Whats wrong with globalization?

[Deaniac20]

I always hear the Nader left say there shouldn't be the WTO, the IMF, free trade, etc. I see the anti-nafta argument, but whats wrong with making a world in which we can easily communicate with our global partners and allies?

[Maat]

1. I think there is nothing wrong with creating mechanisms ..

by which we can easily communicate with our global partners and allies.

In fact, that's what I want.

What I don't want is for the US to create orgs. that are just a vehicle for them monkeying around in the affairs of other nations clandestinely (or maybe not-so-clandestinely).

So, there's nothing wrong with 'globalization.'

There are plenty of articles on the WTO and the IMF that aren't flattering; I'm still investigating.

[TheFarseer]

2. The problem with globalization

basically, industry and jobs will chase the lowest wage until there is no lowest wage. In other words, there will be no rich countries and no poor countries. In other words, the poor country's standard of living will come up and the rich country's standard of living will go down until they meet somewhere in the middle. This is fine if you are a poor country but I'd prefer our standard of living remained high where it is.

If we ever got a trade agreement where the other country was buying US made products it would be fine, but all we get is cheep plastic shit and jobs going overseas out of these crap trade agreements.

[BornaDem]

13. I agree with your assessment...

except when you factor in the countries like China who use slave labor, the fall to the "middle" for us is going to be to the bottom. Nobody can compete with unpaid labor so guess what that will make all of us sooner or later?

[slaveplanet]

15. Bingo

-Nobody can compete with unpaid labor so guess what that will make all of us sooner or later?-

on the present course, It's not to far off that the great majority can only afford food, clothes and shelter...if that ...back comes the company store

[Alpharetta]

3. human rights don't get globalized as well

Like a lot of economics, it's a blurry discussion.

On one hand, they say Europe doing business with Iran has helped bring Iran to a less confrontational posture. Iran becomes a stakeholder in the world economy.

On the other hand, doing business with a country does not guarantee they will respect human rights. We might be doing business with a nation which is abusive to its people, abusive to its neighbors, and building its war machine. We might be undercutting our own labor force. We are in effect outsourcing. We also may be hurting our balance of payments, incurring national debt and hurting our currency. If inflation occurs, it undercuts investors and causes us to pay higher returns for our federal deficit. Doing so much business with China, we flirt with these outcomes.

[Alpharetta]

4. environmental measures get bypassed

The global economy makes it easier for multinational corporations to find weak governments and hungry populations desperate for work which permit the businesses to crap all over the air, land and water.

[jwirr]

5. There is a difference between global trade

and one world government (globalization). The first is a necessity. The latter is what too much of today's manipulation is about. In this type of world domination it is not the people and their national governments that are in control and/or benefit. It is the corporations that under WTO, IMF, and the trade agreements who have the power to override world governments. When that happens the bottom line is money only.

[Maple]

6. There's nothing wrong with globalization. It's great

It involves Kyoto, the UN,WHO, satellites, GPS, joint space missions, the internet, and free trade everywhere for starters.

Opponents like to narrow it down to some kind of sweatshop socialism rant because of their personal agendas, but trade is only one small part of it.

It means we think and act in global terms...in everything.

[benevolent dictator]

22. It would be great if there were stipulations

in the trade agreements that forced companies to outsource to say, pay a living wage and provide benefits. Level the playing field rather than drag everyone down into the muddy ruts.

Opponents like to narrow it down to some kind of sweatshop socialism rant because of their personal agendas, but trade is only one small part of it.

I think the reason most people "narrow it down to some kind of sweatshop socialism rant" is because that is what they are opposed to. I doubt many of the people complaining about the trade agreements are opposed to Kyoto or joint space missions, but the trade issue is a big one, especially if it's YOUR job that's getting sent overseas.

I have no problem with FAIR trade, it's that key word, FAIR. FREE trade is bad; it DOES encourage sweatshops, believe it or not, because companies outsource to other companies with poor labor laws. (Why do you think your t-shirt was made in Honduras?) It also encourages things like pollution, since if we restrict pollution here, companies will up and move to other countries with fewer expensive restrictions. If the trade agreements didn't allow this, that would be one thing, but they do, so it's another.

