Globalization - good or bad?

[cerulean]

This article says there are fewer poor people proportionately than at any other time in history, thanks to globalization.

http://www.nationalpost.com/home/sto...-D5D2FD9E0CC2}

Jan Cienski
National Post
Tuesday, July 09, 2002

WASHINGTON - Globalization is responsible for dramatically reducing the number of abjectly poor people around the world, according to a new study that contradicts the claims of skeptics who say it has worsened global poverty.

"On average economic growth is good for the poor, and trade is good for growth," said the study by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research.

The study, prepared for the European Commission by a group of respected economists who surveyed existing literature and studies on globalization, was unambiguous in saying that almost every criticism levelled by free trade's skeptics is wrong.
...
The study also recommended the wealthiest nations commit to lowering tariffs and subsidies for agriculture and textiles, which would boost incomes of the poorest workers and farmers, and also increase their foreign aid to 0.7% of GDP.

Currently, only Scandinavians, Luxembourg and the Netherlands give that much. Canada gives only 0.24% of GDP in aid, while the United States gives only 0.1% of GDP.
...

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My main concern is that the study looks too much at dollars earned, which is not necessarily a good measure of whether someone has a bearable standard of living. I would be more interested in a study which looked at the quantity and quality of calories consumed, the quality of drinking water, and the extent to which education is available.

[cerulean]

It's clear that many political activists, both in North America and Europe, jumble together anti-globalization, anti-war-on-terror, anti-American, and anti-Israel sentiments together into an unpleasant heap. This is not to say that criticism of any of these subjects is not warranted. But when taken altogether, the net effect of this barrage of criticism is ugly.

Still, third world issues, or North/South issues, are of prime importance. Some of these issues include the increase in AIDS in the developing world, the spread of Islamism, and resource depletion.

What is a human way to encourage development?

[elke]

IMO, had Ms. Robinson avoided letting that Conference on Racism last summer degenerate into yet another collective Jew-bashing, there could have been useful points gained from that conference.

Although blaming colonialism for all the ills of the Third World is unproductive, a good case can be made that it is in the interest of the First World to help pull the Third World out of its rut. There are various things that can be done: IMF, WTO, and other globalization projects have a good chance to successfully address these problems, via sane policies.

It seems that the general route we are on is actually useful in combatting world poverty and disease: our scientific accomplishments go a long way towards the higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality, which in turn give the answer to how the food and water supply are improving. If they weren't, the life expectancy and infant mortality would be deteriorating rather than improving.

[cerulean]

Originally posted by elke
IMO, had Ms. Robinson avoided letting that Conference on Racism last summer degenerate into yet another collective Jew-bashing, there could have been useful points gained from that conference.

I wonder how many will make this connection. The bashing did no one any good, and the time and energy spent was totally lost for any good purpose. Despite all the problems with the UN, it does have some good programs for promoting health and education. These are what should be getting the focus.

It seems that the general route we are on is actually useful in combatting world poverty and disease: our scientific accomplishments go a long way towards the higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality, which in turn give the answer to how the food and water supply are improving. If they weren't, the life expectancy and infant mortality would be deteriorating rather than improving.

I'm glad you posted this; it makes me feel more hopeful! It's easy to forget how many improvements there have been.

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Globalization and Its Discontents
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...winanddarwini/
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/stiglitz.html (review)

The author is a Nobel-Prize-winning economist. The book has some strategies for making globalization work better in the developing world.

[elke]

Originally posted by cerulean


I'm glad you posted this; it makes me feel more hopeful! It's easy to forget how many improvements there have been.

=====
Globalization and Its Discontents
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...winanddarwini/
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/stiglitz.html (review)

The author is a Nobel-Prize-winning economist. The book has some strategies for making globalization work better in the developing world.

The glass is half-full, definitely!

A short 100 years ago or so, the average life expectancy was somewhere around 50 years, I believe. Today we are looking at 85! When famine strikes, nowadays there are groups, both governmental and not, as well as individuals, jumping right onto the problem. Sure, we have AIDS now, but smallpox has been eradicated. We are subject to Alzheimers because we live long enough to be; and when someone's rights have been trampled - there is always at least one Human Rights Organization out there who can at least carp about it.

