Thanks Jack, It must have been me. Here is:
Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Commerce Robert L. Mallett
The Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue
osecnt13.osec.doc.gov
"Globalization: Acceptance Issues and Role of Business"
November 17, 2000
Cincinnati, OH
[As Prepared For Delivery]
Thirty years ago, there was a young law student at Yale, demonstrating against the Vietnam War, and working for anti-war candidates for Senate and State Senate. There was a clarity of purpose in his effort.
Today, that student is still involved. He's the President of the United States -- and the way things have been going he may have to extend his term.
The State Senate candidate he worked for is involved, too -- a man named Lieberman.
And where is the President, today? Well, he and others, including Secretary Mineta, are in Vietnam. They're talking about reconciliation and globalization in Hanoi, which our country was bombing three decades back-- and in Saigon, now named Ho Chi Minh City.
So, to those who dismiss the demonstrators here today, I say, remember: one of them might be President in our lifetime. And although many of them may be uncertain of the object of their protests, there is, one may presume, some legitimacy to their call that "globalization" -- that much heralded term today -- has not meant all things good always and everywhere.
But -- more to the point -- what message do we bring that may make them listen to us, as we must listen to them? For while they may have picked the wrong target for their protests, their views -- to the extent that we can discern them -- are not completely off base.
Don't we need to think about whether we're respecting the rights of workers? Keeping the air and water clean? Creating a global economy that is beneficial globally?
Yes, to those of us in this room there is little doubt that the globalization of trade has been a powerful force for good. And sometimes, without meaning to do so, we can be quite smug about it.
But there is also little doubt that the great bulk of the world does not share in the prosperity we see in Munich, Cincinnati, Cologne, Chicago, Milan, Miami, Dublin, Dallas, Helsinki, or New York.
And this may be why many discordant voices are being raised about our work here and the important action that take place at WTO meetings, and World Bank/IMF gatherings.
For most of us in this room, more comfortable in Boardrooms and Business Class than we are at Bus Stops and Checkout Counters, we don't fully appreciate what all the fuss is about.
But I read something recently that helped me to understand better and to clarify what our mission truly is, for those of us who believe in the benefits of globalization. I'd like to share it with you.
Someone wrote recently that if you could shrink the world's population to a village of 100 people, it would look something like this: 62 Asians, 13 Africans, 10 Europeans, 8 South Americans -- and only 5 from North America.
75 would be non-white -- and 70 would be non-Christian.
Eighty of the 100 would live in substandard housing. Seventy would be unable to read. Fifty would be malnourished.
Five would have 59 percent of the wealth in the world -- and all five would be from the United States. The point of this is not to chastise us for having so much.
It's to point out how much we have to do. How can the United States and other affluent nations create a framework to promote prosperity for the less developed countries? How can we make sure they join us in reaping the benefits of trade?
Because this I believe: globalization -- done right -- is critical for their development as well as ours. It's not unique in history -- actually, between 1900 and World War I falling transportation costs provoked an intense period of global growth.
But that was nothing like what we are seeing today as a result of the telecommunications revolution. The Internet that ubiquitous medium, something most of us in this room had hardly heard of 5 or 6 years ago, is now considered -- almost universally -- the technological innovation of our time that has done more to transform our societies than anything we have witnessed in at least a generation.
TV -- 13 years. Radio -- 38 years. As the President likes to point out 1.5 billion e-mails a day now cross international borders.
Suddenly we can set up a call center in India to handle customer requests in Brazil. We can lure clients anywhere in the world just by setting up a website. Americans buy more software than books.
At the same time that technology has increased our productivity, the global landscape for trade has also changed. In the last fifty years, trade has grown 16-fold. World per capita income has more than doubled. In the United States alone, we have had 60 percent export growth. It's no coincidence. Study after study shows that trade brings high-skill, high-income jobs, and countries that embrace globalization by liberalizing and reforming economies are the ones that benefit most.
In the United States, one job out of ten -- and one factory job out of five -- is the direct result of exports.
The benefits don't just go to big companies, either. 97 percent of all our exporters are small and mid-sized enterprises.
And so what has trade and globalization brought the world? What do these powerful statistics say about economic growth in a place like Sub-Saharan Africa? A continent of 773 million people which has fewer phone lines than one borough in New York City? What possible relevance are these things to a world where some three billion people live on less than $2 a day -- or less than $750 per year? The answer, I am afraid, is not much.
What we really need, then, to begin to fully appreciate what the protests are about and to know the ultimate objective of our work, is international dialogue.
Not just speaking, but listening. Not just lecturing but learning. Not just talking up the positive, but dealing with the negatives.
And that may mean that we have to acknowledge that sometimes trade does cause dislocation. That our process should be more transparent. That our meetings, even ones like these, appear to those uninvited to be shrouded in secrecy.
The U.S. Administration has made progress in dealing with that and has proposals for even more progress. But it demands a united effort. It demands a full-court press for trade and transparency.
If we want a public majority in support of trade we need an unprecedented effort to build it. We need our neighbors and employees and business colleagues and community leaders to understand that trade is already benefiting them.
We need to talk, too, not just about government responsibility in the global economy, but corporate responsibility.
Of course, we believe that stable and generally corruption-free governments, investment in social institutions, and the spread of private free enterprise can and should lift the world measurably out of poverty and despair.
Business Week magazine last week documented the disruption that global capitalism can sometimes create. Business as well as government must face and redress those problems and work, as imaginatively as possible, to demonstrate to aspiring peoples that global commerce brings visible, perceptible improvements in their everyday lives.
You'd be surprised how far a medical facility staffed with professionals or a food and nutrition center -- particularly in places where government structures are weak and disjointed -- provided by a business in a community, can go in opening hearts and minds . . . and markets.
Make no mistakes. I am not talking about corporate do-goodism alone, though that matters, too.
Our conversation today is to urge improved health benefits that will ensure every child gets vaccinated; strong environmental standards that provide for cleaner air, potable water, and greener forests; and better workplace safety standards to provide a clean and safe working environment for employees regardless of where they live. And the list goes on.
We live and work in communities. We should accept the idea that labor, the environmentalists and consumer activists raise issues absolutely vital in discussions about trade.
You know, there's a story about one of the revolutionaries in the French Revolution of 1848, stopping to talk for an instant. Meanwhile the angry crowd swept by. He said, "I have to follow that crowd -- because I'm their leader."
Things are moving so fast it's hard to know whether we're leading -- or just catching up. But one thing is clear. If we don't look to see what's ahead, we will fall behind.
We can't dismiss either the people inside this hotel -- or the crowd outside it. We don't know if one of those demonstrators will be President. But if we pay attention to their ideas, the world will be better for it. |
