Re: Greider's "One World: Ready or Not".
Hi Mark,
Re: While I'm early in the digestion process, my somewhat naive first impression suggests that global corporations may accomplish what I had feared they would not- that being the equalization of opportunity for development and advancement.
I'm not sure if you are refering to digesting the book or the overall thrust of globalization. If the former, keep reading, Greider's is not an optimistic book. It sees a dark future if we continue on the present course of globalization, with portfolio investment techniques irrationally wrecking developing economies (an excellent prediction, BTW, since the book was written prior to the Thai bahy currency crisis of July, 1997 and the subsequent destruction of most of the gains of the economies of the "Asian tigers"), and picaresquely destroying generations of progress in trade union movements in the OECD countries. Greider's conclusion is that there are few winners from globalization. The entire universe of important bond and forex traders amounts to no more than 200,000 individuals world wide. They are gaining far more of the world wealth than, choose you number, 3 Billion people living on less than a dollar a day, 5 billion who have no significant wealth, 5.5 billion who face uncertain futures. He, and I, see globalization as an unprecedented and wrong-headed concentration of capital, with no reasonable social goal in mind. Simply the accumulation of wealth and power for its own sake by a tiny elite.
Re: In the pursuit of their own self interest, they appear to be funding the development of non OECD countries. With your greater progress in understanding Greider's work(s), would you say that he proposes such an outcome is possible?
Absolutely not. Serendipitous outcomes and sugar plum fairies aren't in the cards, Greider argues. What gets funded is often driven by irrational speculative fever. Think of the "see-through" buildings that infested Bangkok in 1997. The conspiracy theorists in Thailand and Malaysia saw American vulture funds coming in to buy these buildings out of bankrupty after the Thai baht was devalued, due to demands by the IMF for austerity, a clear example of the transfer of wealth from the nation of Thailand to the bankers of New York. It was resented, and it was clearly an example of the malignant nature of certain capital flows.
Re: Or I am I desperately seeking for a silver lining?
Many of us are, but there just isn't anything in the record of the WTO, the World Bank or the IMF recently to suggest that there is one. Whenever the bankers with their wild lending practices send up a foreign stock or real estate market, they're expected to reap the reward. When they get in trouble with this reckless lending, as they often do, they expect to be bailed out by nation states, who the bankers are at great pains to dismiss and disdain. If the American public understood their role in paying for the sins of the bankers with our tax money, while the bankers and multinationals continually work to lower the American standard of living, there would be a revolt. But the American public is largely blind to the fleecing they're getting by the system.
Re: I understand there are more sinister future aspects possible when global corporate power begins to set policy via political mechanisms. Assuming that is not already the case...
The WTO meets in Doha, Qatar starting this Friday. These are closed door sessions, involving 500 unelected representatives meeting in a police state to try to decide the future course of "free trade". What's wrong with this picture. And you do recall that the last meeting of this cabal occurred in Brunei, another police state. This says volumes to me about this organization.
Best, Ray |
