Advocates of economic globalization try to describe it as an inevitable process, the logical outgrowth of economic and technological forces that evolved over centuries to their present form, nearly as if they were forces of nature, like gravity. But while global trade activity and concepts of free trade have existed since the distant past, they do not nearly begin to resemble the volume, speed, form or impact of today's activities, nor were they as deliberately plotted and structured.
Economic globalization in the modern era is not some kind of accident of evolution; it directly emerges from a set of institutions and rules created on purpose by human beings for a specific goal: to give primacy to certain economic processes and values, and place them above all others.
In fact, modern day globalization had a birth date and a birthplace: Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1944. That's when the world's leading economists, bankers, corporate heads, and heads of western governments tried to create a new economic system, following the devastation of World War II. They decided on a globally centralized system with global corporations as the engines of economic growth.
New institutions were created with new rules and powers to help grease the pathways for the corporations. Out of the Bretton Woods meeting grew instruments that later became the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and now the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The primary function of these bodies is to place economic values above all others, and to establish rules that suppress the ability of nation-states to sustain laws that protect nature, workers, consumers and even national sovereignty and democracy if they can be construed as slowing down free trade. The net result is the greatest transfer of economic and political power from nation-states to corporations ever in history.
But none of it is inevitable. All of it can be reversed once citizen movements and their governments realize the full consequences. To call what is essentially a collection of rules--very consequential rules--"inevitable," is really designed to make everyone feel there is nothing to be done about it, thus promoting passivity.
The globalization of corporate industrial-style agriculture has failed to address the world's hunger crisis; in fact, it makes it worse. During the past two decades, the total amount of food in the world has increased, but hunger rates have also increased, far faster even than population growth. The main problem is that globalization of food production is actually pushing small, self-reliant farmers--who now account for 40 percent of global food production--off their lands and replacing them with large chemical and machine intensive corporate farms. Evicted, landless farmers find themselves without jobs or money to buy food. A 1993 study reported alarming percentages of rural families who now have insufficient land to support themselves or their communities. In Peru, the number of landless or land-poor was 75 percent, in Ecuador 75 percent, 66 percent in Columbia, 32 percent in Kenya, and 95 percent in Egypt, among many others. Even in the U.S., we are losing a record number of family farms every year. The globalized industrial agricultural model does not emphasize food for hungry local communities. Instead, it encourages export economies resulting in monocultures--a single crop grown over thousands of acres. These crops are usually luxury high profit items such as flowers, beef, shrimp, cotton, coffee, and soybeans cultivated for export to well-fed countries. In addition, monocultures are notoriously vulnerable to insect blights and bad weather, and greatly contribute to soil infertility. The big new trade institutions and agreements like the WTO and NAFTA--as well as the World Bank and the IMF--all strongly favor the transition of agriculture from small-scale, locally oriented diverse agriculture to large scale monocultural production, using heavy chemical and machine inputs, directed toward export markets. WTO policies of restricting direct payments to farmers yet encouraging subsidies for corporate export-oriented agribusiness brought global corporations into local communities, making survival difficult for small scale farmers in every country of the world. Once driven from their lands, it is a short route to urban hunger lines. Meanwhile, traditional livelihoods and communities disappear. Industrial agriculture advocates also suggest that global biotechnology companies have the answer to world hunger. But biotech production is also a monoculture that does nothing to solve local hunger problems. It too produces luxury crops for export. Does anyone believe that the invention of biotech plants whose seeds are sterile--and therefore force farmers to buy new seeds every year--has something to do with stopping hunger? The biotech industry's goal is not to feed the hungry, only to feed itself. A recent United Nations study confirms that the world already has enough food to feed the global population. The problem is one of distribution. Global trade rules put food production and distribution in the hands of agribusiness giants, supplanting the traditional system of local production for local consumption. As a result, the world is producing the wrong kind of food for export to the already well-fed, by a process that leaves millions of people landless, homeless, cashless, and unable to feed themselves as they traditionally had.
The globalization of corporate industrial-style agriculture has failed to address the world's hunger crisis; in fact, it makes it worse. During the past two decades, the total amount of food in the world has increased, but hunger rates have also increased, far faster even than population growth.