But I suppose it's only a small thing, right? At least as long as your job is here.

[thegreatwildebeest]

31. Whoops...

I guess the collapse of Argentina in 2001, the pending collapse of Bolivia right now, the Zapatista revolution in 1994 till now in Chiapas, Mexico, the failure of South Korea's agriculture, the trade dumping by developed countries onto developing ones, the break down of the WTO meetings in Cancun due to opposition from developing countries, are all signs that the Washington Consensus is on the march! Smile everyone, for freedom and free markets are ON THE MOVE!

Moreover:

GPS is a DoD project and is still controlled by it. The fact that it allows others to use it is not a sign of globalization, so much as for it to be used by Americans in commercial settings it must be made available to everyone in the world.

The Internet is also another DoD project that was eventually opened up to commercialization in America, and eventually the world, mostly because it would serve no real purpose to keep people out of it.

The UN and its various agencies are valuable conduits for state foreign aid and for the number of people that without it would either die from easily preventable disease or would have no place to go during armed conflicts. That said, many member countries have been, are now, and probably will continue to be, complicit with the arrangements that cause these situations in the first place. And I'm not talking about the handful of nations that generate civil wars and unrest in Africa. As long as the UN gurantees veto power to countries that have either a strong colonial legacy (France and the UK) and a penchant for mucking around in others foreign affairs (US, Russia) no serious work can be done. It is not called United NATIONS for no reason. It exists to serve its member states and the governments who run them, NOT specifically the people who comprise the world.

As for the sweatshop socialism comment, an easy dismissal of a problem that is aided and abetted by free trade agreements that declare the markets superiority over a nations (and more importantly its people) will and self determination. From the raiding of Mexican farm land by Monsanto and other large agri-businesses, to the hop scotch program of the various clothing outsource manufacturers, and the economic and capital flight that occurs more often in the past 15 or so years than it ever has in the history of the modern world financial system, free trade agreements let multinationals run amuck with little or no accountability. One only look at the "Water wars" in Bolivia to see how well multinationals respect people in developing countries. One only need see the viciousness of the rigged commodities market to understand that the playing field is not even, and was never meant to be, and never will be as long as developed countries and its "Free market" acolytes continue to believe the myth they are so eager to sell.

[izzybeans]

7. What's wrong: The undermining of local culture and the capital

accumulation of non-indigenous firms. The critique should be limited to a specific organizational form; One that increases economic inequality. If we were to get rid of the debt creating organizations and set up true free trade (of goods) between indigenous cultures then globalization is less of a negative. i.e. The problem is with the spread of corporate capitalism. The capital produced in India by American firms does not stay in India. It lines the pockets of the corporate capitalist and fleeces two sets of workers (the workers left behind by the firms-Americans- and the local culture whose labor power is being extracted for foreign profit). Vulgarizing it a bit: this is why capital assets have become increasingly polarized by class and hemisphere. A hemisphere now shifting because those assets are being shifted elsewhere now that the workforce skill set is being depleted at home.

The positives have been pointed out above. But some of them assume that capitalism is a network of small merchants exchanging goods freely in a real market with real booths where face to face deliberations on price would take place. They also confuse a critique of free trade for socialism. That world no longer exists (in the "west), except on alternate Sundays in Union Square, that's the world being destroyed by the globalization or spread of corporate capitalism into the south and east.

If corporate capitalists were really trading freely with local cultures and not exploiting local workers for profit then they wouldn't be making American consumer products overseas. That's not free trade. Free trade would be unfettered access to the goods produced by local cultures. We have our McDonald's and other places have their artisans and craftsmen. Instead we globalize McDonald's displace the artisan by undermining their local merchant markets and in turn hire them to flip burgers. While all the while, the national debt racks up for that particular country because the indigenous goods they had to trade are no longer produced and in order to "modernize" they are forced to borrow high interest investment capital so that their own corporate entrepreneurs can get similar operations off the ground. (this process America is beginning to experience as its position in the global market place becomes less stable) They eventually fold because McDonald's crushes them and the local government is left with the debt.