This is not to say that our work is done, not by a long shot. UN could stand much, much improvement; but nevertheless it has muddled along, and possibly prevented some ugly goings-on.

The sad thing is that all these resources that could be used to resolve the real ecological and human problems, are spent instead in HATE, and in fighting against hate. Various "green" projects have been scrapped for lack of money, but money had to be found - pronto - for War on Terrorism. Think, if all the time, energy, and yes - money - human beings spend on their militaries, was used instead on ecological and human needs, the sky would be the limit and we would all be living in Paradise! There is no reason why the same high-quality employment opportunities available in the defense industry cannot be had in the humanitarian pursuits. The military, in the larger scheme of things, is useless.

These freaks deprived us of more than 3000 lives and our security. They also took away bread from babies' mouths, clean air and water from our children, and our ability to preserve the beauty and wonder of this incredible world we live in!

Sorry, you got me on my soapbox...

[cerulean]

Stay on the soapbox, you are doing great!
It's heartbreaking to think how much could have been done with the money that has been spent on addressing the aftereffects of September 11.

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This article also states there has been significant benefit from globalization. For example, 100 million people in India have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years.
http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/site.p...N=200207010019

Quote:
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 37 per cent of the population of the developing countries (960 million people) were malnourished in 1970; by 1996, that proportion was down to 18 per cent (790 million). Global food production has doubled in the past half-century and in the developing world it has trebled. The developing countries are producing 49 per cent more grain per capita than they were 40 years ago, in large part because agriculture has been made more efficient. We are feeding vastly more people from the same amount of land. About 25 per cent of the world's rural population are still without pure water; but a decade ago, the figure was closer to 90 per cent.

So indeed there is reason to hope.

One thing that I worry about now and then (when I give up worrying about more obvious things) is the fact that antibiotic-resistant bacteria seem ever-more prevalent, and I'm not sure that antibiotic development is catching up. But maybe it's time to keep a more hopeful outlook.

[Mediocrates]

Stiglitz has an awful lot of bad things to say about the IMF and an awful lot of good things to say about the World Bank of which he is an integral part. He gets some of it right when he excoriates the IMF for demanding a transformation to cash debt repayment economy to payback the loans they themselves make to troubled countries who are trying to dig themselves out of the deep deep problems they are in. Specifically the IMF forces these countries to NOT invest in their infrastructure and instead sell their own assets or make things to export instead of developing their own industries their own education their own health care.

For example in India in the past decade there was a transformation from subsistance farming to cash crop farming. Millions of farmers changed from growing food to growing cotton. Cotton is fairly expensive and capital intensive to grow so the farmers became in effect share croppers on their own land working to pay off crop mortgages they took on to pay for fertilizer, tools, shipment and so on. When the global market for cotton collapsed these farmers began to starve. It resulted in a wave of suicides.

[Mediocrates]

AIDS will wind up the Black Death of the 21st C. Because it will result in almost complete dislocation and anarchy for large areas of the world. Those not affected directly by it will suffer as their societies free fall while the human infrastructure vaporizes.

In Africa there are countries where 30% of the adult population is infected and 50% of the total population is under the age of 15. In a report today on the AIDS conference - several African nations admitted that from 30-90% of the armed forces are infected. What do you do with a country where the most heavily armed people are sick and too poor to get help?

What do you do in Russia which has the fastest growing infected population. Already they have tenuous control over their own armies and weapons. What happens if they sell them to get care?

What do you do in Chile where 50% of the AIDS medication is either bought or sold on the black market? Sold for food and bought to keep the information out of the insurance companies' hands?

I'm not sure modernity, technology, money, globalization has any answers to this one way or the other.

[Abelius]

Globalization?

GOOD

There should actually be a "universalization"...

