Globalization and Its Benefits
March 30th, 2009 | by admin |C. Read asked:
Globalization is mandatory. If you want to resolve the self-made indigenous problems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and redress their self-created social and economic crises, you must be advocating more, not less trade, including reduced tariff and non-tariff barriers. If warm tears of angst and hurt roll down your cheeks as you weep over the supposed ‘environmental catastrophe’ that wrecks the earth goddess, then keep in mind that the worst polluted areas of the globe, are the poorest and those outside of major trade flows. If you agonize daily over the plight of the wretched poor, while whipping your back with birch strips in self-flagellating martyrdom, then advocate job creationism, economic vibrancy and increased opportunity for people – all satisfied through more trade and increased globalization. Poverty is solved through economic strength not socialist hand-outs.
Yet in the allegedly ‘educated’ and ‘developed’ world we have roughly about 50-60% of the population firmly opposed to: market development, globalization, increased trade and the lowering of tariff barriers for poorer nations products. Interesting. Yet many of these same people are the first to take to the streets and wave placards demanding an ‘African’ commitment, more money for Africa and a foolhardy debt write-off of legal African debts. As if 50 years of African ‘freedom’ in which no progress at all has been made in most countries can still be blamed on white imperialism. Get serious. If you really want to help Africa - stop giving it welfare and open up your richer northern markets to its products and agriculture. In other words drag African into the global trade system.
But that is too logical. US reports clearly state that of 97 countries studied that received foreign aid in the past 25 years; none reported an improvement in per capita income or living standards. Palestine has received for example more money per capita than Western Europe did during the Marshall plan. Maybe someone should compare Palestine with Holland’s polder economy and make some obvious conclusions. Yet daily we are assaulted with demands to ‘do this’ and ‘do that’ usually ‘now!’ to relieve the disaster in such and such a place. It is tiresome.
The media does not help of course. Instead of hearing about the benefits of greater trade and the increased wealth we have enjoyed in the past 50 years thanks to trade and investments and capital accumulation, we are treated to dreadful, grade-school nonsense from ageing hippies on our ‘commitments’. Doesn’t it make more sense to spend time and energy in creating better trade regimes whilst increasing commercial exchange and foreign investment, then listen to hippie drivel from Bono or Geldorf on our ‘African commitment’. China and India have proved rather dramatically that integration into the global supply chain, and fighting protectionism and tariff barriers in the north from within the trading system, is a far better way to reduce national misery than forcing rich countries to grant loans, debt relief and foreign aid payments to corrupt and dysfunctional regimes.
The case against further globalization is weak. Even with fascist, pagan branches of the Islamic ideology, an important tenet in destroying their pre-modern paganism is to bring some of their societies into the global trading orbit. Oil is not enough. Arab and Islamic countries who combined have a GDP less than that of Canada need to have their investment and financial self-interests rooted firmly in a system of globalized trade. This would help the West in defanging deranged and dangerous anti-modern systems of control. An economically impoverished and imploding Arab-Islamic world [witness Iraq and Afghanistan] does not further our political-security interests.
Trade patterns are almost solely between a clutch of rich and developing nations including China and India. In fact the largest and richest 18 countries account for about 2/3 of all international trade and investment flows [Japan-US, US-EU, EU-Japan, China-US being the most notable]. With 190 odd countries in existence and huge swathes of the world outside of major trade flows a rationalist can conclude that we have too little trade globalization, not too much.
Even in the developed world we have too many barriers to trade. The major world economies only have 25-40 % of their economies dependent on trade. There exists a multitude of barriers – tariff and non-tariff – to trade between and intra-nations. To alleviate suffering and emotionally satisfy your ‘African commitment’ [hand on heart, tears on cheeks], then people should be demanding a reduction in trade barriers and an increase in trade agreements with these poorer nations. That will do far more to pull them out of poverty than more World Bank loans.
Yes trade will change a modern society but the direction of change is positive. As a society becomes wealthier for example and more integrated with the world economy, fascism, despotism and massive corruption is harder to establish, hide and maintain. Islam is a testimony to the poverty of isolationism. So is Africa. As a society engages in trade and investment, more and better jobs are created, and living standards rise. It is hard to argue that we are not a better-informed and wealthier world at all income levels in comparison to 50 years ago.
