[concluding part of chapter 3 of John Bunzl's forthcoming book, "The Simultaneous Policy - An Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet" ] Under increasing competitive pressures, the harnessing of new technologies by businesses can only serve to accelerate unemployment and the inevitable social decay that goes with it: "New technologies and the deskilling of parts of the population by inadequate education are central causes of long-term unemployment in advanced western societies. Growing income inequalities have been magnified by deregulation of the labour market and neo-liberal tax policies, but the root cause of falling wages and rising unemployment is the worldwide spread of new technology."27 Competition, and the drive for cost reductions it demands, is also the key driver behind environmental degradation: "Private decision-makers operating in markets are forced by competition to find ways to reduce their costs. In so far as they fail to do so as effectively as their competitors, they will be forced out of business. One way to reduce costs is to externalize them, to organize production so that the negative impacts occur outside the market relationship. For example, when oil tankers are flushed out at sea (a common practice), the market costs of cleaning are minimized. The consequent pollution of the ocean is a social cost, but it appears nowhere in the transactions of the oil transportation industry. ... The destruction of nature by the economic advance of human beings is not a historically new process, nor is it peculiar to capitalism. The tremendously expansionary force of market activity has, however, brought environmental destruction to a global level, as evidenced by global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer. In this way of looking at things, environmental destruction is not a product of greed or human indifference to nature. It is a product of accumulation, a consequence of the way competition works through markets."28 Competition is, furthermore, commonly identifiable as a key barrier to reducing environmental problems at the micro-economic level of everyday experience. In my own work as supplier of filter papers to manufacturers of car air filters, for example, their production process using conventional papers results in harmful emissions being given off to the environment. In my product portfolio, however, I can also offer a paper that can reduce these harmful emissions to a fraction of what is normally given off. But because of the special resins it contains, this paper costs about 20% more than conventional paper and my customers will not use it because the higher cost will make them uncompetitive in a global market where their customers, the major car manufacturers, can purchase anywhere in the world and can play one supplier off against another. However, because the low-emission paper represents but a fraction of the total cost of the final product, the additional cost to the consumer would be negligible. Furthermore, were all filter manufacturers obliged to use the low-emission paper, economies of scale would mean its additional cost would no longer be 20% but perhaps nearer 5%. So an improvement to the environment could be made at negligible extra cost. But due to today's intense global competition, that potential for reducing environmental impact is unnecessarily lost. I suggest that many of us working in industry could identify very many similar examples, which, if taken together, would amount to a very significant reduction in environmental impact overall. So it cannot be said that solutions do not exist nor that they would cost significantly more. It is merely the cut-throat competition of a globalised free market and governments' inability to enforce higher standards that prevents us from benefiting from them. As far as employment in the global market is concerned, one argument put in favour of free-markets is that the world-wide spread of new technology combined with the ability of corporations to shift production to lower cost countries should serve to benefit poorer countries thus leading to a narrowing of the wealth gap between rich and poor nations. Apart from the fact that most of the evidence runs counter to this, the deployment of new technology in poorer countries fails to meet the needs of the mass of their peoples. Deployed in advanced or developing countries, the effect is broadly the same: new technology simply does not require many people to operate it: "According to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, the role of TNCs in job creation is 'at best marginal'. It points out that if TNC employment is growing at all, it is 'due to acquisitions and mergers rather than to new employment opportunities'. A new TNC-owned factory may create jobs but at the cost of existing jobs in locally owned factories. A net gain of jobs may not result."29 Conversely, in industries where manual labour cannot be avoided, it has proved all too often to be characterised by meagerly paid exploitation.30 Not having the necessary protective regulation and enforcement capabilities of more advanced countries, and with TNCs able to settle in almost any developing country they choose, developing nations are locked into competition with one another to attract the TNCs. Far from some altruistic motive to see those in poor countries improve their lot and thus narrow the gap between