Hi Arthur, At 09:50 26/11/01 -0500, you wrote:
(AC) <<<<< To KH's list below I would add point 4. 4. Mature traders began to manufacture all over the world. They slowly began to see themselves as true global traders. Local laws need not apply to them. In fact when local sovereignty was put forward to fine polluters, or not dump toxic wastes or control additives in gasoline (to protect the health of citizens) etc. the global multinationals were able to sue the jursidiction in which they operate: and were able to recoup lost profits or were able to get the country to back off its suit. It is this latter stage which is most troubling. How far should we take the corporate agenda? Should the WTO allow corporations to trump nation states? Do you agree that they should? Why? >>>> To your last question: of course corporations shouldn't trump nation states. As you know, I believe that nation states interfere far too much in too many areas of social and economic life, but the tantamount duty of a government is to protect its people -- and that includes protection from pollution. As to the facts about the pollution matter you've written above, I have no idea of the details. Is it something to do with retroactive legislation? Otherwise, I'm mystified. I'm not trying to answer for the ethics of every single multinational corporation that exists. In the case in which I was personally involved (the dumping of 120,000 tons a year of industrial cyanide into the English countryside and rivers) concerning which Noel Newsome and I wrote a Conservation Society report to the Department of the Environment in 1971, it was not so much the resistance of the large firm involved -- they were much on the defensive -- but the lethargy of senior officials of the Department that was the problem. After several months of inactivity of their part, it finally needed a special TV programme to wake them up. When they saw the public concern (and our threat to make our report available to the public at the risk of being prosecuted in the High Court), the Department of Environment finally acted. Within a week, emergency legislation (the Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act 1972) was passed through both houses of Parliament. In the case of what was the most serious pollution issue of all so far in recent years -- the destruction of the ozone layer -- the multinational corporations concerned acted within months, long before western governments enacted legislation to order them to do so. The only industries which are are still manufacturing the polluting chemicals are the state-owned industries in China. It is one of the reforms that China has promised the WTO, now that it is a member. Best wishes, Keith > >Hi Christoph, > >At 00:06 25/11/01 +0100, you wrote: >(Amartya Sen wrote in the NYT) >>> the so-called "antiglobalization" protesters -- whose movement is, >>> incidentally, one of the most globalized in the world -- >(CR) >>This is the usual strawman paradox, constructed based on misrepresenting >>the "antiglobalization" position. As I pointed out in the past on this >>list, the appropriate term would be "anti-FG" (Friedman's Globalization, >>not to give Friedman too much credit, but to name a typical proponent). > >Yes, I agree that this is a rather silly remark of Amartya Sen (though it >contains a grain of truth in that the most violent protesters at Quebec and >Prague, etc. would have undoubtedly have gone home to watch themselves on >the evening news programme of their TV sets that were made thousands of >miles away). > >But why Christoph, why do you then trot out the currently-fashionable >anti-globalisation argument? It isn't an argument, actually, but just a >slogan. And, what's worse, you've personalised with the use of Friedman's >name, thereby making globalisation easier to hate? > >Don't you understand that globalisation is one of the first things that >homo sapiens practised from the beginning? Here's a little story. > >There was once a tribe of hunter-gatherers that lived in a habitat that >supplied them with all the food they needed. Their habitat also provided >them with necessary salt, water, suitable flints for spearheads and axes, >and other things. > >In due course, the tribe grew larger and organisation started to become >difficult because there were too many young males who were trying to take >over the leadership too frequently. So, as all hunter-gatherer tribes do, >the mature males kicked out some of the young males who moved out into new >territory, taking a few young females with them. > >Unfortunately the territory of the new tribe had no salt and no flint. It >happened to have rather more furry animals than the previous territory so >they were able to have better clothing. But, because the new tribe didn't >have enough salt and couldn't make new sharp spears for hunting, it didn't >fare as well nutritionally as the original tribe, and finally, after some >years of struggle and falling population, died away. > >Is this a likely story? > >Yes, if it applies to neanderthal man (and, porbably, several other hominid >species). No, if it applies to homo sapiens. > >In the case of a homo sapiens tribe, the elders of the parent tribe decided >that, in order to have better clothing for themselves, they might as well >exchange some of their surplus salt and flint for the furs that the new >tribe had plenty of. True, the new tribe might be a danger if they >survived and the parent tribe would have to keep careful watch at their >boundary to prevent incursions to raid their stock of salt and flint, but >it was a risk worth taking because, after all, they had more than enough >flint to make sufficient weapons to defend themselves. Meanwhile, they >could have better clothing. > >Thus trade started. Thus, man was able to hive off new tribes repeatedly. >Thus, man was eventually able to migrate all over the world, even into >habitats with very few resources (so long as those resources were useful to >other tribes). Thus, man was into globalisation something like 50-70,000 >years ago. Man was trading right from the beginning. > >And that's all I really need to say. > >------ > >But, at the risk of being tedious, let me proceed further to show that, >after the first immense innovation of trade that man discovered, there were >three further important innovations in trade. > >1. Instead of trading taking place only at tribal boundaries, so that goods >were shunted onwards to distant places in step-wise fashion, some traders >grouped together and moved in (heavily protected) caravans taking goods >more directly from one place to another, sometimes thousands of miles >distant. This takes us up to about 5-10,000 years ago; > >2. Instead of trading overland, some traders found it easier (requiring >less soldiers for protection) to travel by boat from one place to another. >This takes us up to roughly 150 years ago; > >3. Some traders who were also manufacturers decided that they needn't >actually need to carry their goods to customers in distant places but to >make their goods there. And that's where we are now. > > >Essentially, this additional fourth stage in trading is no different from >the very earliest days of man. Consumers in distant countries are as keen >on the last stage as they were to the earlier stages. This is evidenced by >the fact that most developing countries today are keen to welcome >multinational corporations into their countries, and are also keen to join >the WTO. > >Unfortunately there are still many people stuck in overpopulated countries >with insufficient resources or skills who are, at present, unable to trade >sufficiently with the others. How to bring these people into the fold? >That's the problem. > >That's the problem that the anti-globalisation protesters ought to be >thinking about -- just as (believe it or not) a significiant number of >worthy people within the WTO, IMF and World Bank are also trying to do. >Unfortunately, there are many groups (including multinationals, trade >unions, professional associations, and even groups within the WTO, IMF and >World Bank, etc) who want to "protect" what they already have, and so the >arguments (and tariffs and corruption, and so on) continue emotionally >rather than rationally. > >Keith Hudson > > > > > > > > >___________________________________________________________________ > >Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> >6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England >Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; >mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >_______________________________________________________________________ > > > ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________________