Why then the animus in the West against globalization and free trade? Why did French and Dutch voters vote against the EU Constitution because it was not socialist and protective enough? Why is modern man – coddled, spoilt, bratty, over indulged, and mis-educated – so apparently ignorant?
Those who scream against markets and trade are imbued with the belief that economics is a negative force, replete with odious links to Western consumerism and worst still [gnashing of teeth] - Americanism. Thus we see the poverty of modern education and media disinformation. In this regard the anti-globalization movement is a thinly disguised hatred not only of capitalism, but of America, and of US capitalist skill and technology. According to these modern day Marxists a loss of sovereignty and power are sure to follow an increase in trade – witness the madness of the moron Chavez in Venezuela or the ravings of fellow travelers in the American or Canadian union circuit.
Anti-trade groups truly believe that once a society is linked into the global supply chain, it loses control of its key levers of independence and becomes reliant on the US and it’s allegedly slave creating institutions – the IMF and World Bank. Capital flows, investment flows, the rapid pace of innovation and technology, will all force radical redesigns on the domestic society that only benefit a few – typically cited in the media as the rich, the business elite, or the pilfering hordes of capitalist-imperialist exploiters. While in the real world some people will benefit more than others, society has a whole wins from trade, and from decreasing the power of governments; government intervention and union representation. There is no evidence to contradict those claims.
Those against trade are the typical mercantilists and Marxists that we have seen protest capitalism for the past 250 years. Today’s Marxists, include: environmentalists [destroy the world to support some nonsense about human induced climate change]; unions [who want to create a labor elite of pampered 30 hour per week workers]; nescient academics [hoping to get another government grant]; ‘think-tanks’ [that need tax payer money to survive]; or politicians needing votes. These jokers are little different than the socialist utopians from Saint Simon to Stalin who wanted to create a wonderful world of perfect equality under state and totalitarian control. For our modern Marxists the problem with capitalism is that it generates too much growth and is too successful and creates too much individual independence. So to thwart it they toss into the political arena the old canards that market growth risks damaging the environment, causing human misery and widening inequalities.
Of course the opposite is true. On all accounts the earth is cleaner, people live longer and have better care, and there is more opportunity and wealth now, than ever before in history. A rational person can only conclude that we need more trade not less.
RUDY
Globalization is mandatory. If you want to resolve the self-made indigenous problems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and redress their self-created social and economic crises, you must be advocating more, not less trade, including reduced tariff and non-tariff barriers. If warm tears of angst and hurt roll down your cheeks as you weep over the supposed ‘environmental catastrophe’ that wrecks the earth goddess, then keep in mind that the worst polluted areas of the globe, are the poorest and those outside of major trade flows. If you agonize daily over the plight of the wretched poor, while whipping your back with birch strips in self-flagellating martyrdom, then advocate job creationism, economic vibrancy and increased opportunity for people – all satisfied through more trade and increased globalization. Poverty is solved through economic strength not socialist hand-outs.
Yet in the allegedly ‘educated’ and ‘developed’ world we have roughly about 50-60% of the population firmly opposed to: market development, globalization, increased trade and the lowering of tariff barriers for poorer nations products. Interesting. Yet many of these same people are the first to take to the streets and wave placards demanding an ‘African’ commitment, more money for Africa and a foolhardy debt write-off of legal African debts. As if 50 years of African ‘freedom’ in which no progress at all has been made in most countries can still be blamed on white imperialism. Get serious. If you really want to help Africa - stop giving it welfare and open up your richer northern markets to its products and agriculture. In other words drag African into the global trade system.
But that is too logical. US reports clearly state that of 97 countries studied that received foreign aid in the past 25 years; none reported an improvement in per capita income or living standards. Palestine has received for example more money per capita than Western Europe did during the Marshall plan. Maybe someone should compare Palestine with Holland’s polder economy and make some obvious conclusions. Yet daily we are assaulted with demands to ‘do this’ and ‘do that’ usually ‘now!’ to relieve the disaster in such and such a place. It is tiresome.
The media does not help of course. Instead of hearing about the benefits of greater trade and the increased wealth we have enjoyed in the past 50 years thanks to trade and investments and capital accumulation, we are treated to dreadful, grade-school nonsense from ageing hippies on our ‘commitments’. Doesn’t it make more sense to spend time and energy in creating better trade regimes whilst increasing commercial exchange and foreign investment, then listen to hippie drivel from Bono or Geldorf on our ‘African commitment’. China and India have proved rather dramatically that integration into the global supply chain, and fighting protectionism and tariff barriers in the north from within the trading system, is a far better way to reduce national misery than forcing rich countries to grant loans, debt relief and foreign aid payments to corrupt and dysfunctional regimes.