rich and poor, globalisation therefore merely serves as an efficient, low-cost method for TNCs to penetrate the economies of developing countries: "Rising global inequality in an era of increasing international interdependence is especially disconcerting, suggesting that globalization is generating forces that lead to the concentration instead of the dispersion of wealth. The global income distribution facts are certainly consistent with the argument that 'globalization' is simply a new term for imperialism, allowing those in the advanced countries more effective access to, control over and benefit from the world's human and natural resources."31 As J.K. Galbraith himself also once said: "Globalization is not a serious concept. We have invented it to disseminate our politics of economic entry into other countries."32 >From the corporate point of view, however, profits must be maximised. Competition requires them to seek out the lowest possible labour costs and conditions. With fund managers watching their every move, only too ready to down-grade the stock of any "under-performing" company, failure to seek out the lowest manufacturing costs would be to lose ground against their competitors causing a reduction in profits, share price and, ultimately, the threat of an unwelcome takeover: "Glaxo axes 3,400 jobs in move to slash costs by �370m a year. GLAXO WELLCOME, the UK's largest pharmaceutical company, is to shed 3,400 jobs, including 1,700 in Britain, in a root-and-branch restructuring of its manufacturing operations. ...analysts said the proposed cuts, accounting for 16 per cent of the manufacturing workforce ... were higher than anticipated. Glaxo's shares closed up 20p at 1,610p. 'This is the excuse many needed to buy the shares, which have performed badly in recent weeks' said one analyst."33 This powerfully negative dynamic is compounded by corporations seeking shelter from competition by engaging in a cannibalistic feeding frenzy of takeovers, mergers and acquisitions. The losers, of course, are those that lose their jobs: "AstraZeneca cuts 1,000 research jobs. ASTRAZENECA, the Anglo-Swedish drugs giant, is to cut 1,000 jobs in research and development, including 450 in Britain. The move comes as part of group's plan to shed 6,000 jobs by the end of 2002, following its merger earlier in the year."34 "BAe axes 1,500 as Marconi merger is finalised. AROUND 1,500 management posts are to be axed following the completion yesterday of the merger between British Aerospace and GEC's Marconi defence electronics arm to create a new company known as Baesystems. ... The job losses, which will reduce the management ranks of the new organisation to about 3,000 are part of the �275m cost savings identified when the merger was announced in January. ... Baesystems has promised to give an update on additional cost savings next spring with most analysts expecting it to achieve at least �400m. The new company will rank as the world's second-largest defence contractor..."35 And when two or more companies are bidding against one another to takeover another company, the result is a competition to see which bidder can cut the most jobs in an effort to secure shareholder support: "RBS planning big cost cuts. Royal Bank of Scotland's bid for National Westminster Bank has revealed the group to be planning more aggressive cost cuts than rival bidder Bank of Scotland. The cuts - involving up to 18,000 job losses - aim to save �1.18bn over three years. Bank of Scotland said it could save �1.02bn over the same period. Cost cutting has been a key part of the battle to acquire NatWest..."36 Whilst competition is held to be beneficial to consumers by resulting in lower prices, the logic of the global market inevitably results in the opposite effect. For the drive for competitive advantage, cost reductions and survival results not in enhanced competition but in the opposite: corporate consolidation. As a consequence, governments have established all manner of so-called 'competition regulators' in an attempt to curb the worst excesses of corporate mergers. But a globalised free-market forces governments to view mergers and acquisitions in a global context, often allowing further consolidation at the expense of the public interest: "New media giant vows to take on Murdoch. Carlton Communications and United News and Media confirmed a �7.8bn merger yesterday that will turn them into Britain's largest media company. ... The combined company is so big that it will break the legal limit that does not allow any one company to take more than 25 per cent of television advertising revenues. However, many stock analysts believe that the OFT [Office of Fair Trading] may allow the deal to go ahead anyway. The watchdog is already conducting a review of the 25 per cent limit, which was imposed in 1994. Since then, there has been considerable pressure to allow media companies to consolidate in order to compete effectively in the digital age, and to take advantage of global markets. ... City speculation has now turned to the possibility of yet more consolidation,..."37 Whether it is corporate consolidation or the introduction of new technology, therefore, the inevitable result of competition is ever-increasing unemployment accompanied by consequent social or environmental decay and a concentration of economic power in ever-fewer hands. Some hold out the hope that TNCs can