Isn't part of globalization ending global injustice? Like stopping leader from tyranizing their people? Like a global Constitution that doesn't allow people like Pol Pot to lead a genocide with out consiquence?
Well, there's the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, but it's entirely unenforceable and most of the signature nations - even among first-world democracies - don't entirely agree with all of the "rights" listed therein. While I'm not usually a fan of centralized governments, I do think that a global police force - created specifically to prevent human rights abuses - would be a good goal for this coming century, as long as proper precautions were taken to make sure that the global government didn't dabble in other areas unrelated to human rights.
A) The United Nations was originally conceived to be a global police force. Whatever the effectiveness and actual ability of the UN, a global police force supposedly has existed since just after the first world war. B)Globalisation has nothing to do with equal rights for all Humans. What the WTO and other organisations are creating in globalisation is equal rights for capital investment. So whoever invests capital has secured similar laws all around the world to protect their investment and make it safe to set up business everywhere equally. This is fine in principal except that almost all of the capital in the world originates in rich Western Companies. Not even all western citizens but just the few rich elitists that mainly originate from the richer west. The capitalist trade system facilitates concentration of wealth. Basically globalisation attempts to make the world fair bounty for the rich rather than just their originating countries.
I think the term globalisation is just like any other term describing an action. Unfortunately, the majority of this 'action' is producing negative instead of positive results. What if we could globalize peace, understanding, creation, and solutions. That would be good globalization. But, hmmmnn. I think we mostly have bad globalization going around.
To put it very simplistically as I see it society works on a kind of tripod. You have government, constitutional law and capitalism (both people who sell goods and services and people who sell their labour). In globalisation two of the legs are missing as we don't have an effective world-wide government or a world wide constitution. Capitalism within a nation probably works as well as anything yet tried but, without the checks and balances rendered by law and goverment, on a world-wide system it is mercenery and exploitative
Kandahar, that's very idealistic of you, but I can almost assure you, a global police force (which I'm sure is not such a far-fetched idea anymore) would ONLY exist to stifle popular unrest and dissent, and to protect the world leaders and their drive for global imperialist conquest. That's the only thing a global police force would ensure. Human rights would be considered a moot point, even laughable, in the eyes of the global state. The answer if for progressives of all stripes to put aside their differences and unite because the one big enemy we all face is the same: corporate globalist dominionism. We can't let it happen.
I think it could be done, if it was done right (which I grant is not a given). I'd draw the comparison to the US Bill of Rights. Despite the occasional abuses such as the PATRIOT Act which make the news, I'd say that America has done a pretty good job upholding the Bill of Rights throughout its history. Not a perfect job, but a pretty good job. If a global Bill of Human Rights could be implemented the same way, I don't think it's necessarily an impossible goal.
First define the fundamentals of the globalizing processes. (neoliberal, cosmopolitan, etc.) Second define global injustice. Third determine whether or not that, which you have defined as "global injustice", should be stopped. Fourth determine whether or not they can be stopped. Do those things, hippy hunter lives, and we will talk. Otherwise we get nothing more than the general and random responses we have so far, furthermore nowhere.
And trade. And anybody who doesn't want to be a part of it can voluntarily withdraw and create all the tariffs and subsidies and property confiscation laws they want, so that in a few years you'll have a fabulously wealthy nation where there is wonderful equality for all. The point is to oppose vague concepts like "corporate globalisation" and support nothing in particular.
Most of the poorer nations are not allowed to put tarrifs on goods because of conditions set in their borrowing agreements from the IMF. Third world debt is used to stop those countries keeping closed trade borders. Most nations throughout history that have risen to greatness have not done so through having open trade barriers early on in their economic developement. First you must create some of your own companies and industries, then open your trade borders and let them compete on the world market. If your trade boundaries are open from the start, foreign invesment will allways stiffle the growth of home grown industries in your country. China had very closed trade boundries until enough of its own industries had developed to compete on the world market. Now they are opening up and reaping the rewards. Many third world indebted nations are not allow to close their boundries and grow internally. They will therefor never become richer themselves but serve to make riches for the western investors in their countires.
China essentially went nowhere for decades. As it opened up, its economy grew. The relationship is obvious. Nobody believes that the giant state owned monster industries China built up in its isolationist era are what are driving growth now - it is the massive amount of foreign investment pouring into new industries in the "special economic zones" which is driving growth. The state owned industries are typically money losing sinkholes, the banking system being a perfect example. Similarly, if tariffs, state owned industries, and subsidies were the keys to economic success, India would have a powerhouse economy with leadership in all sorts of key industries. As it happens the strongest industries (IT services and outsourcing) in India have very little if any protection, while favoured industries (traditional heavy, capital intensive sectors) have mostly grown into white elephants. It is a myth that develping countries do not have tariffs because of the WTO or the IMF won't let them - or that they never had the opportunity to have them in the past. They did and they still do. As this table shows, as of 1999 tariffs in developing countries were three times higher than in developed countries in some products, and generally at least twice as high. http://www.worldgrowth.org/pages/materials/ITStariffs.doc You are clinging to the tried and failed socialist model from the 1960s and 1970s. It didn't work, it is bad advice, and developing countries don't want it any more.
China would have got nowhere if it opened its trade barriers in a state like African countries are in now. Yet we see the solution to third world poverty as making countries open all their trade barriers now because we want globalisation now. China's own National firms are huge, as are India's, and as those countries have opened up they are gaining from both international investment and growth of their own internal companies. Chineese companies are buying IBM and Unocal which are huge aquasitions on the global market. You cannot say all their growth is purely coming from outward investment. As new industries are invested in, the national construction and infrastructure industries there are growing too. You are blindly looking at the here and now without thinking about how the wealthier countries got to being there. Globalisation is not best for everyone all the time. And that is only considering economics. When you consider finite resources and environmental degradation, we must consider that globalisation and perpetual economic growth cannot go on for ever and is dangerous for the whole world, wealthy or poor, now.
China got nowhere under Socialism, the great leap forward was a great leap backward. Stop repeating the myth - developing countries have had all the opportunity in the world to subsidise and protect themselves up the development ladder. It is not working. Size means nothing. Who cares if they are huge. Creating a huge company takes no skill and accomplishes nothing. Japan has the biggest banks in the world and they suck. US auto companies are bigger than Japanese auto companies, but the US auto companies are worth much less. China's banking system has been 100% protected for decades and it is absolutely worthless. You are still talking in terms of 1960s socialist ideals where big was beautiful. Look at the USSR - they had HUGE companies. What good did it do them? They are not buying IBM, they are buying a subsidiary. Anyway China received $57 billion in foreign investment last year. That was #1 in the world. 400 of the top 500 companies have invested there. The country's economy took off at the same time as its economy was liberalised. The fastest growing regions in China are the ones with the most foreign investment. The poorest ones are dominated by state industries. How much more evidence could you possibly need? No, you are just ignoring all the facts I point out which show that developing countries are doing plenty of subsidising and protectionism, because it doesn't fit the myth you are clinging to.