The main problem is that globalization of food production is actually pushing small, self-reliant farmers--who now account for 40 percent of global food production--off their lands and replacing them with large chemical and machine intensive corporate farms. Evicted, landless farmers find themselves without jobs or money to buy food.
A 1993 study reported alarming percentages of rural families who now have insufficient land to support themselves or their communities. In Peru, the number of landless or land-poor was 75 percent, in Ecuador 75 percent, 66 percent in Columbia, 32 percent in Kenya, and 95 percent in Egypt, among many others. Even in the U.S., we are losing a record number of family farms every year.
The globalized industrial agricultural model does not emphasize food for hungry local communities. Instead, it encourages export economies resulting in monocultures--a single crop grown over thousands of acres. These crops are usually luxury high profit items such as flowers, beef, shrimp, cotton, coffee, and soybeans cultivated for export to well-fed countries. In addition, monocultures are notoriously vulnerable to insect blights and bad weather, and greatly contribute to soil infertility.
The big new trade institutions and agreements like the WTO and NAFTA--as well as the World Bank and the IMF--all strongly favor the transition of agriculture from small-scale, locally oriented diverse agriculture to large scale monocultural production, using heavy chemical and machine inputs, directed toward export markets.
WTO policies of restricting direct payments to farmers yet encouraging subsidies for corporate export-oriented agribusiness brought global corporations into local communities, making survival difficult for small scale farmers in every country of the world. Once driven from their lands, it is a short route to urban hunger lines. Meanwhile, traditional livelihoods and communities disappear.
Industrial agriculture advocates also suggest that global biotechnology companies have the answer to world hunger. But biotech production is also a monoculture that does nothing to solve local hunger problems. It too produces luxury crops for export. Does anyone believe that the invention of biotech plants whose seeds are sterile--and therefore force farmers to buy new seeds every year--has something to do with stopping hunger? The biotech industry's goal is not to feed the hungry, only to feed itself.
A recent United Nations study confirms that the world already has enough food to feed the global population. The problem is one of distribution. Global trade rules put food production and distribution in the hands of agribusiness giants, supplanting the traditional system of local production for local consumption. As a result, the world is producing the wrong kind of food for export to the already well-fed, by a process that leaves millions of people landless, homeless, cashless, and unable to feed themselves as they traditionally had.
This has been the theme strongly trumpeted since Bretton Woods; free trade and globalization will "lift all boats," and end poverty. But in the half century since this big push began, the world has more poor and more hungry than ever before, and the situation is getting steadily worse as we approach the millennium. According to a recently published (September, 1999) UN report, global economic inequality has increased dramatically as a direct result of economic globalization and current rules of trade. "When the market goes too far in dominating social and political outcomes, the opportunities and rewards of economic globalization spread unequally and inequitably, concentrating power and wealth in a select group of people, nations, and corporations, marginalizing the others." Economic globalization creates wealth, but only for the few elite who can sit at the hub of the process, able to benefit from the surge of consolidations, mergers, global scale technology and financial activity. Recent figures confirm how it all works. Benefits are so concentrated that the number of billionaires in the world has increased by 25 percent in only the last two years; collectively these 475 individuals are worth more than the combined incomes of the bottom 50 percent. Three of these billionaires are now worth more than the combined GNP of all the UN-designated "least developed countries" and their 600 million people. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are now corporations. Mitsubishi is the twenty-second largest economy in the world; General Motors is twenty-sixth; Ford is thirty-first. All are larger than the national economies of Denmark, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Finland, Chile, etc., to name only a few. If anyone thinks larger corporations means more jobs, an Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report shows that the largest 200 corporations now control 28 percent of global economic activity, but employ less than one-half of one percent of the global workforce. This is because they enjoy tremendous efficiencies of scale, and new technology. Here in the U.S., the story is much the same. Though the U.S. is reaping the greatest benefits of globalization of any other country, the benefits are not being shared. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, American CEOs now earn 417 times the wages of factory workers they employ. Between 1990 and 1998, CEO salaries increased by 481 percent, reports IPS and United for a Fair Economy. And the U.S. Federal Reserve now reports that the top 20 percent of the U.S. population owns 84.6 percent of all the wealth in the country. Some people point to the booming stock market and record low unemployment as evidence that economic globalization is working. But while the stock market has boomed, it actually does not reflect the reality of life for most people. Almost 90 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households is owned by the richest 10 percent. Even in wealthy countries like the U.S., median wages have fallen steadily as the economy has become globalized. From 1983 to 1998, the Standard and Poors 500 Index grew a cumulative 1,336 percent. Although unemployment is low, the average worker is now earning ten percent less, adjusting for inflation, than he or she did in the early 1970s. Many need to hold two jobs to survive. Globalization exacerbates this trend by setting workers against each other all over the world to keep wages low. England actually now advertises that its wage levels are the lowest in Europe. So much for the rising tide that lifts all boats. Actually, it lifts only yachts.
