Benefits of Globalisation?

Megara and Pointbreak: Amen, and thank you for clarifying some things.


What is:

This is the quote that gave me the impression that you don't think that modern health care and education are a good thing. Sorry if I misinterpreted that. And yes, I realize that this has gotten somewhat off topic, but in a way it hasn't. Because health care, education, etc. can only be brought about with an improved economy, and globalization can improve economies. Since there are those on here who would argue that globalization doesn't do this, I have asked them to give me A BETTER FEASIBLE SOLUTION. As of now, no one has done so (I'm still waiting WhatIs). Since they cannot provide such an alternative, by deductive reasoning I can conclude that they are more interested in bringing down giant corporations than they are about helping the poor.

-Kate

 

Where in the blue hell did you get that from? Like Megara said, it's the government's fault for not raising minimum wage, not corporations' fault for paying their employees a legal wage. People are kept down and enslaved bacause their [totalitarian] governments allow them to be.

Which brings me to what maters, how to go about raising minimum wage. How do you do it? Obviously corporations aren't going to do it by themselves (it wouldn't be cost effective), and the governments are in no rush to pass laws that raise wages (why should they?), so who is going to improve the lives of the people? That's the question that should be asked.

 

http://geocities.com/dancin_moonbeam/govtsux

umm, it's not always the fault of the country, especially where the IMF/WB/WTO are involved. Many of those its-not-their-fault businesses destroy the environmental/human rights laws that are in place in those countries in order to put out a profit. Please read the above link, it's a little old (about 2 years, maybe a little less) but still very relevant.

here's another good one, if you dare to look:
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2001/index.html

I suppose globalization is like communism....it looks good on paper and seems like it might be a good idea, but it allows for too much control and too much corruption.

 

well i was studying globalization when you were learnin the alphabet. seriously!

 

Anyone who thinks that "the government" and "corporations" are not intimately linked has never studied political history.

You can start with United Fruit and Central America, or you can start with Haliburton and Iraq.

The famous line from "All the President's Men" applies: "Follow the money".

 

Strawberry,

The total of everything I have learned leads me to the conclusion that the only thing you can do to make the world a better place is to become a better person.

Eliminate all traces of greed and hostility from your life. Live every moment with love. Selflessly help other people. Be kind to all life.

Let your life be an example to others. Stand up for what you know is right, even if you suffer for it. Eventually, the tide will turn.

Peace.

 

I agree with Strawberry Fields Forever. We should give other countries money and help them to set up healthcare systems and sewage systems, etc. But we don't need to go in there and put in McDonalds and Starbucks and WalMarts. We just need to help them with the basic things and then they can develop how they want to.

 

WhatIs and WayfaringStranger-

Looks like you couldn't tell a good allusion if it bit you in the ass. Obviously governments and corporations are working together, that's the only reason people become wage slaves in 3rd world countries. What I didn't want to come out and say is my opinion on how the matter should be solved (and I'll still be flamed as a warmongering imperialist), which is to remove the opressive regimes (by force if necessary) and set up elected governments that respect the well being of the people. Of course the U.S. could do with a lot of that as well, which is why I favor a highly socialized economy with a strong central government. My point is that neither corporatons or governments will willingly help people of the third world, and it's up to us do do something about it.

We do. The U.S. send out billions every year to third world countries. And what happens? Countries like North Korea use it to build missiles and train soldiers while the people starve. We give them exactly what they need to better themselves and they give us nothing but a big fuck you.

 

It seems to me that most persons who have answered here have missed two points:

[1] The Global Economy is inevitible. Being for it or against it is futile, since neither the left nor the right could stop it if they wanted to.

[2] The nations it is most likely to help, are the poor nations, and the nations it is most likely to hurt are the well off nations. As the economy becomes global the standard of living every place will become more equal.

 

There are a lot of weird theories making the rounds here. Do you think wages only go up because governments "decide" to raise them, or corporations "decide" to pay more? That is completely false.

The vast majority of people in any society do not work for the minimum wage. Why is that? Why do corporations pay more than the minimum wage?

Why have average (non minumum) wages in Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc been rising for decades? Isn't globalisation supposed to prevent poor countries from getting richer?

And why does there have to be a winner and a loser from globalisation? Trade theory says everyone wins. Did the rise of Japan make America poorer? No, it caused some adjustments, sometimes painful ones, but in the long run Japan and America were economically stronger.
And how does globalisation allow "too much control"? Trade restrictions, subsidies, tariffs, trade barriers, and state owned industries are what result in too much end political control of the economy.

 

Like I said, scroll back up and at least READ those links, i really do hate having to repeat myself to people who don't care about anything except being "right."

Why has it taken average wages DECADES to rise in places like Korea, Malaysia, etc? Please give us one single decent example of a poor country that is now much better off due to globalization. For every ONE you give, I bet you I can give you another 10 that are WORSE.

People here seem to assume that globalization means third world countries get plumbing, and medical care, and so forth. If that was the case, the rest of us would have to be crazy to be against it. But the fact is that is NOT what's happening, people are being exploited, their resources are being exploited. Companies go into these poor countries and take over their land, pollute their water supplies....okay, so maybe it can provide a FEW jobs at the amazing rate of 15 cent/hour 18 hours a day, just so that SOME of the people they've exploited can now go and BUY water instead.

