the people of the world, must take control of its development. We cannot leave it to the politicians, the governments or the companies.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
The Economist piece is worth reading, the economist usually is worth reading, Kats is usually not worth reading. So lets pretend that we just had a link to the articles in the Economist, BBC, etc. etc.
I have very little sympathy with either side of the slashdot 'debate'. The liberweenie 'corporations are the absolute good' view is infantile. Equally infantile is the 'corporations are absolute evil view'. These are not two poles of the argument, they are actually the same argument which really has more to do with the ego of the person making the statement. There really is no difference between most of the Libertarians, Trotskyites or 'anti-globalists', any more than there is a difference between different varieties of religious bigott. All beliefs in absolute revealled truth are bogus and as Karl Popper pointed out are the enemies of the open society.
The policies of the third world countries are no different at the topmost level of abstraction than those of the West, their priority is to do the best for their country. To that end various ideological dogmas may be used as rhetoric, the reality is for the most part more pragmatic.
Immediately after the second world war the whole of the West was a command economy. There was simply no other alternative, if the war was to be won 40% of the GNP had to be redirected towards military spending. The US was no different to Europe in this, the only rhetorical difference was that the word 'socialism' was never used.
It took the West something like 20 years to dismantle most of the command economy. A command economy is only efficient in the short term and then for only very narrow short term goals.
The leaders of the third world are not the morons that many posters appear to believe. Empirically it takes a lot more brains to become the leader of the average Third world or post-communist european country than President of the US.
There is no real disagreement that the ideal for the third world would be to establish a free market system supported by a modern idustrial base. The problem is that you can't get there by simply declaring your country to be a free market. You have to achieve a certain level of prosperity before the surplus capital is available to make the free market work.
Last month the US government gave its airline industry a $15 billion government handout. The 'stimulus' (i.e. pork) bill that just passed the house gives $25 billion in backdated tax cuts to large corporations, in particular Texan oil companies. It is therefore somewhat rich for the US to go preaching the wonders of the free market.
The third world has been complaining about the vast cost of AIDs drugs for five years. The US has been insisting that the rights of the patent holders come before the lives of Aids victims in the third world. But when the US and Canada decide that they need to build a stockpile of Cipro the threat of voiding Bayer's patent rights is made within days.
Before the war on terror Unilateralism was the policy of the day. The Bush administration did not think it needed foreign support. The US army could crush any other and the ABM shield would shortly eliminate any threat of nuclear blackmail. To the extent the US had a foreign policy it was determined by campaign contribution bribes.
Now the world is very different. The US suddenly needs friends in places it did not care existed. The national interest is suddenly more important than the narrow corporate interest.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
One thing many people fail to asses is that the anti-globalist organisation is in fact violence free in it's essence. Much like Marxism you could say, it stands for a general awakening, a reveille the french say, of just common sense. It wants to bring back the power to the consumer, and restore the balance of power, in favour to the people instead of to the companies. One could remark that there is probably nothing more beautifull to the movement than a new-born fight to regain the rights and 'values' of the people. In fact, the anti-globalist's movement is a global movement around the world. There is nothing anti-global to it. It's like greanpeace and the WWF.
Of course, what happened in Milan and Helsinki is not what the movement is about. Those events were programmed by trouble-makers that seized the opportunity to pick a fight and express their general malcontentcy, while remaining virtually incognito under the unfamiliar umbrella of so many other unknown organisations that meant no harm, except to the present system.
You could say that, in many regards, Bin Laden has used the political and econmical structures of financial power to his advantage, and the globalists were (and are) warning against exactly that kind of a system, where sense of the word 'control' is taboo'd, except when it's about people's consumer behaviours. If you hold meetings between steel barred fences about economical issues and there's a crowd yelling outside, I get can't help but think about a book written a long time ago, which was perceived as groundbreaking and very important at it's time, called 'Brave New World'. Have we simply forgotten our arts and sciences, our good common sense? Have we morphed into brainless consumers that are addicted to TV's and MacDonnalds more than anything else? Does everybody just care about anything but our family and our job and hollidays? If we care about tomorrow's world, the world our children have to deal with, then in my opinion it would simply be totally irresponsible to the 'just stick with your own life is good enough for me' attitude. Granted, there's not much you can do, but a positive attitude is worth much more than you can possibly imagine. And that positive attitude, that anger about what's wrong with the world, that calling for change, is what the globalists are truely about.