This has been the theme strongly trumpeted since Bretton Woods; free trade and globalization will "lift all boats," and end poverty. But in the half century since this big push began, the world has more poor and more hungry than ever before, and the situation is getting steadily worse as we approach the millennium.
According to a recently published (September, 1999) UN report, global economic inequality has increased dramatically as a direct result of economic globalization and current rules of trade.
"When the market goes too far in dominating social and political outcomes, the opportunities and rewards of economic globalization spread unequally and inequitably, concentrating power and wealth in a select group of people, nations, and corporations, marginalizing the others."
Economic globalization creates wealth, but only for the few elite who can sit at the hub of the process, able to benefit from the surge of consolidations, mergers, global scale technology and financial activity. Recent figures confirm how it all works.
Benefits are so concentrated that the number of billionaires in the world has increased by 25 percent in only the last two years; collectively these 475 individuals are worth more than the combined incomes of the bottom 50 percent. Three of these billionaires are now worth more than the combined GNP of all the UN-designated "least developed countries" and their 600 million people.
Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are now corporations. Mitsubishi is the twenty-second largest economy in the world; General Motors is twenty-sixth; Ford is thirty-first. All are larger than the national economies of Denmark, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Finland, Chile, etc., to name only a few. If anyone thinks larger corporations means more jobs, an Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report shows that the largest 200 corporations now control 28 percent of global economic activity, but employ less than one-half of one percent of the global workforce. This is because they enjoy tremendous efficiencies of scale, and new technology.
Here in the U.S., the story is much the same. Though the U.S. is reaping the greatest benefits of globalization of any other country, the benefits are not being shared. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, American CEOs now earn 417 times the wages of factory workers they employ. Between 1990 and 1998, CEO salaries increased by 481 percent, reports IPS and United for a Fair Economy. And the U.S. Federal Reserve now reports that the top 20 percent of the U.S. population owns 84.6 percent of all the wealth in the country.
Some people point to the booming stock market and record low unemployment as evidence that economic globalization is working. But while the stock market has boomed, it actually does not reflect the reality of life for most people. Almost 90 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households is owned by the richest 10 percent.
Even in wealthy countries like the U.S., median wages have fallen steadily as the economy has become globalized. From 1983 to 1998, the Standard and Poors 500 Index grew a cumulative 1,336 percent. Although unemployment is low, the average worker is now earning ten percent less, adjusting for inflation, than he or she did in the early 1970s. Many need to hold two jobs to survive. Globalization exacerbates this trend by setting workers against each other all over the world to keep wages low. England actually now advertises that its wage levels are the lowest in Europe.
So much for the rising tide that lifts all boats. Actually, it lifts only yachts.
The ultimate expression of choice is diversity, and economic globalization destroys both cultural and biological diversity. Globalization is homogenizing values and behaviors, producing a new global "monoculture," just as it creates monocultures in agriculture. While economic globalization may increase consumer choices in some cases, it drastically diminishes our choices in almost every sphere of life. Also, domination of major industries by a handful of multinational corporations makes it next to impossible for small, local producers to compete. When brands like Coca-Cola and Levi's proliferate around the globe they put local operators out of business, which limits consumer choice. While Indian villagers may now have access to CNN and Baywatch, the dissemination of western popular culture by global media companies is destroying diverse local cultural and artistic traditions. Some would argue that the western cultural cloning now underway is the direct result of deliberate corporate intrusion into other nations. Corporate advertising portrays not-so-subtle images that glorify western taste, dress, food and lifestyle as being a sign of progress, while non-western traditional values and cultures are viewed as backward and out of date.