be influenced towards more socially and environmentally responsible behaviour. But this is to misunderstand both the legal and business framework within which corporations operate. Company law demands that directors must always "act in the best interests of the company". (I am a company director, so I know.) Since "interests" can ultimately be measured only in monetary terms, it amounts to a legal obligation to maximise profits paying minimum regard to any (usually weak) social or environmental regulations. In a business environment where competitors are only too ready to step in where environmentally or socially conscious companies might hesitate, not only would self-restraint be futile, it would be damaging for any company exercising it. Furthermore, directors of such companies would place themselves at risk of legal action by shareholders for failing to "act in the best interests of the company." Any influence that might be brought to bear on corporations can therefore only result in token and cosmetic actions designed merely to promote a benign yet false public image. Unless company law around the world is both adjusted and combined with effective means of enforcement no tangible improvement to the environment or to the corporate role in society can be expected. Similarly, we should also not be lulled into a false sense of security by the often genuine efforts of some corporations towards "Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting" (SEAAR). Whilst these procedures may assist in improving a corporation's attitude and behaviour to social and environmental issues, they fail to address the dynamics of competition, particularly with respect to job losses. As a member of one corporation leading in SEAAR pointed out: "Still questions abound. For example, what does fair treatment of workers really mean? Are layoffs fair? And if they are not fair, can anyone really expect such fairness? Is there a difference between, on the one hand, two large, profitable banks merging and eliminating thousands of jobs and, on the other hand, a manufacturing business laying off workers in response to slow sales?"38 Indeed, in the Age of Competition, these are the crucial questions; questions which new methods of 'accounting' have yet to properly answer and upon which they remain eerily silent. That the procedures followed by such corporations to make employees redundant may be 'fair' or 'ethical' and that there may have been no alternative is therefore of little comfort, particularly to those who, having lost their jobs, no longer form part of the corporation's 'stakeholders'. (Furthermore, I suggest that the use of the words 'social' and 'ethical' imply a far wider and grander scope of application than these procedures justify and is therefore prone to mislead the public as well as investors. The less grand and simpler title of 'Stakeholder Accounting' might perhaps be more appropriate.) In conclusion, therefore, whilst competition is held to be the engine of innovation and lower prices for consumers, we must now wake up to its less obvious and highly dangerous effects; effects which the global free market is fast demonstrating far outweigh those much-trumpeted benefits. Indeed, it is surely high time that the religion of competition which purports it to have exclusively positive effects was well and truly debunked. In the absence of international regulation of world markets and TNCs, surely we must realise that we are all being forced to play a dangerous game that no one is in control of and no one can be held responsible for. Neither, under pseudo-democracy, is there any evident exit from it. We are all of us caught in a vicious circle in which there can ultimately be no long-term winners and from which there is ordinarily no way out. Whilst the vicious circle continues there are, of course, big short term winners: shareholders and the over-paid corporate executives who do their bidding. It should therefore come as no surprise that the gap between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate: "The rich are still getting richer. Despite last year's economic panic, the world's millionaires continued to get richer. The combined wealth of the six million wealthiest people reached $21.6 thousand billion (�13.5 thousand billion), up by 12 per cent over last year and it is likely to grow by 9 per cent over the next five years, according to research conducted by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, and Gemini Consulting, a management consultancy."39 "UK bosses get 17% pay rises. CHIEF EXECUTIVES at the UK's 100 largest companies saw their pay packages rise by 17.6 per cent on average in the last financial year, according to a survey published today by the pay research company Incomes Data Services. The report ... finds that "even annual bonus payments" showed weak links with companies' performance and profits ..."40 In the longer term, however, weakening social cohesion resulting from the widening gap between rich and poor fueled by increasing unemployment is already manifesting itself in the growing power of xenophobic groups and far-right political parties. With centre-right parties largely redundant and soulless centre-left parties pandering to market and corporate whims, evidence of a resort to far-right political parties is already mounting and we should hardly need reminding of its ultimate consequences: "The