Are anti-globalisation protestors selfish?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
They brought in their own species of animals and plants without paying attention to indigenous species, thus causing many to extinct.

The travel was hardly one way. Potatos, Corn, tomatos, squash, beans, suger beets, and yams all came from outside Eurasia.

Another major problem of globalisation is economic domination. By exporting capital, MNC's seek to dominate emergent markets. Local industries are no match for these deep-pocketed monsters; they can drive out competition by a sustained price war. The World Bank and IMF are unwitting (?) accomplices in this economic imperialism, their loans have an awful numbers of strings attached to them.

Ask yourself why the local competetors aren't large or efficient. Hmm, could it be because they don't have enough capitol or a large enough market or the technologic know how? So how do you solve those problems?

[JohnT]

"What changes then is not what general type of food people eat (culture) but how they eat and spend their money (introduction of mass consumerism, an economic change as much as cultural). "

So? I'm not really seeing the point here: if the anti-globalization people have their way, they will end up creating and perpetuating that which they are supposedly protesting - two worlds, one progressive and rich, the other backward and poor*.

Is that what they want? It is what they will end up with if they have their way.

*Many will argue that's what we have now, and I will concede that point. But preventing 2/3rds of the world from participating in the industrial, economic, and agricultural revolutions that have swept the West over the past 300 years is not going to change that.

Such is as much a fools dream as demanding that the less developed nations should immediately have what it took the West over half a millennium to achieve.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The travel was hardly one way. Potatos, Corn, tomatos, squash, beans, suger beets, and yams all came from outside Eurasia.

Sure, but I was talking about the impace of foreign species on the local ecosystems.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Ask yourself why the local competetors aren't large or efficient. Hmm, could it be because they don't have enough capitol or a large enough market or the technologic know how? So how do you solve those problems?

Are you asking why nascent enterprises aren't big? Isn't that like asking why a baby isn't 2m (~6 feet) tall and weighs 100kg?

If Ford Motor Company at the time of Henry Ford were to compete with Ford Motor Company of today, who will win?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Cultural imperialism is acceptable in that its voluntary. If you don't like US cultural products, don't buy them. If, OTOH, people in a foreign country want to eat at McDonalds, more power to them.

It's not that simple. Cultural imperialism is intertwined with economic invasions. Could local small farmers compete with huge mechanised farms in the US? Could small local restaurants compete with McD?

[Cruddy]

Bodd, you are missing the main point of AG protesters. It's the big business stitch up they're angry about, and the suppression of other culture's at the local level that result from that.

The destruction of fast food restaurants is thuggery and pointless, and I don't agree with that behaviour at all. Far better to hit them where it really hurts - the balance sheet. (Any notice how McD's corporate report went? I was delighted).

Your argument about restaurants really doesn't hold up. All those ethnic places serve Westernised versions of their food, not the originals. If you want a real Madras, catch a plane.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Could small local restaurants compete with McD?

Yes, if they had better food.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I wonder if the teenagers in France spit in the hamburgers like they do in American?

That's NOTHING compared to what happens to the chickens in some UK KFCs. Let's just say they've got a higher than advertised salt content, OK?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Yes, if they had better food.

You go eat at McDonals for the quality of the food? really?

What matters in fast food is not what you eat, but how you eat it, it is the model that matters, not the exact things offered (which is why, as i said, McDonads around the world vary thier menus to fit local tastes, specially the less western a state is).

So? I'm not really seeing the point here: if the anti-globalization people have their way, they will end up creating and perpetuating that which they are supposedly protesting - two worlds, one progressive and rich, the other backward and poor*.

Yes, but the west did NOT become rich because of globalization. Europe and the Us became rich from internal sources (capital, manpower, so forth), as well as Japan. If there is one global economy, why does that lead to eeryone being well off? Don;t we need the poor to be cheap labor? Why should capital go to some place like Namibia, when Nabimia has little to offer the global economy? At the same time, if someone in Namibia gets some capital, why should they invest back in Namibia, when perhaps investing elsewhere will get much bigger returns? If there is nor eason to invest in Namibia, there will be capital flow out of it, and certainly such a place would never be rich, until the world economy found a use for it.

I think allowing the free movement of capital and resources is fine, as long as labor has the ability ot move freely too. Until labor has the same freedom of movement as capital and resources the benefits from globalization will be uneven.

[Drake Tungsten]

Sure, but I was talking about the impace of foreign species on the local ecosystems.

That phenomenon also went both ways. There are numerous examples of Asian species devastating ecosystems here in North America. "Biological imperialism" is an absurd and bogus concept, just like "cultural imperialism."

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
You go eat at McDonals for the quality of the food? really?

No. If I'm in the mood for good tasting fast food I go to a local place around here.

[Jaguar]

I say that anti-globalization protestors are not selfish. They are simply members of the GIDBC (Group that Irrationally Despises Big Corporations.) This group also includes commies, environmentalists, and animal rights activists.

[Zylka]

Well, I think

[Sandman]

Culture is a rough and ready thing that people have to use in their daily lives. Creating artificial cultural barriers will only make us weaker, in my view.

[JohnT]

"Yes, but the west did NOT become rich because of globalization. Europe and the Us became rich from internal sources (capital, manpower, so forth), as well as Japan. "

Huh? Do you think it is mere coincidence that the rise of the West started with the voyages of Discovery in the 15-17th centuries?

Is it true that in your world, North and South America, the horn of Africa, and India (and the other Indies) lies within the boundaries of Europe and the US? My map sez differently....

[GePap]

Trade is not globalization, JohnT. Did capital move freely in the time of mercantalism? And did India and the non_european peoples of the Horn of africa become rich an industrialized from their connections with Europeans? Did the Chinese? Did the Native Americans?