But other aspects of globalization are freeing: influxes of communication and transportation diffusion creates the possibility for new social formations and the spread of a much more diverse set of knowledge. One person feeling alienated in southern Illinois can connect to a text on post-colonial theory written in Egypt via the INTERNET if they so desire. They then can hop in a car, drive to an airport, hop on the plane, and fly to go study under the author if they so choose. That's a possibility that was formerly limited to the very wealthy and those given permission by ruling class, or at least anyone who could get the insurance on a big boat or fleet of them-e.g. Christopher Columbus.

For me: its not inherently negative, but in large measure, if you believe that material production (economy) provides the foundation for any functional society, then you focus on the negatives. I don't. I actually hope that the process extends itself. Perhaps then American workers can work less hours and devote more time to things like community, art, and philosophy, or at least pay more attention to their friends and families.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[idlisambar]

11. You've asked a big question

I think you are right about Mcdonalds. Frankly, McDonalds does not pose a big threat to anybody, anti-globalization folks often use brands like McDonalds or Coca-Cola because of they are quintessentially American, but they are poor symbols for any case against globalization.

To give one slice of the debate that has more weight, consider the the subject of water. The question to ask is who do you want to control your community's supply of water, your local government or a foreign private corporation? What if your community was asked to contract out their water works to a foreign corporation in exchange for a loan from the World Bank?

The Center for Public Integrity has some very good coverage of the issue here...

http://www.publicintegrity.org/water/

A sample...

http://www.publicintegrity.org/water/report.aspx?sID=ch&rID=44&aID=44

February 3, 2003 — When cholera appeared on South Africa's Dolphin Coast in August 2000, officials first assumed it was just another of the sporadic outbreaks that have long stricken the country's eastern seaboard. But as the epidemic spread, it turned out to be a chronicle of death foretold by blind ideology.

In 1998, local councils had begun taking steps to commercialize their waterworks by forcing residents to pay the full cost of drinking water. But many of the millions of people living in the tin-roof slums of the region couldn't afford the rates. Cut off at the tap, they were forced to find water in streams, ponds and lakes polluted with manure and human waste. By January 2002, when the worst cholera epidemic in South Africa's history ended, it had infected more than 250,000 people and killed almost 300, spreading as far as Johannesburg, 300 miles away.

Making people pay the full cost of their water "was the direct cause of the cholera epidemic," David Hemson, a social scientist sent by the government to investigate the outbreak, said in an interview. "There is no doubt about that."

The seeds of the epidemic had been sown long before South Africa decided to take its deadly road to privatization. They were largely planted by an aggressive group of utility companies, primarily European, that are attempting to privatize the world's drinking water with the help of the World Bank and other international financial institutions.

The days of a free glass of water are over, in the view of these companies, which have a public relations campaign to accompany their sales pitch. On a global scale, and in many developing nations, water is a scarce and valuable and clearly marketable commodity. "People who don't pay don't treat water as a very precious resource," one executive said. "Of course, it is."

[jfw9999]

20. read confession of an economic hitman

If you think that US and multinational corps do NOT come in with the cavalry and force countries to buy our shit; you will be rudely awakened.

[benevolent dictator]

23. We force other countries to "buy our shit"?

What exactly do we even MAKE here anymore? I can't buy our shit - at least not in stores. I can't go to Meijer and buy American-grown coffee or go to Target and by American-made shirts and pants.

I buy American-made shit whenever I can, but unfortunately I have to do much of that online because our stores would rather sell things from China (that they can mark up 80% instead of 20%).

[idlisambar]

8. Depends on how you define globalization

If it means being able to send email to Eskimos then nothing is wrong with globalization. If it means the transfer of power from governments to multinational corporations that is a more complicated issue.

[goodhue]

9. Globalization widens the rich-poor gap

By Martin Kohr
Third World Network

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/rich-ch.htm

Globalisation widens the rich-poor gap

"GLOBALISATION" has become one of the most talked-about catchwords and concepts of recent times. It has become the subject of countless articles, speeches and seminars.

Later this April, the three-yearly major Conference of UNCTAD (the UN Conference on Trade and Development) will have globalisation as its major theme.