Democracy's spread has now in fact created a bloody confrontation with fundamentalism, a holy war. Both sides refer to one another in evil blasphemers. Lost in this confrontation is the idea that Democracy isn't only about multi-national markets, cheap labor and business opportunities...[..]
This probably the most horendous statement in this provocative and therefor worthless assessment of Mr. John Katz, who I normally do not disrespect at all. In case Katz had fallen asleep, the war is firstly not against fundamentalism, but against terrorism. If the war is against fundamentalism, why don't we start arresting Amish people, Christian Tv networks and more of this kind of shit first.. I mean, if the war is against fundamentalism, then the war is against a kind of patriotism that does happen to be in line with the kind of patriotism US citizens stand for. And who are we to draw a line for the good and bad, who are we to proclaim a culture better or worse than the other. Katz rethori is intentionally provocative, and he wants discussion on topics that are indeed important, but by relentlessly draggin attention to these issues, people get even more black/white and you end up with the very fundamentalism we are supposed to be at war with. Sorry John no hard feelings. Next time, do one better for me.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
..is against a kind of patriotism that does happen to be in line with the kind of patriotism US citizens stand for.
Ahem, I meant "..a kind of patriotism that does NOT happen to be in line with etc.. ". Sorry if I offended the US with this, the opposite sentence is not as offensive but it does adequately depict the issue that the US is kind-of playing policeman in the world and is obliging other countries to stick to it's rules, it's judgement of right and wrong. And that, imho, is wrong. I wouldn't vote for that.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
What economical value do those local cultures have? Little to none (outside the simple folklore market). Hence their decline in the face of globalization. Does it mean they're not worth protecting?
They are worth protecting, but the protection has to come from within - how can you protect a culture when the children don't want to stay within it anymore? Are you going to place the culture in an enclosed zoo and keep all outside communication from it?
I am an individual because of my own choices. If an Afgani lifestyle started spreading I would care just as much as if, say, a Care Bare/Pokemon/Harry Potter lifestyle spread across the country - I'd continue to do whatever I do, though I might be sad if all you could buy was Kefir instead of milk.
I'm not saying I don't want to see other cultures preserved, I just don't think I can or should do that for them.
As for the cheap/commodity argument - I think that's only partly right. People either go for price, or they go for quality. The shops that get creamed by ultra-low priced things are those offering a product that is not as well priced but also not of great quality.
I see a lot of custom shops doing pretty well even now, seeling things like hand-made paper that I COULD buy elsewhere but not get nearly the same quality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They certainly aren't doing okay embracing whatever they're embracing now. And I don't even mean our attacks; It's been ten years since the Russians left, and nobody can claim Afghanistan prospered. Instead, competing factions tore the country apart until the Taliban came in.
A good counter-example is the Korean war, whch destroyed South Korean infrastructure. The South Koreans got up, dusted themselves off and went to work in a capitalistic, export-oriented style. The result: A rich nation.
Name a nation rendered worse off due to development of a free economy, and I might be willing to pay more attention. Would Afghanistan have been better off if it had put its effort into making things others want instead of factional fighting? You tell me, but the answer seems obvious.
D
It is good to know you were incapable of comprehending my post since, if you had comprehended it, you almost certainly would have committed suicide, and that would have been a tragic waste of a potential bottle corker.
Seastead this.
Sounds great. In fact, it sounds like the early Wired Magazine manifestos about the Net, some of which I wrote.
That is just perfect...it really does show how much JonKatz knows about what he is talking about. I was looking at the predictions of the future in cover stories of the wired magazines in the last few years, and without exception, they are so far off base it is hilarious.
For example, the huge breakthrough push technology was going to be, the proclaimation in March 2000 that the market is hotter than ever, and the cover story on how great Loudcloud is going to be. Hilarity ensues on every cover story!
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Dress up as Native Americans and destroy private property on board several ships in Boston Harbor?
Stage a demonstration in Berlin, Germany that ultimately leads to the total destruction of a multi-billion dollar piece of public property?
Oh what the hell... If our democtratic governments want to be up front about what they're doing in those closed rooms, instead of keeping all negotiation details secret (from their own citizens!!)... Then I'm sure you won't have people (peacefully) protesting, and the idiots and anarchists that generally plague large peaceful protests won't have any place to go.
But what the hell... If it's legal and it's being carried out by our governments, it must be in our interest, I suppose.
Guaranteed loans are similiar to what the IMF and International Bank does: Guarantee loans to bad risks. Our own agribusiness government organizations do the same: guarantee loans to bad risks.
