Dankdude
Well-Known Member
World Bank economist John Page recently told a meeting of Middle Eastern officials that the global economy is like the bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo. If you miss it, its gone and there is no way to catch up. He urged them to get on board quickly by restructuring their economies.
Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Kanter, in her book World Class, tells us that the future belongs to those who are willing to give up their loyalties to community and nation to seek personal financial success in the global economy. She warns that those who remain loyal to people and places will be left behind.
Business Week tells us that East Asia-where the number of non-Japanese multimillionaires is expected to double from 400,000 in 1993 to 800,000 in 1996-is the leading example of what a global free market economy has made possible. "There are new markets for everything from Mercedes Benz cars to Motorola mobile phones to Fidelity mutual funds. . . . To find the nearest precedent, you need to rewind U.S. history 100 years to the days before strong unions, securities watchdogs and antitrust laws." Scant mention is made of the fact that free market economies have also left 675 million Asian's living in absolute deprivation.
We should be more than skeptical of an economic model that calls on us to give up all loyalty to place and community, says we must give free reign to securities fraud and corporate monopolies and deny workers the right to organize, and tells the poor to run faster and faster after a train they have no chance of catching-so that a few hundred thousand people can become multi-millionaires by destroying nature and depriving others of a decent means of livelihood.
Millions of people around the world are no longer buying this monumental fraud against humanity-and their numbers are growing. We are coming to realize that the extravagant promises of the advocates of the global economy are based on a number of myths that have become so deeply embedded in Western industrial culture that we have grown to accept them without examination.
The myth that global corporations are benevolent institutions that if freed from governmental interference will provide a clean environment for all and good jobs for the poor.
The myth that absentee investors create local prosperity.
TAKE THE GROWTH MYTH. Our measures of growth are deeply flawed in that they are purely measures of activity in the monetized economy. Expanded use of cigarettes and alcohol increases economic output both as a direct consequence of their consumption and because of the related increase in health care needs. The need to clean up oil spills generates economic activity. Gun sales to minors generate economic activity. A divorce generates both lawyers fees and the need to buy or rent and outfit a new home-increasing real estate brokerage fees and retail sales. It is now well documented that in the United States and a number of other countries the quality of living of ordinary people has been declining as aggregate economic output increases.
The growth myth has another serious flaw. Since 1950, the world's economic output has increased 5 to 7 times. That growth has already increased the human burden on the planet's regenerative systems-its soils, air, water, fisheries, and forestry systems-beyond what the planet can sustain. Continuing to press for economic growth beyond the planet's sustainable limits does two things. It accelerates the rate of breakdown of the earth's regenerative systems-as we see so dramatically demonstrated in the case of many ocean fisheries-and it intensifies the competition between rich and poor for the resource base that remains.
The disparities in this competition have become truly obscene. In 1960 the annual compensation of the average CEO of a major US. company was 40 times that of the average worker. In 1992 it was 157 times as much. The average CEO of a large corporation now receives an annual compensation package of more than $3.5 million-their reward for growing company profits by destroying millions of jobs.
Over the past 3 years the profits of the Standard and Poors 500 largest corporations have grown an average of 20% a year. Stock prices are at record highs. For the most part, these gains went to people who have nothing better to do with their money than gamble on price movements in the giant global casino we call a stock market. During 1995, wages, salaries and benefits-compensation for doing real work-increased only 2.7%-the smallest rise on record.
The competition is made especially visible by the many development projects in Southern countries-many funded with loans from the World Bank and other multilateral development banks-that displace the poor so that the lands and waters on which they depend for their livelihoods can be converted to uses that generate higher economic returns-meaning converted to use by people who can pay more that those who are displaced. All too often what growth in GNP really measures is the rate at which the economically powerful are expropriating the resources of the economically weak in order to convert them into products that all too quickly become the garbage of the rich.
TAKE THE MYTH OF FREE UNREGULATED MARKETS. It is almost inherent in the nature of markets that their efficient function depends on the presence of a strong government to set a framework of rules for their operation. For, example we know that free markets create monopolies, which government must break up to maintain the conditions of competition on which market function depends. See The Betrayal of Adam Smith.
We also know that markets only allocate efficiently when prices reflect the full and true costs of production. Yet in the absence of governmental regulation, market incentives persistently push firms to cut corners on safety, pay workers less than a living wage, and dump untreated toxic discharges into a convenient river. In our present competitive context if management does not take such measures, they are likely to be replaced by the owners or bought out by someone with less scruples who will.
Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Kanter, in her book World Class, tells us that the future belongs to those who are willing to give up their loyalties to community and nation to seek personal financial success in the global economy. She warns that those who remain loyal to people and places will be left behind.
Business Week tells us that East Asia-where the number of non-Japanese multimillionaires is expected to double from 400,000 in 1993 to 800,000 in 1996-is the leading example of what a global free market economy has made possible. "There are new markets for everything from Mercedes Benz cars to Motorola mobile phones to Fidelity mutual funds. . . . To find the nearest precedent, you need to rewind U.S. history 100 years to the days before strong unions, securities watchdogs and antitrust laws." Scant mention is made of the fact that free market economies have also left 675 million Asian's living in absolute deprivation.
We should be more than skeptical of an economic model that calls on us to give up all loyalty to place and community, says we must give free reign to securities fraud and corporate monopolies and deny workers the right to organize, and tells the poor to run faster and faster after a train they have no chance of catching-so that a few hundred thousand people can become multi-millionaires by destroying nature and depriving others of a decent means of livelihood.
Millions of people around the world are no longer buying this monumental fraud against humanity-and their numbers are growing. We are coming to realize that the extravagant promises of the advocates of the global economy are based on a number of myths that have become so deeply embedded in Western industrial culture that we have grown to accept them without examination.
- The myth that growth in GNP is a valid measure of human well-being and progress.
- The myth that free unregulated markets efficiently allocate a society's resources.
- The myth that growth in trade benefits ordinary people.
- The myth that economic globalization is inevitable.
The myth that global corporations are benevolent institutions that if freed from governmental interference will provide a clean environment for all and good jobs for the poor.
The myth that absentee investors create local prosperity.
TAKE THE GROWTH MYTH. Our measures of growth are deeply flawed in that they are purely measures of activity in the monetized economy. Expanded use of cigarettes and alcohol increases economic output both as a direct consequence of their consumption and because of the related increase in health care needs. The need to clean up oil spills generates economic activity. Gun sales to minors generate economic activity. A divorce generates both lawyers fees and the need to buy or rent and outfit a new home-increasing real estate brokerage fees and retail sales. It is now well documented that in the United States and a number of other countries the quality of living of ordinary people has been declining as aggregate economic output increases.
The growth myth has another serious flaw. Since 1950, the world's economic output has increased 5 to 7 times. That growth has already increased the human burden on the planet's regenerative systems-its soils, air, water, fisheries, and forestry systems-beyond what the planet can sustain. Continuing to press for economic growth beyond the planet's sustainable limits does two things. It accelerates the rate of breakdown of the earth's regenerative systems-as we see so dramatically demonstrated in the case of many ocean fisheries-and it intensifies the competition between rich and poor for the resource base that remains.
The disparities in this competition have become truly obscene. In 1960 the annual compensation of the average CEO of a major US. company was 40 times that of the average worker. In 1992 it was 157 times as much. The average CEO of a large corporation now receives an annual compensation package of more than $3.5 million-their reward for growing company profits by destroying millions of jobs.
Over the past 3 years the profits of the Standard and Poors 500 largest corporations have grown an average of 20% a year. Stock prices are at record highs. For the most part, these gains went to people who have nothing better to do with their money than gamble on price movements in the giant global casino we call a stock market. During 1995, wages, salaries and benefits-compensation for doing real work-increased only 2.7%-the smallest rise on record.
The competition is made especially visible by the many development projects in Southern countries-many funded with loans from the World Bank and other multilateral development banks-that displace the poor so that the lands and waters on which they depend for their livelihoods can be converted to uses that generate higher economic returns-meaning converted to use by people who can pay more that those who are displaced. All too often what growth in GNP really measures is the rate at which the economically powerful are expropriating the resources of the economically weak in order to convert them into products that all too quickly become the garbage of the rich.
TAKE THE MYTH OF FREE UNREGULATED MARKETS. It is almost inherent in the nature of markets that their efficient function depends on the presence of a strong government to set a framework of rules for their operation. For, example we know that free markets create monopolies, which government must break up to maintain the conditions of competition on which market function depends. See The Betrayal of Adam Smith.
We also know that markets only allocate efficiently when prices reflect the full and true costs of production. Yet in the absence of governmental regulation, market incentives persistently push firms to cut corners on safety, pay workers less than a living wage, and dump untreated toxic discharges into a convenient river. In our present competitive context if management does not take such measures, they are likely to be replaced by the owners or bought out by someone with less scruples who will.
