Globalization

[AsThMaxX]

Who in here is in favor of Globalization, and who isn't?
and why?

[ComradeJunichi]

not for it...
first world countries get rich off the third world countries...
if i'm right about it..

[Michael De Panama]

Who's in favor of it? Capitalist Imperial, Stormin Normin, American Kid, and friends.

[Field Marshal]

I'm totally in favor of globalization. There is a huge difference between globalization and corporate globalization.

[Anonymous]

I am against globalization! UE sucks! it makes the poor countrys (portugal, greece etc) pay and the richs ones get all the money! Globalization is just a new way of making the new world order control everything! globalization is just a good word for new world order!

[Supermodel]

I would like to answer with a question: what's the alternative, Nationalism?

I think the experience we have had with globalism has not gone well, but nationalism would also appear to be a bed of trouble.

I guess I prefer globalization over nationalism.

[Field Marshal]

What Real Globalization Would Mean

by David Graeber

In the wake of the massive protests at the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, pundits have been painting demonstrators the same way they did the protesters at Seattle: as enemies of "globalization" -- and, by implication, benighted souls trying to duck the tide of history. Speaking as someone who stood on the barricades in D.C., I can attest that, from the protesters' perspective, the truth is precisely the other way around. If "globalization" means the unfettered movement of people, products, and ideas, then we're the ones in favor of it. You didn't see any banners denouncing "globalization" in Washington; what you saw were denunciations of "corporate globalization" -- a system, embodied in organizations like the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank, which is as much about imposing and maintaining forms of protectionism as about eliminating them.
Consider for a moment what real globalization -- the genuine unification of our planet -- might entail.

FREE IMMIGRATION:

The globe today is divided up by invisible walls called "borders," maintained by hundreds of thousands of soldiers and police. As a result, if you happen to be a farmer born in a country which is mostly desert, it is illegal to simply move to one where there are adequate supplies of water. If you have the bad luck to be born in a country there is no decent school system, it is illegal to move someplace which has one. As a result, most people in the world today feel like prisoners. Real globalization would begin to take these barriers apart. Proponents of corporate globalization demand exactly the opposite. They want to maintain the invisible walls, and keep the poor trapped behind them, so as to allow Nike and The Gap to reap the profits of their desperation.

THE GLOBAL RULE OF LAW:

Real globalization would also mean creating the backbone of worldwide legal institutions: for instance, permanent tribunals to prosecute war criminals, enforce labor rights, and protect the global ecosystem. But it's the protesters who are pushing for such institutions; it's the U.S. government, that great proponent of corporate globalization, which is doggedly clinging to outmoded notions of national sovereignty in order to resist it.

THE FREE MOVEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURAL PRODUCTS AND IDEAS:

As economists like Dean Baker note, the single most significant form of protectionism in the world today is our gargantuan system of patents and copyrights. If we had a genuinely free global marketplace, whoever could manufacture the best computer chip for the cheapest price would be free to do so: whether they live in Chicago, Latvia, or Bangladesh. Prices everywhere would plummet, and some of the money freed up could easily be redirected towards publicly funded research. Instead, the U.S. government, which systematically violated English patent laws when we were the ones trying to industrialize in the nineteenth century, is now, like other proponents of corporate globalization, trying to prevent others from doing the same -- even going so far as to threaten a trade war with China to preserve Warner Brothers' right to charge workers who make sixteen cents a day, $15.95 for a Michael Jackson CD, or trying to tighten patent restrictions on pharmaceutical production to prevent Indian companies from continuing to manufacture medicine that Indian people can actually afford. Real globalization would loosen such forms of protectionism, or even eliminate them.

This is not the only measure by which the protesters are actually greater supporters of free trade than their opponents:

UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR PRODUCTS AND LICENSING:

Governments and business organizations have spent decades creating uniform international product standards. A screw or a lug wrench made in Mexico or the Philippines is now likely to fit an engine made in America. If it wasn't for this painstaking groundwork, it would have been impossible for American factories to so freely relocate to such countries. However, there has been no similar effort to create uniform standards in professional services: for instance, qualifications to practice law, medicine, or accountancy. As a result, sheet metal workers in St. Louis have to compete with their counterparts in Tijuana, but lawyers, CPAs, and insurance claims adjusters there do not. If they did, the public would save billions, but a lot of prosperous and influential people would get upset. Corporate globalizers want to protect the professional classes from international competition. Real globalizers would demand that everyone play by the same rules.