Governments have to incorporate the implications of globalisation in their policies, companies have to cope with it to survive (or to thrive), and the public in many countries is most anxious that it may displace jobs or negatively affect values and culture. A proper analysis of this phenomenon is still in the making. What is clear is that there are gainers and losers in the process. The fear is that globalisation will widen the gulf between the strong and weak, the have and have-nots, the modern and traditional.

And that whilst it will enrich a minority of countries or people who lead the process or take advantage of it, most others will be left behind, be further marginalised or worse become even more impoverished.

Economic and cultural globalisation is sweeping through all countries. The link between this phenomenon, the growing inequities within and among countries, and the persistence of poverty in the South, is very strong.

* * *

Globalisation per se need not be necessarily bad. But when it is imposed on countries that are ill-prepared to adapt, it can have much more negative effects on balance.

The kind of globalisation process that is predominant is accompanied (or driven) by increasing rights and powers of big corporations, and the rollback of the rights, resources and role of the state nationally.

There is a return to laissez-faire. The social, welfare, economic and developmental roles of the state in Southern countries is greatly eroded.

The shift of power to the private sector may lead to the growth of some indicators, and reduction of wastage and losses in the public sector. In many countries it has also marginalised large sections of people, and increased poverty and unemployment. Internationally, the rich nations (G7 and OECD) have consolidated their already strong grip on global institutions and relations. Many key decisions of global significance are made by them acting alone or as a group.

They have also empowered and made use of organisations which they control (such as the World Bank, IMF and GATT-WTO) to shape global relations and the content of national policies, especially of the South.

Correspondingly, the institutions that have a more open or democratic character, and with a development or social orientation (such as the social and economic agencies of the UN) have been gradually depleted of importance, function and power. Whilst they still provide a forum for discussions and for the South to voice their views, and though they still provide policy and technical aid, their role has been eroded by the more powerful policy and aid clout of the Bretton Woods and WTO organisations.

* * * *

more here

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/rich-ch.htm

[Ken Burch]

12. Globalization would be acceptable

if it were run from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

But globalization on Bush/Clinton terms meant letting corporate power outweigh democratic mandates and popular feeling.

This was and will always be a betrayal of the values of the Democratic Party.

Corporations will never function on the basis of serving the common good.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. There's good and bad globalization

Good globalization: Countries and individuals with complementary strengths trading with one another. The Third World sell coffee to northern countries, which sell apples and other cold weather crops to the South. I provide native English translations to Japanese customers with overnight service. Countries of similar economic status open free trade zones, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the EU.

Bad globalization:The U.S. sells subsidized cheap food below cost to Third World countries that undersells local farmers and destroys their livelihoods. This may seem like a good deal for city dwellers, but it forces farmers off the land and into urban shanty towns.

American companies seek out countries with no minimum wage, fair labor, or environmental laws to set up sweatshops, only to move on when some other, cheaper country appears on the horizon. (Mexico is still very poor, but it's losing its sweatshops to China and Vietnam.)

The IMF and World Bank require countries to cut social services and open themselves to sweatshops in order to qualify for loans and to produce cash crops for export instead of growing food for themselves. This is the opposite of what actual successful countries have done to modernize: invest heavily in education and infrastructure, keep foreign businesses under strict control, and growing as much of their own food as possible.

[PATRICK]

16. Corruption of a term

I think, whatever the historical reality, that globalization as a political and economic force easily became a offshoot of imperial colonialism, with the dominant seat of power always a big fan of wiping pout borders and resistance. Multi-nationals subverting national interests for the overriding greed of it all was another top down possibility gone bad. serious idealists always hoped that war torn and divided Europe could be re-Empired as a prelude to true globalization.

Hah. That is like totalitarian communists promising that the oppressive organs of state would wither away into paradise. The egalitarian American Revolutionists can be more excused for their Utopian vision of the future for the being an early experiment protected by isolation. That isolation and distrust of Europe countered the "globalist" hypocrisy of the world powers of the time.

