Are anti-globalisation protestors selfish?

[Whaleboy]

True, but for most it is an issue of give and take, other businesses still get custom. The collapse in Prague is due to the influence that the sheer presence of America has, in the wake there of the fall of the Soviet Union, but in other nations, it the mirages created by the wealth disparities.

The result is that in Prague, when I spoke to the manager in one rather posh restaurant, he said that having someone young in that restaurant was now a rarity. I did go a month after 9/11, so I'm not sure it was a backlash of acceptance of all things American, but that is in itself an accelerated example of a more general trend among some people in newly-globalised countries. There is of course another anti-US backlash, part of which forms the basis for many of the people that dislike that nation enough to want to hurt it.

In Britain, think about the rise of "townies" and "grebos" (modified skaters) in my town as a macrocosm of that. Brands like Adidas and Nike create a huge following, while some people reject it and listen to decent music. Others like me decide to be individuals and thus are disliked by practically all.

Starbucks rules!!! In more ways than one unfortunately.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by elijah
In a third world nation, one has an economically powerful nation, effectively extendign itself via corps into business there, mcdonalds etc, but especially the clothing companies, with the result that the local culture is simply overwhelmed.

Here, the economic effect of american culture is more limited, so we were less likely to be overwhelmed by it.

Cultures that do not put emphasis on education, competition, and progress are screwed today. Given the choice between living in air-conditioned apartments and a jungle hut, 99% of the people would choose the apartment. Not everyone will get ac apartments right away, but working in a clothing factory will get them there faster than staying in jungle huts.

[Whaleboy]

"working in a clothing factory will get them there faster than staying in jungle huts"

£0.40 / day, 18 hour shifts, armed guards, no breaks, little prospect of promotion, kids as young as 6? I doubt it. The nations would be better off if they were able to develop their own economies, not have others thrust upon them.

"Cultures that do not put emphasis on education, competition, and progress are screwed today"

No they are merely different. Because we live in decadent cultures, surrounded by relative luxuries and mod cons, does not make cultures that dont have that any less valid, or indeed have anything less to contribute.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by elijah
No they are merely different. Because we live in decadent cultures, surrounded by relative luxuries and mod cons, does not make cultures that dont have that any less valid, or indeed have anything less to contribute.

Do you know what price our own societies paid to get to the living standard you enjoy today? The transition from agrarian to industrial society is always painful. British laborers had suffered far more and far longer than today's people in developing countries. What those people are experiencing now is what so many of your ancestors had suffered for almost 2 centuries prior to the beginning of the welfare state.

How do you think why Communism originated in England?

The people in third world countries have no choice here: agrarian societies are a thing of the past. There is no going back. Its productivity is too low to sustain their population. My question is really: can they make the transition quicker and less painful without the globalization?

[GePap]

Wait, if I remember correctly, Marx was German, and writing right before the 1848 revolutions, of which England saw none.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by elijah
"Cultures that do not put emphasis on education, competition, and progress are screwed today"

No they are merely different. Because we live in decadent cultures, surrounded by relative luxuries and mod cons, does not make cultures that dont have that any less valid, or indeed have anything less to contribute.

One more thing about culture: a culture that disregards the value of education is doomed to fail. Qualified people are the most important asset to any prosperous and strong societies. People with knowledge are most likely to make the best decisions for their lifes, their families, and their communities. Lack of education breeds ignorance, and ignorance can often lead to hate and extremism.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by GePap
Wait, if I remember correctly, Marx was German, and writing right before the 1848 revolutions, of which England saw none.

He wrote most of his Capital in England, along with his buddy Engels.

But you are right, too. Germany was also industrializing at the same time, workers's conditions there might be even more atrocious than in England.

[Solly]

"Of course cultural dominance is wrong, and that is the point of my argument, it should be augmentation, not annihilation!"

Show me a country's culture that has been annihilated.

[JCG]

Yes, of course they are a bit selfish...but it's funny that they get punished/criticized for trying to look after their own interests, when that's exactly what the USA does every now and then (in purely economic terms, in this case).

Too bad that's how globalization has started....and it looks like that's how it'll remain for a long time...

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by elijah

£0.40 / day, 18 hour shifts, armed guards, no breaks, little prospect of promotion, kids as young as 6? I doubt it. The nations would be better off if they were able to develop their own economies, not have others thrust upon them.

...

First of all, those conditions that you describe are the absolute extreme worst, and are not representative of general conditions in those factories. Also keep in mind that most of these people took these jobs themselves. This implies that their only alternatives (e.g. - starving in overworked farmlands; toiling away in coal mines; picking used batteries at city dumps) are quite a lot worse.

And you say that "the nation would be better off" without foreign investment? Just like India before the 90's, China before the 80's, or North Korea today, no doubt.

Left alone, these nations simply have no local capital to invest, and the goods produced have no market, because these nations also have no middle class. Such a society would take several centuries to reach the level of the West (*if* things go along smoothly.) With foreign capital flowing in, the process is sped up. We have success stories galore - South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and now - Shanghai and Bangalore. This gives other benefits as well - with thousands of Taiwanese merchants living in Shanghai, you can be sure that starting a war against Taiwan has become a much less attractive option for the Beijing government.