The ultimate expression of choice is diversity, and economic globalization destroys both cultural and biological diversity. Globalization is homogenizing values and behaviors, producing a new global "monoculture," just as it creates monocultures in agriculture. While economic globalization may increase consumer choices in some cases, it drastically diminishes our choices in almost every sphere of life. Also, domination of major industries by a handful of multinational corporations makes it next to impossible for small, local producers to compete. When brands like Coca-Cola and Levi's proliferate around the globe they put local operators out of business, which limits consumer choice.
While Indian villagers may now have access to CNN and Baywatch, the dissemination of western popular culture by global media companies is destroying diverse local cultural and artistic traditions. Some would argue that the western cultural cloning now underway is the direct result of deliberate corporate intrusion into other nations. Corporate advertising portrays not-so-subtle images that glorify western taste, dress, food and lifestyle as being a sign of progress, while non-western traditional values and cultures are viewed as backward and out of date.
First of all, economic globalization does not produce wealth, save for a small percentage of people (see above). The wealth that is produced is rarely spent on environmental programs. Multilateral lending agencies set up to further the agenda of economic globalization, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, practically ensure environmental destruction. The conditions attached to loans from the IMF and World Bank require that governments open up their natural resources to corporate exploitation and cut spending for environmental programs. In any case, some kinds of environmental destruction cannot be reversed through increased expenditures. No amount of money can bring back species pushed to extinction. Globalization is inherently destructive to the natural world because it requires that products travel thousands of miles around the planet, resulting in staggering environmental costs such as unprecedented levels of ocean and air pollution from transport, increased energy consumption and use of fossil fuels (furthering climate change), and increased use of packaging materials. It also requires devastating new infrastructure developments: new roads, ports, airports, pipelines, power grids--often constructed in formerly pristine places. WTO agreements have already rolled back years of hard-won environmental gains made through national legislation and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), including measures agreed upon at the 1992 Rio Summit. To date, in every dispute case challenging a domestic environmental regulation, the WTO has ruled against the environment. Its very first ruling, in fact, seriously weakened a part of the U.S. Clean Air Act. In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed some of its clean air rules to allow dirtier gasoline as a result of this ruling. In addition, the WTO has ruled against provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the U.S. has changed its regulations to comply with the WTO. In the interests of advancing trade liberalization, commercial interests advising governments say trade rules must be consistent from country to country. However, instead of setting minimum standards for environmental protection, WTO agreements and dispute rulings effectively place a ceiling on environmental standards. This ensures that environmental regulations sink to the lowest common denominator, resulting in a downward harmonization of global standards. Proponents of globalization point to the rising number of MEAs as evidence that environmental concerns are being addressed. However, most MEAs are largely voluntary and do not have effective enforcement mechanisms.
First of all, economic globalization does not produce wealth, save for a small percentage of people (see above). The wealth that is produced is rarely spent on environmental programs. Multilateral lending agencies set up to further the agenda of economic globalization, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, practically ensure environmental destruction. The conditions attached to loans from the IMF and World Bank require that governments open up their natural resources to corporate exploitation and cut spending for environmental programs. In any case, some kinds of environmental destruction cannot be reversed through increased expenditures. No amount of money can bring back species pushed to extinction.
Globalization is inherently destructive to the natural world because it requires that products travel thousands of miles around the planet, resulting in staggering environmental costs such as unprecedented levels of ocean and air pollution from transport, increased energy consumption and use of fossil fuels (furthering climate change), and increased use of packaging materials. It also requires devastating new infrastructure developments: new roads, ports, airports, pipelines, power grids--often constructed in formerly pristine places.
WTO agreements have already rolled back years of hard-won environmental gains made through national legislation and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), including measures agreed upon at the 1992 Rio Summit. To date, in every dispute case challenging a domestic environmental regulation, the WTO has ruled against the environment. Its very first ruling, in fact, seriously weakened a part of the U.S. Clean Air Act. In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed some of its clean air rules to allow dirtier gasoline as a result of this ruling. In addition, the WTO has ruled against provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the U.S. has changed its regulations to comply with the WTO.