The case against further globalization is weak. Even with fascist, pagan branches of the Islamic ideology, an important tenet in destroying their pre-modern paganism is to bring some of their societies into the global trading orbit. Oil is not enough. Arab and Islamic countries who combined have a GDP less than that of Canada need to have their investment and financial self-interests rooted firmly in a system of globalized trade. This would help the West in defanging deranged and dangerous anti-modern systems of control. An economically impoverished and imploding Arab-Islamic world [witness Iraq and Afghanistan] does not further our political-security interests.
Trade patterns are almost solely between a clutch of rich and developing nations including China and India. In fact the largest and richest 18 countries account for about 2/3 of all international trade and investment flows [Japan-US, US-EU, EU-Japan, China-US being the most notable]. With 190 odd countries in existence and huge swathes of the world outside of major trade flows a rationalist can conclude that we have too little trade globalization, not too much.
Even in the developed world we have too many barriers to trade. The major world economies only have 25-40 % of their economies dependent on trade. There exists a multitude of barriers – tariff and non-tariff – to trade between and intra-nations. To alleviate suffering and emotionally satisfy your ‘African commitment’ [hand on heart, tears on cheeks], then people should be demanding a reduction in trade barriers and an increase in trade agreements with these poorer nations. That will do far more to pull them out of poverty than more World Bank loans.
Yes trade will change a modern society but the direction of change is positive. As a society becomes wealthier for example and more integrated with the world economy, fascism, despotism and massive corruption is harder to establish, hide and maintain. Islam is a testimony to the poverty of isolationism. So is Africa. As a society engages in trade and investment, more and better jobs are created, and living standards rise. It is hard to argue that we are not a better-informed and wealthier world at all income levels in comparison to 50 years ago.
Why then the animus in the West against globalization and free trade? Why did French and Dutch voters vote against the EU Constitution because it was not socialist and protective enough? Why is modern man – coddled, spoilt, bratty, over indulged, and mis-educated – so apparently ignorant?
Those who scream against markets and trade are imbued with the belief that economics is a negative force, replete with odious links to Western consumerism and worst still [gnashing of teeth] - Americanism. Thus we see the poverty of modern education and media disinformation. In this regard the anti-globalization movement is a thinly disguised hatred not only of capitalism, but of America, and of US capitalist skill and technology. According to these modern day Marxists a loss of sovereignty and power are sure to follow an increase in trade – witness the madness of the moron Chavez in Venezuela or the ravings of fellow travelers in the American or Canadian union circuit.
Anti-trade groups truly believe that once a society is linked into the global supply chain, it loses control of its key levers of independence and becomes reliant on the US and it’s allegedly slave creating institutions – the IMF and World Bank. Capital flows, investment flows, the rapid pace of innovation and technology, will all force radical redesigns on the domestic society that only benefit a few – typically cited in the media as the rich, the business elite, or the pilfering hordes of capitalist-imperialist exploiters. While in the real world some people will benefit more than others, society has a whole wins from trade, and from decreasing the power of governments; government intervention and union representation. There is no evidence to contradict those claims.
Those against trade are the typical mercantilists and Marxists that we have seen protest capitalism for the past 250 years. Today’s Marxists, include: environmentalists [destroy the world to support some nonsense about human induced climate change]; unions [who want to create a labor elite of pampered 30 hour per week workers]; nescient academics [hoping to get another government grant]; ‘think-tanks’ [that need tax payer money to survive]; or politicians needing votes. These jokers are little different than the socialist utopians from Saint Simon to Stalin who wanted to create a wonderful world of perfect equality under state and totalitarian control. For our modern Marxists the problem with capitalism is that it generates too much growth and is too successful and creates too much individual independence. So to thwart it they toss into the political arena the old canards that market growth risks damaging the environment, causing human misery and widening inequalities.
Of course the opposite is true. On all accounts the earth is cleaner, people live longer and have better care, and there is more opportunity and wealth now, than ever before in history. A rational person can only conclude that we need more trade not less.
RUDY
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