[29] in peace2
WTO continued...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (F. AuYeung)
Mon Jan 17 21:23:33 2000
Message-Id: <200001180223.VAA16895@scrubbing-bubbles.mit.edu>
To: peace2@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 21:23:25 -0500
From: "F. AuYeung" <auyeung@MIT.EDU>
Dear friends,
I really ought to be doing by homework, but what the hey.
What is economics? Well, to me, a regular person, economics is just
a tool with which people use to handle material transfer for the good
of society. This tool, however, has been interpreted in many ways;
and the people with the power to do so can change its meaning. So
currently, the "neo-classical" interpretation of economics sides with
"free trade," that is, trade without barriers. This is the position
taken by the WTO (NOT a governmental organization, but one composed of
NON-democratically-elected appointees from big multi-national
corporations, who make decisions that via an agreement, CAN affect
governmental policies).
As a result of this belief (heart-felt) or scheme (tactical), the WTO
has overturned policies (democratic or dictatorial) to reduce trade
barriers. These policies include ones that protect labor forces, human
health, and environment. For these reasons, people from all walks of
life gathered in Seattle to protest. Notice no one said anything about
capitalism.
Jenn asked a wonderful question: if not the WTO...? Protests are
inherent negative in that they are obstructionist and oppositional.
The protests in Seattle were necessary steps to bring the issue to
light, and a concurrent process has to take place, one that is
constructive and supportive. It is easy, or easier, to point out the
wrongs in a system, but in order to dispose of it, we have to find its
replacement/alternative. To this end, as people opposed to current
WTO policies, we have to envision a better system, while we continue to
expose the wrongs. My own belief is that, ultimately, reforming the WTO
will not get people ahead by much; instead, we need to find a new
motivation for businesses and corporations, one that takes into human
effects (health and quality of living) and place those higher than
economic return, (which Karen also pointed to). As Russ Davis said at
the meeting: "globalization is inevitable, but corporate globalization
is not." By corporate, I interpret he means the values associated with
the MNC's.
It happens that the people running the WTO and MNC's are all rich,
mostly male, and mostly white, but the people who suffer as a result of
their actions are everyone: from dirt poor and up, from male to female,
from people of all colors, in the States and in the world. It hurts me
to see the divisiveness that keep the suffering people from combining
their efforts to build a better world. The people who have the most will
seek to protect what they have, regardless of who they are. While it's
not wrong to have property and to protect it, it is wrong when those
actions happen at the expense of other people. We have to first avoid
being one to step on others to get rich, and also to strive toward a
better mechanism such that the quality of living for all can be improved.
People in the developing world need exactly what we need: human dignity,
freedom of choice, justice and peace. Do not confuse these wishes with
institutional jazz like capitalism, democracy, individualism. While the
latter can be and has been used to achieve the former, we can also see
that capitalist companies in our democratic country satisfy our individual
wants by subjecting a foreign labor force under poor conditions and paying
that entire labor force less than that paid to Michael Jordan for one ad!
While stockholders are getting rich, while famous people are paid for
endorsements, while expensive commercials span the airwaves, don't make
the mistaken assumption there isn't enough to go around to the people who
actually make the product in the first place.
Felix
PS to Mr. Macomber:
In the past two hundred years, the exercise of private property rights has
hardly been peaceful. The United States forced Indigenous peoples off
their lands, fought Mexico and stole a few states, colonialized countries
like the Philipines, planned and executed coups in Central and South
America, forced banned substances in the US to other countries, threatened
economic sanctions to open markets, all of which are part of our (well-
known, with the certainty these aren't the only examples) history, part of
our private property, part of our standard of living.
