The Anti-Globalization crowd

Great Debates
41

Blackclaw, Sorry if you found my sarcastic statement “snotty”. I didn’t mean to be too harsh, but it seemed to me that you were being pretty stubborn in your views about what was going on there and I really don’t think it is very easy in these circumstances to know the truth about what happened. (And, unless I am missing something, that link you provided is way out-of-date, so it can’t be a source of info on the current protests.)

By the way, my own link isn’t meant to provide another side about what happened at the protests, but rather another side on the issue of globalization. On that issue I believe one can come to an informed opinion from a “comfy home in Ohio” or wherever. Unlike fast-paced events, issues lend themselves to careful deliberation.

42

RickJay: “1. Do you honestly believe that the inclusion of citizen groups would change the protests in ANY way?”

Absolutely, yes. And the reason why is fair simply. You see, RickJay, b/c media coverage has turned your attention towards a small minority of violent protesters, what you’re forgetting is that the largest number of protesters are law-abiding, civic-minded people. These people do not like being in the vicinity of pepper spray, they do not seek confrontation with police. If they felt that legitimate channels were opening up, or that popular support had grown to the point where taking to the street wasn’t necessary, they would no longer take to the street in large numbers.

“Or do you think that perhaps their inclusion would be derided as a meaningless gesture, irrespective of whether ot was or not?”

No, for the largest number of people a substantive improvement would be understood as a substantive improvement. I don’t believe that most trade unionists, environmentalists and humanitarians have any interest in protesting just for protesting’s sake.

Rick again: "Since when were diplomatic summits normally open to any and all “citizen groups” that wanted to show up? Haven’t these sorts of things always been invitation only affairs?

Yes they have. And, in fact, the WTO has been around since after World War II, if I rightly recall, doing exceedingly little to attract popular notice. But things have changed. I’m not sure whether you’ve read the long post I wrote to magdalene; but what I tried to emphasize there is that “first world” people have a strong investment in this issue. Globalizing processes have changed and will continue to change the lives of first-world people. So even if the motive were only self-interest–and I’m very glad that it usually isn’t, since that kind of attitude is generally counterproductive–people will continue to want to get involved in this issue. NATO, by contrast, doesn’t have that kind of direct impact on the everyday lives of large numbers of people. It’s just not controversial, see?

“I don’t expect the government to invite me into every Cabinet meeting.”

Naturally. But if the Cabinet were discussing, say, the end of all legalized abortion procedures, and you were opposed, you might actually wish to protest outside of that meeting. Right now, as many see it, the US government has been using taxpayer money in various ways to promote a neo-liberal economic agenda that has not been ratified by popular consent, and is not yet widely understood by the American public. That agenda is, by and large, a multi-national corporate agenda. This is not a typical situation. This is a world-historical situation and it’s beginning to attract world-historical attention. ** As matt has pointed out, organized protest has a noble lineage in democratic self-government. Think of the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam protests. Think of the Boston tea party if you like!

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the news media would rather show pictures of things getting busted up and burned down than anything else, but they’ll apply that rule to ANYONE, not just “anti-globalization” protesters.”

Me neither. But all that does is to support my point about the mainstream media: i.e., you can’t rely upon it to get good news and information about complex economic processes. Thanks!

“And yet, why loot stores and attack police officers? … And that makes their message - well, hard to swallow.”

This is a problem as just about every “pro-fair trader” on this board (thanks jshore) has acknowledged. But some seem to expect that peaceful protest should somehow cease, or that the message of peaceful protesters must now become finely tuned, unified and broadly disseminated overnight, just to compensate. Just as in the civil rights movement and the anti-war protests of the 1960s, some protests may spiral out of control. It’s hard for me to believe, for example, that the National Guard ended up killing four students in an anti-war protest in Ohio at that time. In these cases, however, protests resulted in broad public support for ending the war; and civil rights became a matter of legislation and social policy. Would that have happened without a protest movement? Even if you believe it would, surely the protests sped up the process.