tendency has long been apparent to anyone with the eyes to see it. The wave of xenophobia among the European and American population is an unmistakable sign that politics has for years had to take into account. Refugees and immigrants have had their human rights considerably curtailed through ever harsher laws and surveillance in nearly every European country as well as in the United States. ... The next round of exclusions is directed against economically weak groups in society: receivers of income support, the jobless and disabled, the young. These people experience more and more the withdrawal of support or fellow-feeling on the part of those who are still 'winners'. Themselves threatened with relegation, peaceful middle-class citizens turn into prosperity chauvinists who are no longer willing to pay for losers in the game of world-market roulette." (Martin & Schumann) "Victory for the far right: Jorg Haider, the populist far-right politician who has expressed his admiration for Hitler, won a major victory in last weekend's regional election in the southern state of Carinthia. Haider's Freedom Party took more than 42% of the vote, well ahead of Austria's ruling party, the Social Democrats, with only 30%. It is the first time the party has won a majority in any of Austria's nine states, and should ensure that Haider is named Governor of Carinthia, the post from which he had to resign in 1991 after praising Hitler."41 "Neo-Nazi violence in Sweden: Sweden was in a state of shock last week following two separate car bomb explosions. ... The bombs have caused bewilderment in Sweden, widely regarded as the most liberal society in Europe. Increased immigration and the effects of economic recession have stimulated a burgeoning neo-Nazi movement in Sweden."42 "Far-right's success will end Swiss consensus. Switzerland's cosy democracy was jolted at the weekend as a far-right party made spectacular electoral gains... For the moment, Mr Blocher's triumph can be ignored, but such a strategy goes against the Swiss tradition of consensus government." 43 "Hague defies calls to cool down race row. William Hague fuelled the political debate over race last night by warning that Britain faced a "massive influx of bogus asylum-seekers",... the Tory leader made clear the controversial issue would remain a central plank in his party's campaigning."44 "Schroeder gets a mauling at polls. Germany's ruling Social Democrats suffered catastrophic losses in two key regional elections yesterday... Mr. Schroeder's party lost the western state of Saarland to the oppostion..., and in the eastern state of Brandenburg the SPD's share of the vote collapsed by 15 percentage points,... The neo-Nazis of the German People's Union, based in Munich, entered Brandenburg's state parliament for the first time with a vote of 5.2%. ... Mr. Schroeder's bad day was compounded by the fact that in both states the Greens, his junior coalition partner, failed to surmount the 5% hurdle required to enter parliament."45 And we would be foolish to believe that such tendencies will remain safely under wraps within the confines of a newly strengthened EU. Since free financial markets and competition are truly global phenomena, so too is the growing popularity of the new far-right: "Tokyo elects anti-Western extremist. The dark side of Japan's imperial past has resurfaced, says Toru Hayano [of Asahi Shimbun]. The election of the ultra-right-wing Shintaro Ishihara as mayor of Tokyo is a worrying sign that voters are disillusioned with the political stalemate that has crippled national politics. In despair, they are turning to authoritarian figures like Ishihara who promise to clean up corruption and end the cronyism which is endemic in Japanese government. But behind his smooth promises are some unsavoury beliefs, such as a refusal to accept Japan's responsibility for the Rape of Nanking, or the existence of Korean 'comfort women'. He is violently anti-American and anti-Nato."46 As if the social consequences of continued runaway competition were not worrying enough, the competition between nation states in pursuit of their respective 'national interests' similarly heralds dire environmental and human consequences: "Researchers at several universities say that climate change can only be halted by a 70 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions... And if it is not halted, they warn, there could be catastrophic global consequences, including sharp rises in drought and famine, the spread of disease and the death of huge areas of tropical forest. So far, though, there is little prospect of such a drastic cut. At the Kyoto Summit two years ago, the industrialised world agreed to reduce emissions by five per cent by 2010, and even that target has run into problems. The US - which has four per cent of the world's population but produces 20 per cent of its pollution - shows little sign of co-operating with the Kyoto target..."47 Global Simultaneous Implementation: Fantasy or Necessity? With international politics now irrevocably paralysed by pseudo-democracy and with corporations left to cause social and environmental havoc in the name of maintaining their competitiveness, it is indeed difficult to see any way out of this predicament; a predicament which, both practically and theoretically, can perhaps best be understood in terms of competition having become unshackled from