Why have tens of thousands of people turned out at those places and othersÑWindsor, Ontario, Prague, Barcelona, San Diego, Genoa, etc.Ñat the risk of severe discomfort at least, major injury or death at worst? Is it really just a bunch of know-nothings kicking out their jams, as the mainstream media would have us believe? Or is there something more serious involved and, if so, what is it?
Unlike the heads of state, the CEOs, the ideologues of globalization and their lackeys in the corporate media, those under the police clubs and guns, those hit by the gas and the rubber/plastic bullets understand that the thrust for globalization on the part of corporate capitalism will, if successful, destroy our societies and our communities in the name of the bottom line.
Let's examine that thrust. It aims to eliminate all barriers to trade and financial activity. We've already seen how the system deals with environmental issues: because of a North America Free Trade Area (NAFTA) edict, the State of California must continue putting MTBE in our gasoline in spite of the fact that it poisons our waterÑmillions of dollars in fines are at stake; to leave it out would be a restraint of trade. NAFTA hit Mexico with a 13 million dollar fine because a small community there doesn't want the multinational Metalclad to establish a toxic dump in a nature preserve thereÑand Metalclad gets their dump anyway; to interfere with it is a restraint of trade. There are other examples of environmental sabotage.
It's the same with laws allowing workers to organize for better wages and working conditions. Those are restraints of trade under NAFTA. (It is interesting to note that when former President Clinton started talking in Seattle about establishing some relatively weak labor standards, those expressing the strongest opposition were representatives of the non-industrialized countries, who complained that the U.S. was trying to bully them. But keep in mind, those poorer countries have their own elites whose interests coincide with the interests of first world elites, and who have no interest in the welfare of the non-elites in their own or any other country.)
According to IMF rules, countriesÑusually non-industrialized countriesÑthat want loans for development must agree to draconian cuts in subsidies and assistance to their citizens to qualify. They must also clear the way for privatization of such state-owned services as energy, petroleum and now water, so that these become profit-making enterprises, rather than public facilities. The poor, of course, will suffer, but so will a lot of other people.
Opponents refer to the FTAA as NAFTA on steroids. If it becomes established in 2005Ñthat's the timelineÑit will multiply the problems of NAFTA exponentially. As well, it will clear the way for U.S. and other wealthy country investors to essentially own the non-industrialized countries of Central and South America. Will they have any interest in the general welfare in those countries? You figure it out.
Of course the granddaddy of all these alphabetical monstrosities is the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) of which the WTO is now the enforcement arm. Negotiated in secret over several decades and passed by the U.S. Congress under a provision allowing for no debate and no amendment, as was NAFTA, the GATT is an international framework for the free movement of goods and services without any bothersome environmental or labor standards. It provides the standard for pauperization of the non-industrialized countries for the benefit of the elites of their own and the wealthy countries.
Globalization in its present form will lead to a new feudalism, with the multinational corporations as the lords of the manor, the rest of us as the serfs, and the armies and police forces as the knights who protect the lords from the serfs and serve to expand the lords' domains. Is that what we want for our children?
What does all that have to do with sustainability? It is a given that capitalism itself is unsustainable, requiring constant expansion and constant exploitation of human and natural resources. That exploitation has been going on for some time with the consequences with which we are all familiar: destruction of animal, human and plant habitat and overuse of resources which, if used wisely, could last forever. These global rules open the door for expansion of all the destructive elements of that exploitation.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2001
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