But globalization is an innate force of progress along all lines, negative or positive. It is a fact to be dealt with, not opposed or deceptively and selectively defined for narrow interests. The non-elitist egalitarian American caveat is correct. The promise of messianic Empire with a glorified central government serving elitist money crunchers is not. Yet the former usually gets defined as "isolationism" or anti-globalist because in clinging to individual rights and the true broad nature of human progress it retreats into defending what we "have" or picks fights against the lies so that no one trusts the betrayed term anymore. Just as no one trusts establishment politicians in a poisoned and harmful national system.

Yet human unity in communication and simple desires, simple decency, simple justice, simple aversion to crime, poverty, war and fanaticism
has almost grown to the point where it cannot automatically be divided and pitted against other in small distractions and conflicts. The evils ARE exposed for very many if not all and history cannot pretend to be the same with power elites having legitimacy above the common interest of humanity.

The brute fact too is that the human world has exhausted its elbow room while shooting forward on unsustainable wings where all humanity, not just empires will sink or tread water together. There is no philosophical or competitive conflict there in the hard realities. Some of the very things that created runaway "progress" cannot survive the world they evolved into. The strengths that can are unfortunately under divisive attack. Which means extinction threatening burnout, not the triumph of corporate globalization.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. For one, the treaties' human rights standards aren't enforced

I have no problem with trade, but it should benefit people as well as corporations. And at the very minimum, human rights standards should be enforced in all factories that produce products for American companies, even if they are overseas.

[jfw9999]

18. Where's the beef?

I know the Mantra for the Dems now is to GET INTO POWER and then we can do something.

I think the cart is before the horse. The Democratic party MUST do some deep soul searching before they muddle their way into another losing campaign.

The Democrats have moved all over the map from the time of their creation. Now they/ perhaps we? (green party member for a long time) will reinvent ourselves again.

But at the moment- our elected officials are mainly panderers. Panderers to power, to money, to business interest groups, unions that are so weakened they are another mouthpiece for the industry they fight in the vain hope they can keep jobs and not have them transported overseas to support the bottom line.

Look! Folks, we are in a very deep pile of shit these elitist Repubs have put us in. The "us" applies to not only the democrats with whom the likes of Karl Rove has torn into shreds - but the American people as well.

When I was a youth, a family would dig a well and clean water was the norm... if it was bad - it was tracked down to the source IMMEDIATELY and restitution was made IMMEDIATELY because: Water and Air was a public commodity that could NEVER be owned by a corporation.

Now we are facing a new feudal emperor growing, where corporations will parcel out clean air and water for a price.... the very same (I would imagine) who have been allowed to pollute the resource in the beginning.

The same is happening to agriculture: as Monsanto and DuPont begin to control the yields of GM crops; it is becoming increasingly clear that the family farm (no matter how large) is simply not able to complete with the corporate equivalent and begin to sell out to the corporation. Well What happens when the one last viable resource of the United States is sold off to the corporation?

Nothing is more valuable in the US than the millions of acres of old sea bed that has created 20 and 30 foot deep topsoil in regions of Indiana. Iowa and Illinois. If this is turned over to the corporations who will benefit.

It is not hard to guess. Who needs it more than any others on earth? India, China and Japan will own these corporations and folks like the Peterson's, Oriels, and Johnson's will be working the lands for wages their grandparents once owned.

Then we will be ripe for revolution.

This right wing form of lazzesfaire capitalism is beginning to eat the founders of the creed. Walmart has all but destroyed diversity in the retail community. When will we wake up?

I'm tired - I will stop my rant. We need leaders that are willing to address these issues head on.

Click here to go back to the main forums.

The information you requested cannot be displayed because it is no longer available. If you think this is in error, please contact the site administrator.
Message:
I know the Mantra for the Dems now is to GET INTO POWER and then we can do something.

I think the cart is before the horse. The Democratic party MUST do some deep soul searching before they muddle their way into another losing campaign.

The Democrats have moved all over the map from the time of their creation. Now they/ perhaps we? (green party member for a long time) will reinvent ourselves again.

But at the moment- our elected officials are mainly panderers. Panderers to power, to money, to business interest groups, unions that are so weakened they are another mouthpiece for the industry they fight in the vain hope they can keep jobs and not have them transported overseas to support the bottom line.

