For The Love of Money

[pandiana]

The following is an excerpt that I think sort of fits into the discussions we have talked about in many threads.
http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/corporat.htm

FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY
The following is based on

When Corporations Rule the World
2nd Edition
by David C. Korten
Those of us who seek to intervene in policy debates in favor of economic justice and environmentally sustainability are regularly assured by the world's power brokers that they are fully committed to these goals so long as economic growth and the expansion of free trade are not compromised by governmental restraints on the market. So sacred have growth and free trade become in our modern culture that only rarely do we find the courage to ask why they should be given precedence over the needs of people and nature. Indeed, why should we consider accelerating growth and trade to be of any importance at all except to the extent that they serve people and nature?

[cowman]

Trade creates wealth. Consider most of our export industries...Oil and gas, beef and grain, lumber, minerals! Without these exports we would be a third world nation(well we might be even with these exports!!). And wealth allows our people to flourish. It allows our children to have a decent life!
Now we can be silly and run around and hug trees but the fact of the matter is these industries do not affect nature(unless in a positive way).
The only other option is to produce a product that nobody needs and use massive government subsidies to sell it. This is what Canada does...its called Bombardier!

[nakodo]

We could also watch the border for lumber close, durum wheat close, pulse prices driven down out of sight by Farm Bills etc. etc. in our global free trade world and under our free trade agreement with the US???

[pandiana]

David Korten powerful agruments suggests that unsustainable economic growth and free trade serves only the top multinational corporations and continues to increase the gap between the rich and poor while exploiting natural resources in an ever increasing consumption that is clearly not sustainable. Following are a few quotes. The internet article is a good read.

by David C. Korten

"Evidence is mounting that economic growth and free trade are not leading us toward economic justice and environmental sustainability. To the contrary, they are taking us in the direction of increasing economic injustice and environmental unsustainability. The debates over jobs versus the environment miss a basic point. Assuring everyone the means to meet their basic needs and achieving a sustainable balance with the environment are mutually supportive goals. Indeed, there are powerful theoretical arguments why, in a resource scarce world, neither is possible without the other. There is, however, an irreconcilable conflict between the goal of creating economically just and environmentally sustainable societies and embracing sustained economic growth, unregulated markets, and free trade as the organizing principles of public policy. The resulting policies are well suited to producing more millionaires and billionaires. They are ill suited to achieving justice and sustainability."
"This is what global competition is really about--local communities and workers competing against one another to absorb ever more of the production costs of the world's most powerful and profitable corporations."
" While the giants are shedding people, they are not shedding control over money, markets, or technology. The world's 200 largest industrial corporations, which employ only one third of one percent of the world's population, control 25 percent of the world's economic output. The top 300 transnationals, excluding financial institutions, own some 25 percent of the world's productive assets. Of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are now corporations--not including banking and financial institutions. The combined assets of the world's 50 largest commercial banks and diversified financial companies amount to nearly 60 percent of The Economist's estimate of a $20 trillion global stock of productive capital."

[nakodo]

And yet all the numbers from the 3rd world show increasing affluence, longer lifespans, less childhood death as countries enter the trade arena. Free trade does benefit the poor (except for those in war and civil war situations).

[cowman]

The only problem from our perspective is whats in it for us? Do we reap a benifit from the industrialization of third world companies? Well I guess if we own stocks in the big exploiting corporations we do! And maybe we get some cheaper products...maybe.
When so called free trade and globalization are complete what will we be able to produce? Can we compete on anything? Will our workers have to live in cardboard shacks and eat rice like other countries? Could be a little tough when it's -40 with a NE wind! And if we eliminate our middle class who will buy all these goods? And who will support our governments and all the social programs? These will have to go if we are to compete with Bangladesh. No more public education, no more medi-care, no more social assistance, no more old age benefits, no more child benefits!
Unchecked globalization is a very good thing for the privileged few but not so good for your average Joe. And yet you are right in that it has raised up the lot of the poor in other countries. I guess it would be nice if we could strike a happy medium somewhere along the line.

[pandiana]

Nokado, you probably have more direct experience on South East Asia, but the numbers I have been hearing are not all that good. My understanding is that the bubble has burst and much of foreign capital is leaving. Japan financial institutes are in a huge mess.
The other side is that according to Korten, who spent I think 15 years in SEA, after he left Stanford University, sites examples where once again, money is being made by large corporation on the backs of workers. See the following quote:
"For example, the popular Nike athletic shoes that sell for US$73 to $135 around the world are produced by 75,000 workers employed by independent contractors in low income countries. A substantial portion of these workers are in Indonesia--mostly women and girls housed in company barracks, paid as little as 15 cents an hour, and required to work mandatory overtime. Unions are forbidden and strikes are broken up by the military. In 1992, Michael Jordan reportedly received $20 million from the Nike corporation to promote the sale of its shoes, more than the total compensation paid to the Indonesian women who made them.

An unregulated global market is shifting the financial rewards away from those who do productive work to those who control money and are successful at convincing people to buy what they do not need and often cannot afford. This goes to the heart of growing income disparities around the world."