MARKET PRINCIPLES IN BANKING:

One near universal demand among the protesters in Washington was forgiveness for Third World debt. Really, this is just a demand to apply normal market discipline to international bankers. When a banker makes a loan, he is supposed to be taking a risk. That's what entitles him to collect high rates of interest. If a banker were to lend a million dollars to Al Capone to build the world's largest toothpick factory, and he skipped off with the cash, we'd say that banker was a fool and deserved to swallow his losses. If that same banker lends a million dollars to a Third World dictator, he need never do so, because he knows the IMF will always be there to squeeze the money out of the dictator's former victims. (If millions of children have to go hungry as a result, so be it.) Once again, as long as it is Citibank's interest that's at stake, corporate globalizers are happy to insist on the sacred principle of national sovereignty.

It is time be honest.

The real argument is not between those who are for globalization and those who are against it. It never was.

The real argument is not about whether to reduce the barriers; it's about which barriers to reduce, and how far, and for whose benefit.

Real globalization means reducing restrictions on everyone. Corporate globalization means reducing restrictions on those who are already rich and powerful, and strengthening the walls which imprison the poorest and most vulnerable. It is plainly immoral. That's why so many thousands of America's young people having been mobilizing to protest it, and demanding a form of globalization which will actually benefit the vast majority of people with whom we share this earth.

[Field Marshal]

Now that you know what the real deal is, who is for REAL globalization!

I sure as hell am!

[Revolution Hero]

I am for socialist globalization. Not for the capitalist one, which we have today , in the modern world.

[suffianr]

Let's look at it from the microeconomic perspective on consumer goods, shall we?

Ok, in my country (Malaysia), the government charges a 300% import tax on foreign imported luxury cars. Now, most commies aren't supposed to give a crap about this right? Well, read on...

A 300% import duty means that a spanking new Mercedes S320 costs over $1, 000,000 Malaysian dollars, registration & road tax not included. Yes, you get power windows but all the other fun stuff comes on as additional cost. Now, that's ok for rich people; if you can afford to own an S class, and still be able to feed your family, the fine. Good for you.

The downside is that the import duty extends to other cars in other categories, it doesn't matter if it's a cheap European family saloon or an Italian compact pocket-rocket like the Punto, as long as it ain't from around here, sonny, you gotta flash them greenbacks to get some. If you're a middle-class individual looking for a family car for the wife and kids, your best option would be to purchase a locally made car; in this case it would be a Proton (ever heard of them? There's apparently a market in the UK)

So, what are the implicatiions?

Well, the reason why the governement extends such a heft import duty is purely protectionist; the local car manufacturing industry doesn't stand half a chance against the higher quality better built foreign cars.

Why? Well, most Protons are improvised copies of old Mitsubishis, basically old Japanese cars that went out of styler years ago. The quality and safety standards of these cars are questionable, and next to most brand new foreign cars, they're quite crap.

The problem is most people can't afford the expensively priced foreign cars, so they buy the comparatively cheaper local ones. The real issue is that the government's protectionist attitude is not rooted in it's interest of the workers welfare (locally produced cars provide more employment opportunities at factories and workshops). It's really about protecting the corporate whores with government connections who control the factories and production, manipulate the markets and cheat people who only want something good to drive around in.

Make any sense?

So, the impact of globilisation can be seen on a relatively small scale, and there are other ascpects which I could discuss, if anyone's interested! :)

[komsomol]

I am an internationalist so I would love greater intergration of culture (without assimilation) but I do ot like globalisation in the sence of the exploitation that occurs of the undeveloped poor by the developed rich.

[deimos]

iam for globalization but against the exploitation of the poor countries and against the creation of a "flexible society".

UE sucks! it makes the poor countrys (portugal, greece etc) pay and the richs ones get all the money!

i suppose u mean the eu.What do u mean portugal, greece and the other poor countries have to pay for the rich?Thats nonsense.Germany,austria,the uk,denmark and the other rich countries in th eu payed a lot to spain, portugal,greece and ireland. Don't say that the eu didn't help the economies of the poorer countries. especially ireland became a very rich country.

[ComradeJunichi]

Okay, sorry. I thought I actually knew what globalization was, but after all these comments I don't know anything about it.

By the way whats an Internationalist?

[komsomol]

Quote: from ComradeJunichi on 2:28 pm on July 12, 2002
By the way whats an Internationalist?

If I am mistaken somebody please correct me, but an Internationalist is the opposite from a Nationalist, an Internationalist for example would have no national pride, bigotry against foriegners or any views favouring for is own countrymen. When an Internationalist thinks of issues he/she balances out the benifits/disadvantages it would impose on the world as a whole and not just for the benifit of one nation.


(Edited by MOLOCH at 4:21 pm on July 12, 2002)

[ComradeJunichi]

Oh, thanks.