Look! Folks, we are in a very deep pile of shit these elitist Repubs have put us in. The "us" applies to not only the democrats with whom the likes of Karl Rove has torn into shreds - but the American people as well.

When I was a youth, a family would dig a well and clean water was the norm... if it was bad - it was tracked down to the source IMMEDIATELY and restitution was made IMMEDIATELY because: Water and Air was a public commodity that could NEVER be owned by a corporation.

Now we are facing a new feudal emperor growing, where corporations will parcel out clean air and water for a price.... the very same (I would imagine) who have been allowed to pollute the resource in the beginning.

The same is happening to agriculture: as Monsanto and DuPont begin to control the yields of GM crops; it is becoming increasingly clear that the family farm (no matter how large) is simply not able to complete with the corporate equivalent and begin to sell out to the corporation. Well What happens when the one last viable resource of the United States is sold off to the corporation?

Nothing is more valuable in the US than the millions of acres of old sea bed that has created 20 and 30 foot deep topsoil in regions of Indiana. Iowa and Illinois. If this is turned over to the corporations who will benefit.

It is not hard to guess. Who needs it more than any others on earth? India, China and Japan will own these corporations and folks like the Peterson's, Oriels, and Johnson's will be working the lands for wages their grandparents once owned.

Then we will be ripe for revolution.

This right wing form of lazzesfaire capitalism is beginning to eat the founders of the creed. Walmart has all but destroyed diversity in the retail community. When will we wake up?

I'm tired - I will stop my rant. We need leaders that are willing to address these issues head on.

Click here to go back to the main forums.

The information you requested cannot be displayed because it is no longer available. If you think this is in error, please contact the site administrator.

[jfw9999]

19. sorry all - I'm new to this all - and making a balls of it at times

[leanin_green]

21. My question is, when couldn't we communicate with. . .

our global partners and allies? The reason NAFTA, WTO, GAT and other so-called trade treaties are so lousy is that if you really look at it what we have done is open borders to less economically powerful countries. What this has allowed is a kind of globalization of cheap labor, access to untapped resources in countries unable or unwilling to exploit those resources as we do. Let's face it, corporate America got sick of having to deal with the enlightened American worker, environmentalists, unions and the higher standard of living most Americans have come to expect from employers. All these treaties are in reality are licenses for Corporatization rather than Globalization.

[YOUTHTHINK]

24. While I see Globalization as being inevitable,

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[YOUTHTHINK]

26. What industries are we promoting?

Is the investment reciprocal between both workers and owners, and do these investments support a common need, or do we follow the whim of corporate strategy that would like a stake at the future market, but makes little in the way of plans for the security of it?

[bigtree]

27. It's hard to trust corporations to look after our interests.

That's why I think folks are arguing for more control over the decision making within these corporate structures, certainly where public investment gives us a stake in the health or survival of the entity.

[sadiesworld]

28. This thread contains some great analysis.

I tried to nominate it, but discovered you can't do that after 24 hours. Oh well, you learn something new...

[CrispyQ]

29. This month's book club title,

"Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights" by Thom Hartmann has a lengthy discussion of treaties. The whole book has been quite an eye-opener. I've learned things that I had no idea about & am even more outraged at the cruel hoax called corporate personhood.


My comments here on the chapter about treaties:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x1823#1877

[oscar111]

30. RUNAWAY FACTORIES, OUTSOURCED JOBS

at a time when we already have a

JOB SHORTAGE OF 14 million

See my sig below for unimpeachable source... Bureau of labor Statistics.

[electropop]

32. It's currently synonymous with corporatization.

Globalization with human beings as the intended beneficiaries would be a completely different thing. For example, we would trade fairly rather than 'freely' by making tariffs inversely proportional to the wages paid in the country of origin.

[Hippo_Tron]

33. I don't think that there is a "Right" or a "Wrong"

In reality it's an extremely complicated issue. I disagree with the way that human rights and enviornmental standards aren't being enforced at all. In theory free trade stops wars and fosters democracy. On one hand, India and China are on the verge of war with Pakistan and Taiwan respectively. On the other hand, neither country has gone to war yet.