Not to change subjects, but look at it this way: you have a farmer. He runs a farm. He does ok. If the government didn't screw him by setting the maximum price he could sell his goods, he'd do better. His farm makes a small profit. He wants to buy some more land, so he gets a loan. A bank says yes, because he's solvent. Now to buy land.
When he goes to look at land prices, he sees they are higher than what they should be. Why? Because the government guaranteed a whole bunch of loans to farmers who were BAD credit risks to banks because they failed. These farmers get the loans primarily to buy land and more hardware. So the land prices go up (supply and demand). When this idiot farmer defaults on the loan, the government says "Well look! He really needed the money!" and gives him more, much to the chagrin of the profitable farmer.
Thesame is true in the airline industry. If the banks wouldn't loan them money, why should the taxpayers be forced to finance these loans? They are BAD CREDIT RISKS.
Imagine if United and American did go bankrupt. Maybe 2 or 3 smart individuals could buy up portions and form their own airlines. The best of the employees would find jobs at the new airlines or at other ones. The bad employees who were protected by union rules would be out of work, as it should be. 2 or 3 newer airlines can compete much better because they don't have the loss and government-like attitude of the huge corporation.
We all know that guaranteed loans are always used. In many cases (IMF, agribusiness, etc), many of them also end up in default, and we foot the bill. UNACCEPTABLE.
That is an excellent point. I am a Libertarian, but I am primarily a libertarian. There is a difference. Big "L" means affiliated with the LP. Since I feel the are the most pronounced libertarian political party in the states, I joined them. Its very easy to see that most libertarians agree with one another on the general points of everything political. The minute points though are always a cause to work through.
I am a pretty hardcore libertarian: the less government the better. I believe that the founding fathers were right, and they debated very heavily. I've read those debates. I saw our country grow faster than any other during a period of least government intervention. As the government proceeded to intervene, we would see slow downs 5, 10, 20 years later, that could be correlated to those interventions.
I believe that copyright is protected for 7 years. I also believe that fair use is still protected as well. The additional 7 years is there if you want to extend it. It sickens me that I can not make a better Star Wars story. It sickens me that I can not play old records in public without still paying a license fee.
As for the same flaws as socialism, I believe you are wrong there. Socialism has proven itself wrong, time and again. The only time we had a pseudo-libertarian country was in the first 90 years or so of our country. Slavery was a problem, but all the research I've done shows that slavery was dying even before the Civil War. That's a whole other topic. I believe that we have proven that the socialism we use in the States has failed us. It doesn't work. So what can we do? Make everyone responsible for their actions. Make every child realize that grandma doesn't live an easy life because she didn't save her money. Make every child realize that aunt Helen lives in a smelly apartment because she was too lazy to work. Make every child realize that once you have helped yourself, only then are you able to help others. We have so many problems that I believe are directly linked to people believing the government can save them, protect them, support them, when in fact the government has never proven it can do even one of those things for its citizens.
Private charities and organizations are the only ones getting anything done in this country it seems. Governemnt charities and organizations fail every step of the way.
What can we lose if we try one libertarian idea. Let's start by ending the drug war. Or how about ending all corporate welfare entirely. Or how about getting the government out of health care entirely. Or on and on. Try one thing. Immediately. Repeal repeal repeal. And see if it works. I think it will. I don't have faith in YOU or anyone else, but I have faith that MY life will be better.
And that is what life is about -- ME taking responsibility for MY actions, and when I do well, I can say _I_ did it. And when I fail, I can look back, figure out what I did wrong, and try again, until I succeed.
Just because you can't attach an explicit monetary value to it doesn't mean that it doesn't or shouldn't have economic value. It has economic value just like a piece of land has economic value. There is no intrinsic value in either. The lands worth is determined by what society is willing to pay for it. Similarly, the value of the language is determined by its participants. e.g., How much of their time are they willing to learn to speak it? If the locals and no one else choose to continue learning or speaking it, then I WOULD argue it's simply not WORTH the trouble. (e.g., if they must learn language X instead of english and thus miss out of opportunity)
A language is just a bunch of sounds that people understand to have common meaning. While it is true that some people may have a certain emotional attachment to those particular sounds, learning and speaking it has a real COST (time and effort). We should allow people to determine for themselves how they want to weigh the relative worth of their pursuits (e.g., this language), rather than forcing it on them.