In the interests of advancing trade liberalization, commercial interests advising governments say trade rules must be consistent from country to country. However, instead of setting minimum standards for environmental protection, WTO agreements and dispute rulings effectively place a ceiling on environmental standards. This ensures that environmental regulations sink to the lowest common denominator, resulting in a downward harmonization of global standards.
Proponents of globalization point to the rising number of MEAs as evidence that environmental concerns are being addressed. However, most MEAs are largely voluntary and do not have effective enforcement mechanisms.
Advocates of economic globalization have succeeded in making the term "protectionism" a dirty word. They use it to offhandedly dismiss everyone from environmentalists to consumers to small businesspeople to organized labor. Peasant farmers are lampooned as protectionists for resisting trade liberalization and for trying to preserve a so-called "inefficient" way of life that has served them and their communities well for centuries. If protectionism refers to protecting local jobs, public health, cultural diversity, and natural resources, then protectionism is a good thing. The structure of economic globalization is itself corporate protectionism, because it is set up to protect corporations from the regulations of democratic societies.
Advocates of economic globalization have succeeded in making the term "protectionism" a dirty word. They use it to offhandedly dismiss everyone from environmentalists to consumers to small businesspeople to organized labor. Peasant farmers are lampooned as protectionists for resisting trade liberalization and for trying to preserve a so-called "inefficient" way of life that has served them and their communities well for centuries.
If protectionism refers to protecting local jobs, public health, cultural diversity, and natural resources, then protectionism is a good thing. The structure of economic globalization is itself corporate protectionism, because it is set up to protect corporations from the regulations of democratic societies.
Developing countries are, in fact, becoming poorer, not richer. They are already paying the highest price for globalization. This is because the rules of the global bureaucracies invariably favor Northern corporate interests. While it is widely accepted that the biosphere is incapable of sustaining six billion people at the consumption levels of the North, one cannot argue that poor countries should stay poor while rich countries continue to consume more than their share. The over consumption of the north has been fueled by centuries of exploitation of the South's natural resources. So we must give a much higher priority to cutting Northern over consumption, sharing resources and wealth and recognizing the South's legitimate need for sustainable development.
Developing countries are, in fact, becoming poorer, not richer. They are already paying the highest price for globalization. This is because the rules of the global bureaucracies invariably favor Northern corporate interests.
While it is widely accepted that the biosphere is incapable of sustaining six billion people at the consumption levels of the North, one cannot argue that poor countries should stay poor while rich countries continue to consume more than their share.
The over consumption of the north has been fueled by centuries of exploitation of the South's natural resources. So we must give a much higher priority to cutting Northern over consumption, sharing resources and wealth and recognizing the South's legitimate need for sustainable development.
There are many alternatives. But for the reasons outlined above, our current course is the one that is not realistic. By punishing countries and communities that fail to follow its rules, economic globalization actually precludes the development of other alternatives and growth models. The expansion of the global economy inevitably marginalizes and renders obsolete the livelihoods of a large segment of the world's population. At the same time, it devastates the natural world, homogenizes cultures, and destroys communities. The better path is to do exactly the opposite of what economic globalization advocates suggest. The more they say to remove restrictions on currency flows, the clearer it is there should be strict restrictions on currency. The more they say free trade, the more we must fight for the powers of local communities and regions to act in the interests of their own resources, people and land. We should move away from economic globalization--and toward a revitalization of local political and economic control, self-reliance and ecological preservation.
There are many alternatives. But for the reasons outlined above, our current course is the one that is not realistic. By punishing countries and communities that fail to follow its rules, economic globalization actually precludes the development of other alternatives and growth models.
The expansion of the global economy inevitably marginalizes and renders obsolete the livelihoods of a large segment of the world's population. At the same time, it devastates the natural world, homogenizes cultures, and destroys communities.
The better path is to do exactly the opposite of what economic globalization advocates suggest. The more they say to remove restrictions on currency flows, the clearer it is there should be strict restrictions on currency. The more they say free trade, the more we must fight for the powers of local communities and regions to act in the interests of their own resources, people and land.
We should move away from economic globalization--and toward a revitalization of local political and economic control, self-reliance and ecological preservation.
Debunking the debunking of (Myths of) Economic Globalization
A point by point rebuttal.