Collounsbury: “Given the socio-political systems in place in much of the third world, the sketchy quality of information deseminated, I hazard the opinion that the comptetition for moral superiority of one’s position due to supposed mass support is meaningless here.”

Well, put in these terms–as a “competition for moral superiority”–just about any social or political goal can begin to look suspect. I’d settle for saying that the pro-fair trade movement seeks to improve the living standards of the world’s poorest, and believes that the world’s poorest would like to see their living standards improved. I think we can endow poor people with the same desire for the pursuit of happiness that economists have been granting to Western people since the eighteenth century. :wink:

“Jshore’s link claims daily protests against globalization blah blah. All well and fine. Unverifiable claims”

Perhaps, but it is no more unverifiable than your claim that daily protests against globalization are not taking place.

“Frankly, I have rarely heard anything substantive from these folks, peaceful or not, which merits airing.”

Which books on globalization have you read? Please tell me so I don’t waste your time recommending those you’ve already thoroughly perused and rejected.

"Obviously evil international capital keeping the comrades down (normally I rather detest red-baiting but my disdain for this sort of illogic and my feeling the same lack of critical examination leads me to this)."

Well, since it’s not clear to me whose lack of critical examination you’re describing here, let me take, at random, Development as Freedom, written by Cambridge economist and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. On the back of my well-thumbed copy, Sen’s account of global economic development is described as “eloquent and probing” by The New York Times, while Business Week opines that “Sen’s optimism and no-nonsense proposals leave one feeling that perhaps there is a solution.” Perhaps you can begin to explain your disdain to us by demonstrating Sen’s illogic and lack of critical examination. He is, I think you’ll agree, one of the principal intellectuals writing on globalization today. And when you’re done with Sen <glances over at bookshelf>…well, this might be a long thread. :wink:

I’m a little unclear as to why we have governments if we don’t want them doing this sort of thing.

43

Yeesh, sorry for the waste of bandwidth and the little stray line at the end. Had to post in a hurry!

44

Well my first point there was a bit of overkill and I would like to withdraw it. But I do get tired of the “you aren’t there so you don’t know” line of thinking. It simply is not possible to rely entirely on personal accounts to understand any issue. Even if I was at Genoa I would only be able to witness a small part of a city wide event. My viewing area may be utterly calm while on the other side of the city life and death battles are being fought out. My perception of the event would be limited by what I see and what prejudices I see them with. There always comes a point where we must rely on others to help form our own opinion. All we can do is try and gather as much information as possible from a diverse point of views. This forum certainly has helped me do that.

45

GATT, WTO is the successor. I would hardly call the large scale liberalization of trade in the Western World doing exceedingly little.

So do free traders such as myself. I continue to regard the “fair trade” mvoement as largely composed of hypcrites seeking disguised protectionism, naive fools who don’t know how international trade works or is practically conducted, and naive radicals who want to break capitalism for some dead utopian dream.

That does not exclude rational critiques of the system, I am addressing this “movement”.

“Western” people? Since when does economic principals apply solely to “Western” people? (Of course one does have to engage behaviour economics observations on particularities)

Review carefully international press. Decompose the reported protests, be attentive to causation.

Oodles, want reccs or just plain vanilla sarcasm? Given my time restrictions and your position, I see little point.

The vast majority of protestors, per the general and I believe clear thrust of my comments.

First mandle, don’t fucking patronize me when you’re attacking a straw man, got that? Second, I ain’t got the time lately to engage in long drawn out debates on globalization. A rendez vous in a few months perhaps when I’m back home with more time on me hands. I shall then have the pleasure of taking you apart.

46

Then we shall agree to disagree. My firsthand impression of those who attend the protests is that for the most part they are largely unaware of what is actually taking place at the conferences they’re protesting, and in most cases don’t even know any of the specific topics being discussed. Present company may be an exception, but it’s an exception.