I assert that if it reaches such a point, it is the greater good. If your "cultural" lifestyle demands that your entire country misses out on the opportunity to enjoy a higher quality of life (or rather, in most cases, a QUALITY life...as in somewhere approaching or exceeding a subsistence lifestyle), then it probably is not worth the trouble. Let the free market decide rather than trying to impliment some archaic and overly complex top-down system; it's far more democratic.
What you suggest is that a small minority's preference to maintain their culture should override the majority's preferences. That is simply ridiculous.
The article in my opinion does not have all the facts but I have to expect that. But what bugs me is how all these protesters are worried about the corporation taking over when it has been shown that for the last 20 years of globalization it has improved the world we live in today. Take a look at the book The Skeptical Enviromentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. He worked with Greenpeace and when he heard some American Conservative state that world has become a better place because of globalization he couldn't believe it.
What he ended up doing was take all the research that he could find to disprove this American and instead found that because of globalization the number of people who are poor is less than would be believed, that the enviroment in the last 20 years has improved, and that they are more countries that are richer today than they ever were.
Dr. Lomborg uses data that is available to everyone but no one uses data they get emotional - mainly tired of seeing all those poor kids in Africa starving to death is that because of globalization or because civil war where one Totalitarian Ruler is deposed for another.
If you really want to know the state of the world today go to Amazaon.com and pick up this book. You'll find that globalzation is the answer and the next time someone says that they are too many poor people in the world tell them that it's a lot less than 20 years ago and that because of globalization it'll get better.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
a) forced artificially (ie. dumping milk in rivers, letting tons of grain rot on the ground)
or b) by creating new needs out of thin air for which there is low supply for.
Market theories are meaningless when gigantic corporations can manipulate supply and demand.
FYI, nobody needs "half of 2000-2500 calories a day from meat". The production of meat is the most environmentally destructive and wasteful industrialized process going on in the planet. Did you know it takes 20 times as much land to feed X people with meat as it does with vegetables/grains? That's a waste of resources! The Earth is not overpopulated. Starvation is a problem of distribution, not production. The US grows enough grain to feed the world 5 times over but do you know where most of that grain goes? To pigs and cows! And after that, we Americans throw away 40% of the perfectly edible food we produce for ourselves. (go behind Burger King after the dinner rush and you'll find garbage bags full of warm, ready-to-eat whoppers)
As far as VCR's TV's and so forth: we can easily make enough for everyone who wants one but if they were priced so that everyone could afford them, nobody could make a profit! Jet ski and yacht? Who the hell owns these luxury items but the rich? Do they use these things all year round? Why can't they share?
Use your imagination. Imagine a world without capitalist values. Now imagine a world with authoritarian values as well.
[pink beam of light]
...the idea of imposing global solutions on local problems is inherently stupid.
Open Source applies local solutions to global problems, and what do you know? ``Global'' solutions fall out of the results with no extra effort.
A solution to poverty which works well in one African village may not work well in the next, but may also work well for a particular Chinese (or for that matter Australian or German) community.
One way or another, globalism would have them all use the same solutions - good bad or ugly. This has two nasty effects; firstly, resources and goodwill are wasted trying to jam an inappropriate solution down relatively helpless local throats (en passant, making the solutions impalatable to communities for which they would otherwise have worked well); secondly, local solutions which would be effective elsewhere are extinguished.
Now, looking back on that, haven't I just described Open Source versus Microsoft?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I don't have to lecture you on the problems of large government. I fact, I can see that you see the merit of no government at all. However, the problem lies with the fact that you believe that the profit motive is the best thing for society.
Here's a news flash for you: values based on the pursuit of profit do not a good society make.
You may think that naturally capitalism will lead to a loose "network" of industries, small producers interacting on small scales. Anyone can start a business, right? Unfortunately there's this thing called "difference" as in one person is a bit different from another person. Perhaps it's because of geographic advantage, or perhaps it's from just brains, but one business is doing better than the others. So they succeed. They expand horizontally and vertically and establish themselves as a primary agent. Doesn't have to be a monopoly, and nothing's inherently "evil" about it, but a thorough materialistic analysis of the system of capitalism reveals that it is inevitable that the rhizomatic network of small businesses gives rise to hierarchies of corporations and individuals.
The State is a hierarchical organization, no matter how "democratic" it may claim to be. As long as a State or similar bully exists to coerce people do X, it is authoritarian. Any hierarchy inherently gives rise to the cycle of power and maintainance of power. As Foucault said, "Power only serves to make sure that power exists." The existence of any hierarchy means power politics, and thus somebody is getting stepped on.