Myth 1: Economic Globalization Is Inevitable The primary function of these bodies is to place economic values above all others, and to establish rules that suppress the ability of nation-states to sustain laws that protect nature, workers, consumers and even national sovereignty and democracy if they can be construed as slowing down free trade. The net result is the greatest transfer of economic and political power from nation-states to corporations ever in history.
The Bretton Woods Agreements (see http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/decade/decad047.htm) did not specifically say or imply"... on a globally centralized system with global corporations as the engines of economic growth." -- this is misinterpretation.
Allow me to restate one of the basic lessons of Economics. Trades occur between two informed, consenting parties because it is beneficial to both parties. Which part of this is difficult to understand? The nations involved want to make those trades so they can advance.
Myth 2: We Need Globalization To Feed the Hungry
"The globalization of corporate industrial-style agriculture has failed to address the world's hunger crisis; in fact, it makes it worse."
Are there facts to back this up? What were the figures like for before and after? How do you know this to be true? This claim is so insanely stupendous that it is overwhelmingly difficult to back this up. Just think about the statement above for a minute. Firstly it claims that globalization directly led to "corporate industrial-style agriculture", then it claims that the world's hunger crisis has actually worsened since the onset of "globalization", finally ending with the ridiculous claim that globalization, and only globalization, was responsible for making the world's hunger crisis worse.
Global trade put local farmers out of business because it was to the country's benefit to import the same food from overseas rather than grow it themselves. Cheaper food brought about by improved agriculture technology (not globalization) allows cheaper food to be bought and thus land to be released for other purposes. Would city states such as Singapore or Hong Kong be anywhere near as successful as they are today if they had to grow their own food?
But what about the local farmers? Should the country continue buying food from them at an inflated price instead of buying it from the open market at a cheaper price? Old practices are only good in the face of an unchanging environment. Under pressure from an expanding population, the old ways of farming are bound to be insufficient to feed the growing masses.
I agree that the problem is one of distribution. Since we agree on this point, I would seriously like to hear how scrapping free trade would help this issue. If the excess food produced in one country is not allowed to flow to countries that need it, how the hell can an isolationist policy possibly be any better?
Myth 3: Globalization Will Alleviate Poverty
I submit that the world has "more poor and more hungry than ever before", not because of globalization, but rather because of improved healthcare and sanitation causing such a rapid increase in population that the economies of the poor countries could not grow at a sufficient pace to support them.
Ask anybody from one of the Asian Economic Tigers whether or not they would prefer global trade to be a reality or not.
There exists much statistics about how concentrated wealth is but there is precious little research into how concentrated wealth was before free trade? Why do we never see those figures?
Taking this point further, I would also like to point out that the poor and hungry of this generation are generally better off than the poor and hungry of past generations anyway. Take any country that is not currently or recently ravaged by war and I think that the findings will be similar there.
Myth 4: Economic Globalization Increases Choice Before the reality of today's trading market, trade between countries was so sparse that only the rich could afford the speciality products of each and every tribe from weird and exotic nations. The poor handicraft makers, spending all their time fending for their own food, had little time to make crafts. Today, I can walk into a mall and purchase crystal from Austria, Pewter from Malaysia, newspapers from New York, anime from Japan, hard disks from Singapore, opals from Australia ... think of how many models of cars were available (and at what price) before and after trade barriers were lowered in your country.
I will take global trade any day for choice of products, thank you very much.
Myth 5: Economic Globalization Increases Environmental Standards in Developing Countries by Making Countries Wealthier
Hands up, everyone who would like to live in a country without airports, ports, electric power, roads ...
The costs (economic and environmental) of buying goods from overseas and transporting to your home country MUST be less than the cost (economic and environmental) of producing those exact same goods in your own country. If not, market forces would dictate that someone in your own country would produce those goods in your country. It makes sense. Why is this point so difficult to understand?
As to saving the environment, an often forgotten point is that only wealthier (as in not poor) countries would have the educated populace to understand the benefits of saving the environment.