cooperation. For if it is to be beneficial and fair, competition must always occur within a framework of a universally appropriate, equitable and respected set of rules and the global economy is surely no exception. Cooperation between all the participants in the competition or game is needed both to define those rules and to respect and police them. Be it a children's game, an olympic athletics race or trade in the world economy, competition must always be held subordinate to cooperation. If it is not, it quickly gets out of control and under such circumstances, as any parent knows, even a children's game can quickly lead to a small war. Since no transnational institution nor any comprehensive association of nations exists capable of enforcing appropriate rules upon globally mobile capital and TNCs, it can truly be said that today those key elements of economic competition have become disembedded from cooperation and are running out of control. Interestingly, there does exist one institution having supra-national authority in trade matters, that being the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Ironically, however, far from imposing appropriate regulations on the free movement of capital and TNCs which would restore a large measure of economic control to nation states, the prime function of the WTO's remit of trade liberalisation is to preserve their free movement. After all, 'liberalisation' is the opposite of 'regulation'. The contradiction between the free movement of capital and TNCs on one hand, and democracy on the other, can thus clearly be seen. Preserving their power over nation states simply serves to preserve the subversion of democracy. That the leaders of nation states not only fail to recognise this but actually support the unrestricted movement of capital and corporations, i.e. the key factors undermining their own power base and thus their own existence, serves to illuminate the current very poor state of both politics and democracy. But I believe it is generally true to say that this is not the result of an 'evil conspiracy' on the part of transnational corporations, market traders or fund managers but merely the natural consequence of competition having become unshackled from cooperation. After all, in the case of corporations, their evolution to becoming transnational has been a function of ever-greater size driven by the need for increased profits and market share in an increasingly competitive environment; in the case of the markets, on the other hand, the cause was a deliberate, but foolhardy policy of deregulation on the part of politicians in the belief that greater prosperity would result. Evil conspiracy or not, the inability of politicians to regain control leaves them little option but to accept this situation whilst claiming its effects to be 'natural' or 'inevitable'. Politicians' acceptance of the free market and globalisation as 'inevitable' or 'natural' is both interesting and highly significant because it reveals what could be called 'the mind-set of competition'. For that mind-set represents nothing less than the terms of reference or framework within which the minds of politicians, multi-lateral institutions and the economists who support them work. It therefore subconsciously determines the paramaters, preconceptions and scope within which all their thoughts and decisions must necessarily be framed. Now this is highly significant because, if you are a politician, it means your thought process runs something like this: "Globalisation is inevitable and so is the free-market because there is, in any case, no way to stop it - in fact it's probably natural anyway. The reality of the global free market is global competition. So we must compete. And the better we compete, the richer we become. Since getting rich is good (and it will win us votes), so competition must be good. And to have its full effect, competition must be enforced consistently on a world-wide basis if we are to become richer. So we must establish a supra-national 'competition-enforcer' to do so." Hence the establishment of the WTO. In the light of the loss of control over the global economy on the part of national governments, it is therefore incorrect to see the WTO, as many do, as the cause and focus of our global ills. After all, financial market deregulation and the ability of TNCs to move production across national borders are both phenomena which clearly pre-date the establishment of the WTO. But having unwittingly lost control over the global economy and then found themselves abandoned to its uncontrollable competitive forces and, as a result, to its mind-set, the only response national governments could make was to ensure that competition exerted its inevitable force more rigorously, mechanistically and 'fairly' by establishing the WTO. We should, therefore, more properly regard the WTO as a symptom of the absence of political control over the global economy rather than its cause. By contrast, however, we should also be clear that competition is not just the unacceptable symptom of global free trade. It is equally the unacceptable feature of protectionism so often characterised by a vicious circle of competitive, tit-for-tat raising of national trade barriers so often cited by free-marketeers as the cause of previous world wars. Indeed, no single doctrine, be it global free-trade or global protectionism, can offer an