Any complete analysis of global economic integration—globalization—requires that you not only look at war-torn regions of the world, but also Mauritius, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and others. All of these countries were dirt-poor at the end of WWII. Today, some are as rich as we are. It must also include the counter-examples of places like Argentina, which shut itself off from the rest of the world in a fit of Peronist pique. In 1900 Argentina was as prosperous as Canada or Germany. Now it lags far behind.
What we should be doing, instead of using the internet and intercontinental flights to protest globalization, is unilaterally lowering our trade barriers to poorer parts of the world. A month ago, America took a good first step by lowering tariffs on Pakistani textiles, which constitute the major export of that unstable country. Though this was in thanks for military strong-man General Musharraf’s rightful support of the anti-terrorism alliance, it is deeply ironic that the US has refused to open its borders to textile imports from equally poor nearby countries that did not have a hand in creating the Taliban. Rather than protesting the war on terror, we must protest poverty and lobby to extend this preferential treatment to Sri Lanka and Botswana.
People in our rich country are often astonished that people in poor countries would line up in long queues to get an application to work at a Nike “sweatshop” for six dollars per day. You and I might not want to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week in a sterile factory. But perhaps if the alternative is working in a malarial field 7 days a week for 14 hours per day, then you can understand why people choose to abandon their plots and instead work in a nearby town at half the salary of a local doctor. Though a Cambodian sewing machine operator or a Mexican maquiladora worker will give you different specific reasons for what they do, their stories will be very similar.
Yes, we need to ensure that poor people in poor countries have the right to unionize without fear of harassment. They must have access to primary health care and primary education for their children. But they must also have the right to choose what is best for them.
Make no mistake: multinational corporations are doing what they do for profit. We need to ensure through constant vigilance that companies do not mistreat their workers. Those of us in rich countries do have a part to play: we can support the establishment of a free press and democratic institutions in all countries of the world. However, we cannot morally extinguish the aspirations of the world’s poor with a new kind of rich-world paternalism.
COUNTER POINT:
“Export processing zones (EPZ) or free-trade areas in countries like Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, and the Phillipines often mean that multinationals do not contribute to developing economies in the way that you would expect. In these areas, national export taxes and laws are waived in order to attract foreign investors. The idea worked well for countries like South Korea and Taiwan.
With only a few countries participating wages rose steadily, technology was transferred and tax was slowly reintroduced. Now, however, with 70 countries competing, benefits are curbed by the threat of departure. Why would multinational companies integrate with the host economy when they can just move to another free-trade area in a different country?” Is there more to this globalization issue? You betcha! How do you contribute? One way is to contact the Varsity opinions editor at: [email protected].
—Source: No Logo, Naomi Klein