Myth 6: Opposition to Economic Globalization Is Protectionist
Protectionism also leads to old, inefficient industries being supported. Is this really a good thing? Before the invention of the loom, cloth used to be woven by hand. This, of course, took at least 10 times as long and many times more workers than the mechanical machine that replaced them. Should we go back to the times when weavers wove cloth from thread? Should we protect the weavers' jobs?
As for protectionism protecting public health, cultural diversity and natural resources? Hah. The most culturally diverse nations in the world today are those that have the most vibrant economies (hint: they also tend to be pro-globalization). Public health? The public health system will be fine as long as the economy can support paying for it. I suspect this will happen better in a healthy economy. Natural resources? Far more resources are consumed by inefficient practices than by moving goods around the world.
Myth 7: Developing Countries Are Depending on Economic Globalization To Achieve First World Standard of Living
-- uhuh, right. Ask any resident of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan ... ask them how much being involved in the global market has helped their economies.
There are other examples of poor countries, of course, but figures are always left out of these claims because these neo-nazi-protectionist-environmentalists-anti-globalization pundits will not bring up concrete examples to prove their case as there are none.
Myth 8: There Is No Realistic Alternative to Economic Globalization
I agree - there should be more local interest in the economy, self-reliance and preservation of the environment. However, I fail to see how this has anything to do with globalization. These are two separate issues and anyone making this kind of statement is commiting the logical fallacy called a complex question, also sometimes known as a "double-barrelled question".
There is a realistic alternative as Cletus_the_Foetus has said - more freedom.
More democracy! More capitalism!
Debunking of the debunking of the debunking Added April 12th, 2002
Myth #2: Cletus_the_Foetus has said that the two parties who participate in a trade do so because they believe that they will both benefit, not because they will both actually benefit from this trade. This is true. I do however, submit that any party that continues to be party of trades that are detrimental to its own health will end up in self destruction before long. Such is capitalism. The weak get culled.
Myth #3: Much has been said by both Cletus_the_Foetus and Eclectic_Scion about how wrong I am for saying that improvements in healthcare and sanitation are responsible for the huge increase in population, which is, in turn, responsible for the food shortages in those countries.
Take your mind off the extreme cost of high end medical care in developed countries. CAT scans, MRI scans, radiotherapy, chemotherapy - these are all examples of expensive medicine.
Think about cheap medicine. Antibiotics are cheap. Penicillin has been out of patent for a very long time now. Teaching villagers to boil water to help prevent cholera is cheap. Sleeping with mosquito netting is cheap. Simple "hole in the ground toilets" are cheap and function far better than centuries old "just bury it" or "just go in the river".
Populations have boomed because death rates have gone down faster than birth rates. Infant mortality is down, people are living longer - even in the poorest countries. They may not have access to even X-ray machines, never mind CAT scans but their doctors can still prescribe Amoxicillin (the pills themselves cost less than US$1 per course per adult) to cure their productive cough.
Specifically for Eclectic_Scion I suggest that you take a step back and take the big picture view. Capitalism is a bad system, but it's the best system we have. Capitalism will even save the environment.
A Mutual De-Bunking
Myth #1: Economic globalization is inevitable.
zygut states, "[W]hile global trade activity and concepts of free trade have existed since the distant past, they do not nearly begin to resemble the volume, speed, form or impact of today's activities, nor were they as deliberately plotted and structured." He then goes on to attribute this difference to particular political institutions that supposedly do the "deliberate" plotting and structuring.
alex.tan rightly explodes the idea by reminding us that an economic exchange occurs between two people, not just one. So what is responsible for the formation of a global economy? That's easy: Global technology. Commerce, if not artificially limited by central government planning, will spread as far as communication will permit it. Thanks to the modern Trinity of telephone, satellite, and computer (and their unholy love-child, the Internet), there is nowhere on earth that can't support some outpost.
In light of these technologies, a global economy isn't "inevitable" but makes perfect sense. Why not tap into a skills pool or a market halfway around the world (ie., why not make friends), if the power to do so is in your hands? It has nothing to do with Bilderburger-like conspiracies. It's just common sense.
Myth #2: We need globalization to feed the hungry.
zygut is right: the "globalized industrial" (actually, just American) paradigm of agriculture emphasizes production for export, to the detriment of the citizens, because it compromises their ability to feed themselves. alex.tan's counterexamples of Singapore and Hon