Anti-capitalist demonstrators are attacking the SYMBOLS of institutionalized neoliberalism, meta-corporations paid for and wielded by the multinationals. The argument that "anti-globalization" protestors are isolationist is a straw man. They are against capitalism and for mutual aid. Many of them are against the State as it exists today or even (in my case) against the idea of a centralized (arbolic) State.
Oh, don't listen to me, I'm just an anarchist -- my opinion doesn't matter, I guess! Everything I've said is just baseless propagandizing! Don't even bother looking into the points because I'm just a dumb black-clad kid listening to angry music!
8^P
[pink beam of light]
It's a good thing that I don't give a damn about karma. Lets me laugh at the ratings.
Best Slashdot Co
So when you're talking about "forgiving third world debt", are you talking about the rich countries declaring that money they've indirectly given to their own arms dealers or poured down other ratholes to be bad debt? Or are you talking about governments in rich countries using tax money to pay off bankers for risky business investments? Or are you talking about bankers in rich countries who made loans for legitimate business activities that looked like there was some chance of being paid back becoming forbidden (by either their own or the third-world country's government) to collect from the borrowers if the business projects were successful? The latter kind of debt forgiveness would be the kiss of death for any third-world business (small or large) trying to get access to capital to expand their business, which would be a really bad thing for the world economy. The others are variations on governments conspiring to rip off taxpayers in both countries; your choice on that.
But if the third-world government wants to borrow more money, which they will, is that something you want to encourage?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
As a matter of fact, Somalia, while still digging itself out of the ashes of the past conflicts, is experiencing an enormous influx of venture capital. Should the government they eventually settle on keep out of economic affairs, it could become quite a powerhouse.
A better example would be Hong Kong. With little taxation and regulation hanging over their heads, companies based in Hong Kong became the center of the entire Far East economy, and was still growing in influence when the 1997 deadline rolled by and China took over. Now that Beijing is failing to resist sticking its fingers into the pot of honey, things aren't looking quite so up.
ROFL
That was just plain hysterical. I just followed the link to your reference about libertarians being hypocrites...
Most of those people who diametrically oppose libertarianism cite studies and statistics that either deliberately mislead, or outright lie; but that link, that takes the cake.
On the one hand the hypocrite says:
One facet of lassez-faire economics is that "capital goes where it is respected and appreciated." If a country's government promises that investments won't be stolen or confiscated, and backs up those oaths, then investments will be made and industry will develop.
and on the other he says:
someone, or a group of someones, owns a chunk of property, they must provide for its defense all by themselves. While private companies specializing in providing that defense as a service might spring up, they wouldn't be government.
In the former persona "industry will develop" is, somehow, compensation in the contract between government and business. However, since there can be no valid contract in the absence of an exchange of value how, exactly, is "the government" to receive the benefit of the fact that "industry will develop"? He doesn't say, so we must assume usual and customary practice. There is not a government on earth that is under a system of insurance premiums on declared property rights. Except for the most localized municiple taxes on property -- typically earmarked for public education rather than defense (and lacking indemnification language to boot), government's compensation derives from economic activity and, more importantly, productivity: income, capital gains, sales and value added. Furthermore, the use of political identity to elicit voluntary sacrifice by the populus in defense of these property rights (the firemen in the WTC is a perfect example of this) is very ingrained and highly abused. To discuss "lassez-faire economics" without reference to these facts has no relationship to the definition of legitimate government -- a fact that libertarians as well as Randroids avoid discussing as a factor in revolutionary movements to destroy and/or distribute capital concentrations.
The fact that, when pressed, hypocritical libertarians resort to the fundamental principles of Lysander Spooner (only to then abandon any discussion of them in subsequent discourse unless, again, pressed, and then deride those who bring them up) is definitive.
Seastead this.
things have changed, more than you might think. while previously this kind of slave labour has boosted the economy in the long term, through tax, enabling better infrastructure, this is no longer true. large corporations are often not paying _ANY_ tax on anything they do in a poor country. This means that nothing is being added to the country in question, it is merely being used. When it is all used, it will be discarded.
Since when are corporate taxes the only way to "contribute" to a country. When a company employs people it sends money in. That money gets recycled throughout the economy and it can also be used to educate children. The government can get its hands on a slice of it in a variety of ways.
To deal with the issues worldwide that most raise the ire of many of the more rational-minded protesters, we need some sort of interface with which to exert an influence on things. Right now there is none. Globalism/WTO is that interface, however flawed.
**>>BELCH