[minusthejihad]

With the spread of overpopulation, the World's decreasing resources, and our scientific ability to cheat death, Globalization - which will eventually become Universalization - is the only way to guarantee our future offspring with life. Either that, or the Earth will take care of itself like it always does. Choose life or death, a little too early for people to see that now. But this WW3 is what its all about. We need to come together as humans in order to venture to spread life on other planets. I love sci-fi, its very prophetic.

[Mediocrates]

How is that related. To half the world, right or wrong, gloabalization represents a 'screw you, keep working at your Nike loom or we'll chain you to it' mentality.

It's like the old joke "If we pay them a starvation wage why do we need to give them a lunch break?"

On the one hand many people get opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. On the other hand we seem to learned nothing from the Age of Sweatshops that my grandparents fought to improve. And sending capitalism into the bush to uplift the heathens is little different from sending missionaries there. Just a different mission this time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for industry and developing economies, but that development should be for those economies and not for American stockholders exclusively. There is a whole concordat of related things that have to be created like potable water, adequate food, functioning health care, schools othewise we've introduced slavery with a kinder face.

[minusthejihad]

Mediocrates,

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for industry and developing economies, but that development should be for those economies and not for American stockholders exclusively. There is a whole concordat of related things that have to be created like potable water, adequate food, functioning health care, schools othewise we've introduced slavery with a kinder face.

Oh, I totally agree with you. I wasn't really looking at the reality involved. All the reasons you named made me a serious opponent to Globalization when I was in college (that and the normal leftist, liberal mindset that's programmed in you while you're there). There's tons of work to do to make sure the future isn't as bleek as you write and that modern writers fear. But in the end, Globalization is where we're headed, like it or not, and looking at it positively for the first few times in my life, sometimes it seems as though I do not look at it objectively.

[Mediocrates]

I look forward to bleak futures. It's what keeps us sharp. And I'm all for aggressive economic development overseas.

I don't put any stock in that particular kind of Buchanan anti NAFTA gabble that says we export both our unemployment and our employment overseas. Those jobs don't belong here anyway because money is a coward - it goes to and works best where it's safer and less risky.

I'm just shocked at how narrowminded the globalists are. Why limit yourself to shoes, fruit, mahogany, replacement parts, chemical scrubbing, waste management when you can easily train people to use a computer, use a phone, and in countries like India where they already speak English you can build all the ancillary services that support the electronic economies of the west: fullfillment centers, call centers, customer service, electronic assembly, software national language support development. You can build a cheap replacement for animal labor locally and use both the inputs and the outputs to jumpstart economic development. Build solar furnaces in the desert.

The list is endless and all we can come up with is Kathy Gifford's clothing line. Puh-thetic.

[cerulean]

India has a flourishing call center business in Bangalore. Apparently a lot of times when you think you are phoning an American call center, you are actually phoning Bangalore. The employees are given classes in American culture and idioms and told to pass themselves off as American, with anglo names and identities.

(A NYT article, but I can't get the original link.)
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...&output=gplain
(skip past the dialogue at the top to see the article below)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/in...al/14POIS.html
Bangladeshis Sipping Arsenic as Plan for Safe Water Stalls
Quote:
This calamity is accompanied by paradox. For two decades, the government, along with Unicef and various aid groups, desperately worked to wean the nation from pond water, often an incubator for lethal disease. People were instead urged to install tube wells, tapping into the plentiful supply of underground aquifers. Regrettably, no one had tested these subterranean sources for arsenic.

[elke]

Call me a hopeless optimist, but I think that we humans have a much better chance at beating the odds now than we did 10,000 years ago. I don't buy all that gloom and doom stuff: the problems we have had in the past seemed just as insurmountable to people living at the time as the current problems seem to us.

Globalization is a must! How else will the dwindling resources be allocated most efficiently? How else will the necessary capital be found to acquire additional resources, as required? It is essential to train, teach, and otherwise attempt to bring equality of opportunity to all humans in various spots on the Globe, but it is a long term project and cannot be accomplished overnight.

Because our lives are relatively short, and because we see ourselves as individuals, we are impatient and it is difficult for us to see the whole picture. This experiment we call "humanity", with all its imperfections and blights, is a resounding success! We really have conquered the Earth, and not even the sky is the limit!