- "Globalization denies food to the hungry -- and
hands them guns instead."
-
- Globalization, more correctly called corporate globalization,
is founded upon a conservative, free marketñoriented world view
that seeks to limit the economic impact of government actions.
-
- The free trade agreements that codify globalization,
such as those negotiated between states or at the World Trade Organization,
place restrictions on government services and regulations that might inhibit
corporate profits.
-
- This unfortunately limits the positive roles governments
play in society through redistributing wealth from rich to poor, providing
non-profit social services, creating jobs and protecting the environment.
-
- Ironically, while the free market ideology minimizes
the role of government, it champions the state's role in providing national
security. "Security exceptions" in trade agreements ensure that
the free trade rules do not apply to government actions taken for national
security ñ including maintaining and arming a powerful military
establishment.
-
- The special treatment of security roles of the state
combined with the limits on its social and regulatory roles is a powerful
mix that creates the conditions for war ñ and provides the means
to wage it.
-
- 1. Globalization creates a breeding ground for terrorism.
Globalization feeds resentment in poor countries as poverty increases,
foreign products flood local markets displacing local producers, and human
rights are abused by northern corporations exploiting low-paid labour.
The result is an audience of desperate people ready to listen to religious
extremists' exhortations to take up arms or undertake acts of terrorism.
-
- 2. Globalization requires military protection of corporate
interests abroad. Great empires of the past learned that their colonial
holdings and trade routes needed to be protected by military power against
local uprisings and competing empires. The September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks against the United States demonstrated that the global economy
was vulnerable, and economic elites demanded governments provide military
protection for the system.
-
- Today, the Pentagon is realigning and expanding its vast
international network of bases along the frontiers of the global economy,
such as in central Asia. And in places like Colombia, U.S. troops and weapons
are being deployed where uprisings threaten corporate investments.
-
- 3. Globalization requires police protection of corporate
interests at home. Popular movements opposed to globalization's harsh economic
agenda have been emerging around the world, especially since the famous
protests derailed the WTO in Seattle in 1999. Police forces have responded
with increased repression and intolerance for political protests.
-
- Armed with powerful new anti-terrorism laws such as the
Patriot Act, security forces can use totalitarian-like measures to investigate
and detain people whose only "crime" may be to advocate for a
fair global economy that serves the interests of ordinary people.
-
- 4. Globalization promotes military spending over social
spending. Security exceptions in free trade agreements grant governments
a free hand in military spending, but place limits on social spending.
Thus, governments use military spending to achieve non-defence goals such
as job creation, regional development, and subsidization of local corporations
through defence contracts.
-
- Since the late 1990s, world military spending has been
on the rise and is now nearly $1 trillion a year ñ almost half of
this is by the United States alone.
-
- 5. Globalization promotes the conditions for war. Ethnic
and religious differences mask the underlying economic causes of the more
than 30 wars raging around the world today. Inequality, competition for
dwindling resources, and environmental degradation are factors in the outbreak
of armed conflict that are worsened by free trade.
-
- Globalization undermines the ability of governments to
regulate and mitigate the damaging effects of free market, resulting in
the exacerbation of all of the economic causes of war.
-
- 6. Globalization militarizes the economy of industrialized
countries. Free trade is "de-industrializing" many northern countries
as corporations move manufacturing to lower-wage southern countries. But
northern countries are retaining their high-tech and advanced manufacturing
industries ñ especially for the production of fighter planes, space
systems and advanced weapons.
-
- Military spending and "Buy American" policies
subsidize domestic production of high-tech military products built by corporations
such as Boeing, the world's largest manufacturer of both commercial and
military aircraft as well as the United States' largest exporter.
-
- 7. Globalization militarizes the economic development
of emerging countries. Free trade agreements limit the ability of governments
to stipulate that foreign investment and government purchases must benefit
the local economy. However, security exceptions permit poorer southern
governments to buy arms from foreign, northern-based corporations and demand
that technology and manufacturing be transferred to help the local economy.
-
- But military production is a poor development tool because
it creates fewer jobs than investment in public works would provide, and
makes no long-term contribution to the economy (except from arms exports).
Even more, the new local military industries become dependent upon military
spending, draining resources away from social programs such as health and
education.
-
- 8. Globalization undermines citizen peace work. Government
and corporate interests can use trade agreements to limit the ability of
citizens to lobby for government policies that promote peace. Legislative
victories by citizens advocating economic sanctions or divestment campaigns
against repressive states may be challenged and overturned by free trade
regimes such as the WTO.
-
- A successful citizen campaign encouraging local governments
to not contract with corporations doing business in Burma/Myanmar was overturned
by the U.S. federal government after it was threatened with a WTO challenge.
-
- 9. Globalization limits the use of economic sanctions
against corporations and repressive states. Free trade agreements make
it more difficult for governments to enact economic sanctions or trade
restrictions against other states or corporations that are benefiting from
armed conflict or repression.
-
- Economic sanctions, used properly, can provide the international
community with an alternative to the threat of military force in order
to lodge a protest or to apply external pressure on a state or corporation.
Sanctions were crucial in applying pressure on South Africa to end apartheid.
-
- 10. Globalization promotes corporate security over human
security. Globalization and free trade regimes align government interests
with corporate interests, resulting in the state increasingly assuming
the role of promoter and defender of corporate interests at home and abroad.
-
- This focus on corporate interests comes at the expense
of governments providing for the security of their citizens through social
programs and public-interest legislation, and from states undertaking international
actions to promote peace and security and achieve the greater public good,
regardless of the impact on corporate profits.
-
- http://www.polarisinstitute.org/polaris_project/corp_security_
state/publications_articles/globalization_mil.html
|