answer to our problems. Nor can economic justice or environmental and employment security be fostered within a framework of unfettered competition of either variety. After all, competition is not about justice or security - it's about winning. As the inevitable symptom of both hitherto available paradigms, it shouldn't be too difficult to deduce, therefore, that competition itself represents the underlying problem. Far from a glorious ride to global prosperity, therefore, "we stand on the brink not of the era of plenty that free-marketeers project, but a tragic epoch, in which anarchic market forces and shrinking natural resources drag sovereign states into ever more dangerous rivalries. ... The likelihood must be that the laissez-faire regime will not be reformed. Instead it will fracture and fragment, as mounting scarcities of resources and conflicts of interest among the world's great powers make international cooperation ever more difficult. A deepening international anarchy is the human prospect."48 But fully in the face of this desperate state of affairs, in this book I shall argue not only that widespread, if not universal cooperation between nation states is feasible but that such an approach also offers an infinitely more effective means of addressing our problems; a means based on a range of policies implemented co-operatively by all nations simultaneously. Furthermore, not only will this book argue such a far-reaching vision to be perfectly compatible within the framework of current world politics, it will outline a feasible means of achieving it. Whilst many readers may throw their hands up in ridicule at this proposition, in the light of the circumstances described above, surely the question is not how realistic or otherwise such a proposal might be but what other choice do the people of the world have - be they in advanced, developing or non-industrial countries - if they are to free themselves from the domination of financial markets or, for that matter, from any of the other economic markets that force nations to compete with one another to the detriment of their societies? Such is the 'golden' merry-go-round the world has decided to get on to: now it is spinning so fast no nation alone is able to get off (unless it is forcibly ejected by the market itself). Nor would any nation or group of nations be capable of slowing it down. Indeed if it were not so destructive to mankind, the idea of nations having embarked onto a merry-go-round from which they now find they are unable to disembark would be almost laughable. Amusing the thought may be, we should take seriously the perfectly logical solution. There remains, therefore, only one possible way to both slow and control the merry-go-round and to address our two world problems: a global and simultaneous one in which all nations act together. Indeed, in a globally competitive context, global simultaneous action now remains the only method of escaping that vicious circle and of shifting opinion and policy away from free-market fundamentalism.49 Even if re-regulation of free financial markets and corporations were achieved - and achieved it must be if we are to restore genuine democracy and avoid the catastrophic consequences of a move to the far-right - we will continue to be faced by our two world problems of achieving Right Livelihood and Right Human Relations: the 'ugly sisters' that simply refuse to go away. How much longer are we going to go on denying their existence, continually allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked by attractive but deadly golden merry-go-rounds?50 World consciousness calls ever louder to all humanity to see the futility of running away from them. Surely we cannot allow the survivors of a Third World War or a descent into widespread civil unrest and rebel warfare to look back and identify the 1990s as the decade in which the writing was on the wall but nobody took action. For it is precisely at such moments in history that the course of world events can be influenced - indeed must be influenced - if disasters such as the two world wars of this century are to be averted. Many might think that such horrors cannot possibly happen again but the inequalities, social exclusion and growing xenophobia that we see today existed in the build-up to those horrors and we ignore them at our peril. The strangle-hold that global free markets now exert over domestic national politics in whatever country has effectively disabled governments of whatever party from pursuing policies to protect labour, the environment or the poor. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that weakening social cohesion is today accompanied by the rise of the far right. In the light of these obvious warning signs, do we really want to be remembered as the generation that ignored those dire warnings because it was too busy fixing the millennium computer bug? Our two world problems are human problems that cannot be escaped; problems which can only be recognised and confronted if we and our children are to survive. We must now accept them and deal with them before it is too late. To deal with them we must accept or 'own' them and then take responsibility for solving them. To own them, we must turn our backs on chaos and strive for community. To do so, we must find the courage to enter the era of emptiness: the elusive bridge that will take us from chaos towards community. In the Age of Competition, that bridge may appear more elusive than ever, but as we shall see, it can be found. 