Globalization

Globalization is the economic catchword of the new year. Since the protests in Seattle of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) November meeting, the debate has shifted from the inevitability of globalization as dictated by the WTO to a discussion about what globalization might look like if human rights, labor rights, and environmental protection were fundamental components of trade agreements.

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., broadly describes globalization as an increase in trade and capital flows across national boundaries. Its promoters say globalization in its current form is increasing commercial and political relations between people in different countries and reducing the threat of nationalism as a spark to war. They are right. But a green, democratic, and justice-focused globalization would do the same thing, of course, at a cost. Power would not be held in the hands of a few. Corporations would no longer dictate the rules of trade. Local sovereignty would not be compromised. Wealth and income would be better distributed. Profit, a great motivater, would be just that. Its maximization-by-any-means would lose its sacred status. And decision-making would be transparent and democratic. Global business would still march forward, but to the beat of a different drummer.

The World Trade Organization and the agreements it spawns are the foundation to globalization. As a result of a series of international meetings about trade, the World Trade Organization was created in 1995 and given the power to arbitrate trade agreements between member countries and impose fines and sanctions. The WTO enforces agreements like NAFTA, which gave private investors and corporations the right to sue governments directly for profits lost as a result of regulatory measures. An example is the 1998 lawsuit of the Canadian health ministry by the Ethyl Corporation. Under the NAFTA rules, Ethyl, a US corporation, sued the Canadian government for banning MMT, an organic derivative of manganese (Mn) used as an antiknock agent in unleaded gasoline. The Canadian government, concerned about studies that point to serious health problems caused by breathing MMT-laced air, banned the additive; but the Ethyl Corporation forced the Canadian health ministry to reverse its ban and also collected $13 million in damages for "lost profits."

The enormous debt carried by poor countries is another manifestation of free trade and the new global economy. Debt is used as an economic lever by the International Monetary Fund and other elite economic institutions to exert control over the world's poorest nations. Mozambique is a good example. This sub-Saharan African country imports more goods than it exports. To pay for this trade deficit, it has had to borrow money in the international markets. Today the country spends 25% of its export earnings on debt service. According to the United Nations Development program's most recent Human Development Report, if just half of Mozambique's debt service payments could be spent on health care, it would save the lives of 115,000 children a year and save the lives of 6,000 mothers who die in childbirth. Jesse Jackson, Jr. - US Congressman from Illinois - has called for the cancellation of sub-Saharan Africa's $230 billion debt burden. Even the Catholic Church supports debt relief. But massive debt burden gives the architects of the new global economy enormous power to dictate economic policy to the world's poorer countries. It is colonialism as practiced from the bank vault and the board room. No more raj or proxy armies, just fiscal policy that kills.

Critics of globalization are found all over the world and their legions are growing. Vandana Shiva, a writer, ecologist and activist from India, speaks for millions when she says, "The centralized, undemocratic rules and structures of the WTO that are establishing global corporate rule based on monopolies and monocultures need to give way to an earth democracy supported by decentralisation and diversity. The rights of all species and the rights of all people must come before the rights of corporations to make limitless profits through limitless destruction."

The discussion about globalization is not about pro-trade versus anti-trade. It is about pro-environment versus anti-environment. Pro human rights versus anti-human rights. Pro-democracy versus anti-democracy. Reducing poverty in the world versus increasing it. The scorecard is pretty simple. Fundamentally reforming the architecture and agreements that drive the global economy is how our side - that which believes in human rights, environmental integrity, and labor rights - will win.

Laura Orlando

Resources

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's WTOwatch.org web site..

"A Citizens Guide to the World Trade Organization: Everything You Need to Know to Fight for Fair Trade,"United for a Fair Economy ($2 each, for 2-25 copies, $1.50 each. For 25 or more $1.00 each).

Invite UFE to come lead a workshop on the World Trade Organization or Globalization. Contact the UFE Education Team at (617) 423-2148 x15 or x21.

Visit the web site of Public Citizen's Trade Campaign.

Rachel's Weekly has three recent articles on the WTO; publication numbers 673, 674, and 679.

Globalization: A Primer. Mark Weisbrot. The Preamble Center. 1737 21st Street, Washington, D.C. 20009. Tel 202 265-3263. Email: preamble@preamble.org.

Find information on the WTO in the January 2000 issue of Dollars & Sense magazine and a primer on globalization in the March/April 2000 issue. Telephone 617 628-8411. Email: dollars@igc.org.

Scientific American article on Methylcyclopentadienyl Manganese Tricarbonyl (MMT) .

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