I'm sure you care about the living standards of people in the poorer nations, judging from your post. Great. Then we should eradicate most trade barriers immediately. That spares poorer nations centuries of groping in the dark, poverty, revolutions, and general mayhem.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by elijah

Agreed, and when one is living in a world where peoples of different cultures interact, and we as a culture are faced with a cultural treasure trove of different ways to do things, I think it is a good thing when both sides accept each other. Of course cultural dominance is wrong, and that is the point of my argument, it should be augmentation, not annihilation!

The problem here lies in definition. What is "augmentation" and what is "annihilation"? When the West picked up paper, the compass, and gunpowder from the Chinese, and astronomy, navigation and mathematics from the Arabs, was Western culture "annihilated" and replaced by a Sino-Arabic hybrid, or was it "augmented"?

[Sava]

Show me a country's culture that has been annihilated.

Ever hear of Native Americans?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ever hear of Native Americans?

Ever hear of Wyoming or Colorado?

You go there and tell me if that culture is 'annihilated'.

[Sava]

I'm sure the Native American tribes would agree that their culture is thriving due to American expansion.

[Sava]

Enough of the threadjacking... I found this article on globalization from the Economic Policy Institute.

How Should the Left Respond to Globalization

by Jeff Faux

Our relentless evolution toward a global economy will clearly require new institutions both to regulate unstable markets and to protect ordinary citizens from the brutalities of worldwide, dog-eat-dog capitalism. Eventually, like national economies, the global marketplace needs the equivalent of a central bank, securities regulation, enforceable labor and environmental rights, and the other institutions of modern social democracy.

But the social democratic left has little leverage at the level of global politics. So it is caught in a Catch-22: a global social democracy requires stronger international institutions. Stronger institutions increase the power of international capital, which further undercuts efforts at global social democracy. Rather, the left's leverage is in national politics. It is on that base that it must build its alternative program for the global economy.

Given this, the democratic left should not waste its time doing the work of the corporate right: decentralizing the organization charts of international agencies, creating new ones with more sophisticated powers, adding advisor committees of nongovernmental organizations, and so on. Instead, social democrats should concentrate on proposals that appeal to the needs of working people across borders, linking national and global economic questions in ways that build toward a social democratic vision of the global economy.

Here are three such proposals, in ascending order of difficulty:

1. Coordinated lowering of interest rates

It is a measure of the timidity of today's social democratic parties that there is little political agitation over high real interest rates in an era in which the core inflation threat is close to zero. High interest rates are a crushing burden on indebted developing economies, and they have made a major contribution to slow growth in Europe. Even in struggling Japan, signs of recovery are greeted by the central bank as a reason to raise the cost of money. As Federal Reserve Board head Alan Greenspan slows down the U.S. economy, it will be essential that Europe and Japan loosen monetary policy -- for their own economies and -- to maintain global momentum.

A parallel demand from progressives around around the world that central banks lower rates, would begin to challenge the hegemony of finance -- particularly the bond-holding class -- whose interests have been favored over poor debtors everywhere. Such campaigns also have the potential of creating alliances with the small- and medium-sized producers of goods and services in all countries, whose survival depends on cheap money.

2. Financial transactions tax, a.k.a. the "Tobin Tax"

The purpose of such a tax, whether applied domestically or internationally, is to slow down the destructive short-term, speculative movement of capital. It has the virtue of being easily understood, administered with minimal bureaucratic discretion, and already supported by many influential people around the world. Several years ago, for example, the government of Canada proposed a discussion of the Tobin Tax for the agenda of a G-7 meeting in Halifax. The U.S. Treasury quickly squashed the idea, although a domestic version was endorsed by the current secretary of the treasury, Larry Summers, a decade ago.

Social democrats around the world should campaign for a global transaction tax that would use the proceeds for long-term investment in education and health in poor countries. In the advanced nations, the left could also extend the idea into their own national economies, where financial speculation is a waste of scarce capital and a major driver of increasing inequality.

3. A "grand bargain" on social standards and development

Efforts to make labor rights and environmental standards part of international trade and finance agreements have been blocked by an alliance of multinational business and developing country elites. Some of the latter use globalization as a rationale for exploiting their own workers. Others are progressive nationalists opposed to ceding any more authority to Western-dominated global institutions. To overcome this resistance, the left
should propose a "grand bargain" between working people of developed and developing nations, in which the former would provide guaranteed commitments for long-term development aid, radical debt relief, and an enlarged developing world presence in the governance of international agencies. In return, the developing world would agree to enforceable labor rights and environmental standards -- appropriate to each nation's stage of development -- as part of international trade and financial agreements.

Because the United States is by far the most influential nation in these matters, one way to move forward would be to start close to home with a campaign by progressives in the three member countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for a North American version of the grand bargain. The proposal of the newly elected Mexican president, Vicente Fox, to expand NAFTA along the lines of the European Union provides a possible political opening for such a campaign. His specific call for open borders is a political nonstarter. But the United States and Canada could provide aid to Mexico, and relief some of the most onerous conditions of the original NAFTA imposed on Mexico, in exchange for a continent-wide system of enforceable labor rights and environmental standards. Such a positive proposal would put progressives in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in a posture of shaping the future rather than defending the past.



Jeff Faux is president and co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

[ POSTED TO VIEWPOINTS ON MARCH 6, 2001 ]

I know it's a bit old, but I think is relevant to this discussion. It talks about many concerns I have about globalization. Stereotypical lefties tend to dislike globalization, but this piece offers 3 interesting solutions to many of the problems I see with globalization. Overall, I think the movement to a global economy, etc, is a good thing; if we can ensure that we will have socially humane progress.