If some of the pro-choice people on my side of that debate were throwing fire bombs at every protest, I would refuse to go and would find other avenues of protest. I would be embarassed to be associated with thugs and criminals.

In fact, using that example, don’t we roundly criticize the pro-LIFE movement for the violence that emanates from the nutty wing of that cause? There’s a thread in the Pit right now criticizing a RTL spokeswoman for making many of the same apologistic semi-condemntations around a right-to-lifer murderer that we’re seeing from those who support the Genoa protestors. “Well, it’s bad that some people did this, but you have to expect it when (doctors/the G-8) commit the sin of (performing abortions/holding meetings)!”

A silly, meaningless act of violence by a pack of political wingnuts who helped to oppress, assault, and even murder and exile those who didn’t agree with their views? Yes, I was thinking of that.

47

>> Oh, bullshit. There are no “organizers” overseeing some vast umbrella of activist groups

Italian police raid Genoa headquarters of umbrella group behind riots

48

Then NBC should make up its mind; either the umbrella group they mention isn’t behind the riots, since it includes the peaceful majority; or it doesn’t include the peaceful majority and is therefore not an umbrella group at all.

I also don’t really expect NBC to be able to distinguish between an umbrella group, a coalition of separate groups, and a convergence centre (a location communally organized where all the diverse groups can meet).

49

Uh, furthermore, the article says:

(Emphasis mine.)

The bottom of that article presents “a sampling of the disparate voices in Genoa” who have come to protest “in favor of a plethora of causes ranging from global warming to global anarchy”.

I can’t say I approve of trying to rebut my assertion by quoting the title of an article.

50

While I am usually very fond of your posts, Collounsbury, this kind of malarky is extremely irritating. You speak with the grave voice of authority on these issues. We all know you are intelligent and well-read, but do not expect us to take your word on faith alone. If you wade into a discussion hurling fire and brimstone at the opposition (by this I mean the “movement,” not individual posters), please make sure you can devote the requisite time to support your positions.

Otherwise it’s all just hot air. When I can’t post at length, I try not to invite immense opposition. It seems the courteous thing to do.

MR

51

I agree with Maeglin. Neither Mandelstam’s post nor the issue of globalization itself warrant that kind of contemptuous dismissal, Collounsbury. If you’re not going to try, why even bother?

52

**Collounsbury **: [re: WTO since WW II] “I would hardly call the large scale liberalization of trade in the Western World doing exceedingly little.”

Nor would I: but what I said was that nothing until recently had “attracted popular notice.” My point to Ricky was that citizens often ignore or take for granted policy decisions of major import; but that doesn’t mean that they are bound to continue to do so once they believe that such policy decisions no longer warrant their democratic sanction.

On the alleged “moral superiority,” of the fair trade movement, I’d said, “I’d settle for saying that the pro-fair trade movement seeks to improve the living standards of the world’s poorest, and believes that the world’s poorest would like to see their living standards improved.”

Coll replied: “So do free traders such as myself. I continue to regard the “fair trade” mvoement as largely composed of hypcrites seeking disguised protectionism, naive fools who don’t know how international trade works or is practically conducted, and naive radicals who want to break capitalism for some dead utopian dream.”

Yes, I did gather. But is it really as black and white as that? By this account there is simply globalization as it stands–dominated by multi-national corporations and their agenda–and then there are citizens: a sorry composite of naive fools, naive radicals and hypocritical protectionists. Isn’t that a rather depressing way to characterize the whole of non-corporate civil society? Indeed, if that were really true, why not just forget about the pretense to democracy and usher in a fascist state without further ado? Moreover, if you’re going to take the position that all criticism of the status quo is either naive or hypocritical you had better be prepared to speak to the faults of all criticism, no?

“That does not exclude rational critiques of the system, I am addressing this “movement”.”