Solutions? Well, if international laws forced these companies to play by the same rules they usually have to play by in our own country, that would be a start. If international laws would protect already existing jobs, wages and environmental laws that are usually "downsized" by the IMF/WB, that would be even better.

As for costs, and those of you who would rather have people be exploited than pay a little more, when an amerikan business decides to "outsource" and sends it's jobs overseas, are you now paying less because of it? Usually not. They keep the same high prices here, but earn more profit for themselves because less of it is going to their workers now. People here are much more concerned about keeping trendy and buying whatever their talking zombie box tells them is new and fashionable. If those people would stop and think for themselves for just a second and stop paying those high prices for shoes and such, then the price would eventually come down. But as long as you have idiots that are willing to pay $150 for a shirt that cost $5 to make, then they have no reason to come down. (much like our current gasoline situation.)

 

Mexico and China.

Now you owe me a list of 20 nations that are worse off.

India

Now you owe me a list of 30.

 

India:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=india+poisoning+company

YOU call that better off?

As for China and Mexico, they have more human rights abuses than ever.
Like I said before, find me a few that are BETTER OFF.


"In assessing its own effectiveness in reducing poverty, the World Bank admitted that many of its projects had failed, and often aggravated the inequalities (World Bank 2000, p 17). In its "1999 Annual Report of Development Effectiveness", the Bank admitted that the majority of projects fail to demonstrate any sustained benefits in terms of poverty reduction. The report reviewed the performance of 28 nations that had borrowed from the Bank between 1981 and 1997. The following bleak conclusions which clearly show a decline in economic and human well-being drawn:


* In 40 per cent of the nations, per capita income either failed to grow or decreased;
* In 85 per cent of cases, per capita income grew by less than 1 per cent a year in the 1990s;
* In 25 per cent, the share of the population in absolute poverty increased;
* In 23 per cent, life expectancy of the general population declined;
* In 54 per cent, the people experienced stagnating per capita income, rising poverty, declining life expectancy, or a combination of these events;
* The percentage of savings as a percentage of GDP, a measure of long-term economic health of a nation (Todaro 1985), stagnated at less than 10 per cent or was declining. The World Bank admitted these failings were due to the policies it had implemented and its inadequacies in assisting with the goal of poverty reduction. Only a fifth of its country strategies focused on equity and distribution, and there was a general failing to address the links between poverty and macro-economic policies such as trade and exchange rate policy (World Bank 2000, p. 18).

Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the IMF, who stated that the economic policies of the World Bank and IMF "often make things worse – turning slowdowns into recessions and recessions into depressions… in essence, poverty is the result of these policies" (Stiglitz 2000). "

 

Human rights abuses are worse than ever in China?

You are completely ignorant of Chinese history. Try looking up "Cultural revolution" and then come back and tell us human rights in China are worse than ever.

 

I see that you neglected to address ANYTHING else. Thats typical though of someone who wants to ignore anything that might not sit well with their own narrow minded way of thinking. But that's okay, I forgive you.

Just because you aren't HEARING about human rights abuses going on in china doesn't mean its not happening. Just because there isn't a conquering army marching through and openly burning down entire villages doesn't mean that people aren't still being killed. Mabe they aren't QUITE as bad as some other countries, but they still have their fair share of bullshit.

 

I am just tired of people thinking that a country, or society has to be rich to be happy. Tribal societies don't care about "rich" and "poor" they just live. The world doesn't have to live like us, the way we live is very damaging to our people, our environment, and our mental health.

 

Gabino, read the paper I cited on the first page of this thread.

 

The question is whether globalisation is making countries better or worse off, not who has a fair share of bullshit, stick to the point. When it was suggested that China is proof globalisation works, you said human rights abuses in China are "worse than ever".

The fact is somewhere between 10 and 30 million people died in China's Cultural revolution, which ended in 1976, after which China began to "globalise". Are you saying that TENS OF MILLIONS of people are being killed in China and "we're not hearing about it"? Or you just write an angry response without bothering to figure out what the cultural revolution was, since you couldn't imagine the possibility that your uneducated guess could be wrong?

The question is not whether there is human rights abuses in China or not. It is whether globalisation is making things worse or better. So explain to me how Chinese "sweatshops" are "worse" than tens of millions of people getting murdered by their own government.

 

And how exactly do you know this? Have you ever visited a tribe? I went to Tanzania and visited a nomadic Maasai tribe. I hate to tell you this, but they DO care about money. They charged each of us $60 to camp out next to their village. Granted, they aren't as materialistic as some other cultures, but they need the money for school fees because they're trying to educate their population. It is a fact that tribes who don't care about money AT ALL are dying off, partly because of curable diseases when they have no access to medical care, and partly because their uneducated populations do not know their rights or how to legally defend themselves against outside forces taking away their land.

I don't think anyone on here is saying everyone needs a Starbucks at every corner to be happy. But Starbucks and McDonalds are not the only things money can buy. Money is also needed for health care, infrastructure, clean drinking water, and an education. I don't think you'd venture to say that people in developing nations don't deserve these basic human rights.

-Kate

 

Yeah, but most tribal mother and fathers have no greater hope than to have their children go to Western schools and become "rich" in the outside world.

And like Strawberry said, most tribes who try to live traditionally are being killed off by diseases like AIDS that didn't exist until the "modernized" world showed up, and their land is being taken away from them by their governments and outsiders who know they can't defend themselves.