1 Globalization in Question. Paul Hirst & Grahame Thompson. Polity Press 1996. Page 171. 2 As exemplified by the popular contemporary musical "Hair". 3 The importance of corporate funded right-wing 'think tanks' in formulating and disseminating free-market policies to right-of-centre political parties is well documented in chapter 5 of Global Spin - The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. Sharon Beder. Green Books, 1997. 4 See Mexico's Coming Backlash, M. Delal Baer in Foreign Affairs, July/August 1999. 5 In The Crisis of Global Capitalism, (Little, Brown & Co. 1998) Geoge Soros likens the flight of capital during a crisis as a wrecking ball swinging wildly from the crane of a demolition vehicle. 6 Globalization in Question. Hirst & Thompson. Polity Press 1996. Page 135. 7 False Dawn. John Gray. Granta Books, 1999. 8 False Dawn. John Gray. Granta Books, 1999. Feeling they are no longer competitive, continental European states are compelled to downgrade regulation to bring themselves down to (or below) the level of their economic rivals. See The Independent, 24th June 1999: "GERMANY is starting to cut back the size of the state." 8 False Dawn. John Gray. Grant Books, 1999. 9 The Global Trap. Martin & Schumann. Zed Books 1997. Pages 83-84. 10 The Global Trap. Martin & Schumann. 11 A Citizen's Guide to the Globalization of Finance. Kavaljit Singh. Zed Books, 1999. 12 Planet Dialectics. Wolfgang Sachs. Zed Books, 1999. 13 False Dawn. John Gray. Granta Books, 1998. 14 Workers of the World, Now What? By Kathleen Newland, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and codirector of its International Migration Policy Program. Quoted from Foreign Policy, Spring 1999. 15 The Week, Issue 227, 23rd October 1999. It should also be noted that the policy convergence described often leaves taxation as the only area of policy available for party-political differentiation. This results in tax-cutting competitions in the run-ups to elections which serve only to further weaken public services and wealth redistribution. See The Guardian, 15th March 2000: "Low tax a moral duty, says Hague....Hague outlined his aim of making tax a key election battleground,...". 16 Big Business - Poor Peoples. John Madeley. Zed Books, 1999. 17 The Independent. 29th May 1999. 18 Based on a talk given by James Robertson, former Cabinet Office policy-maker, to the Lucis Trust's Festival Week of the New Group of World Servers, December 1998. 19 The Independent. 9th November 1999. 20 Dieter Hundt, Trades Union Federation chief. Quoted in The Guardian, 17th September 1999. The same article notes: "The banks and the business lobby are happy with the chancellor, urging him to stay his course." 21 Financial Times, "Leader shares his agenda with SDP founders", 21st September 1999. 22 So important have 'spin doctors' become, they often hold ministerial rank, as Peter Mandelson did following New Labour's victory at the UK 1997 General Election. 23 The Week. 4th September 1999, Issue 220. 24 The subtle subversion of the media is well documented in The Compassionate Revolution. David Edwards, Green Books, 1998, chapters 2 and 3. See also Global Spin. Sharon Beder. Green Books, 1997. 25 The Independent. 2nd December 1999. 26 The Independent. 21st May 1999. Divisions between winners and losers in society are such that in the same newspaper on the same date and referring to the same item, the Business section headlines this news as "Barclays shares soar as City welcomes job cuts". 27 False Dawn. John Gray. Granta Books, 1999. 28 Neo-Liberalism or Democracy?, Arthur MacEwan, Zed Books, 1999. 29 Big Business, Poor Peoples. John Madeley, Zed Books, 1999. 30 See The Independent, September 1999. The paper launched the Global Sweatshop campaign against sweatshop labour. 31 Neo-Liberalism or Democracy? Arthur MacEwan, Zed Books, 1999. 32 Quoted from Big Business, Poor Peoples. John Madeley, Zed Books, 1999. 33 The Independent. 6th October 1999. 34 The Independent. 1st December 1999. 35 The Independent. 1st December 1999. 36 Financial Times. 30th November 1999. 37 The Independent. 27th November 1999. 38 Alan Parker, Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. quoted from Building Corporate AccountAbility, Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1997. 39 The Independent. 18th May 1999. 40 The Independent. 27th October 1999. 41 The Week. 13th March 1999. Issue 195. 42 The Week. 10th July 1999. Issue 212. 43 The Independent, 26th October 1999. 44 The Independent, 11th May 2000. 45 The Guardian. 6th September 1999. 46 The Week. 1st May 1999. 47 The Week. 15th April 2000. 48 False Dawn. John Gray. Granta Books, 1998. 49 To underline the argument for the necessity of widespread if not global simultaneous action, in adopting the Tobin Tax in May/June 1999, the resolution of the Canadian Parliament states that it should only be enacted "in concert with the international community". 50 Denial of responsibility is a common psychological phenomenon with often serious consequences. See The Road Less Traveled. M. Scott Peck. Arrow 1990. Pages 40-44. _______________________________________________ Crashlist mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crashlist webpage: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