I don’t see how you can separate rational critiques from the movement. Many people within the movement are making rational critiques; my people making rational critiques are pleased to see their ideas be taken up by activists within the movement. If one is attempting to sift chaff from wheat, that’s a good thing. But one can’t simply say, the “movement” is all chaff and although wheat is possible it’s not part of the “movement.”

I had written: “I think we can endow poor people with the same desire for the pursuit of happiness that economists have been granting to Western people since the eighteenth century. ;)”

Coll replied: “Western” people? Since when does economic principals apply solely to “Western” people?"

In the eighteenth century, as you undoubtedly know, it was common amongst even the most forward thinking intellectuals to see non-white peoples as culturally and biologically backward: not yet capable of enlightened self-interest, much less democratic self-governance. You will find even extraordinarily high-minded thinkers such as John Stuart Mill making this assumption in the nineteenth century; when Britain and other countries took on the so-called “white man’s burden” by aggressively colonizing most of Asia and Africa. Imperialism is founded upon the attitude that “savage” people must be governed by the civilized.

All that said, if you read back, I was really making a kind of joke b/c you had accused the fair trade movement of self-appointed “moral superiority” and I was pointing out that in classical liberal politico-economic theory, the basis of individuality is the pursuit of self-interest–so can we not assume on those grounds that “third world” people want the same fair labor standards that Western workers have fought for and won and that many activists want to help them to get.

A strong case can be made that globalization as it now stands is economic and cultural imperialism in a new form. That’s not actually a case I’d want to make on the SDMB b/c it’s just too complicated. On the other hand, one can’t simply ignore the history of imperialism as though the developing world as it is today sprang into being ten years ago: rather, it is the product of a century of imperialism followed by the ardors and aftermath of decolonization. All this by way of saying that there is plenty of moral hypocrisy to spread around here: and, again, I think we have to be really judicious as we attempt to sift chaff from wheat.

[On books about globalization]
"[Coll. has read [o]odles, want reccs or just plain vanilla sarcasm?

Oh please, nothing vanilla for me, thank you ;).

“Given my time restrictions and your position, I see little point.”

Well actually I’m about to run into a fairly major time restriction myself: I leave tomorrow afternoon for a three-week-long trip during which I’ll be working most of the time and won’t have much internet access. So clearly this isn’t the time for intense debate on this subject. As to the “point,” I must agree with those who have already said that the whole idea of Great Debates seems to be that we debate in good faith despite the fact that we are aware of our contrary positions. And, indeed, perhaps we learn something from each other in the process, no? At any rate, others who read the debate are entitled to a good faith effort.

[On reading Amartya Sen and other writers on globalization]
“First mandle, don’t fucking patronize me when you’re attacking a straw man, got that?”

Fair enough, Collounsbury. But please don’t patronize me by attempting to establish the naivete of an entire movement with one sweeping set of generalizations. From where I’m sitting that looks an awful lot like posturing arrogance and calls for a major deflationary policy on my part ;).

*“Second, I ain’t got the time lately to engage in long drawn out debates on globalization. A rendez vous in a few months perhaps when I’m back home with more time on me hands. I shall then have the pleasure of taking you apart.” *

Well, Collounsbury, let me say this with an eye towards your future pleasure. When you have more time and I have more time I would be very happy to debate with you in the company of many other posters who have already contributed a lot of interesting discussion on this topic. If you prefer to think of it as “pistols at dawn” between you and me, so be it. And, if it must be that kind of battle, I will genuinely look forward to your “taking apart” those writers who have most influenced me on this subject: Sen, William Greider, George Souros, Misao Miyoshi, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Noam Chomsky and Pierre Bourdieu. I have also read (on the other side as it were) Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman.

That said, I have also enjoyed many of your posts in the past and I see no need for us to debate this or any other topic in a spirit of acrimony; or as some kind of high-flown pissing contest. I feel very certain that if we were to meet in RL we would respect each other’s achievements and give each other a certain benefit of the doubt. I see no reason for it to be otherwise here. I’m sorry if by choosing Sen as an example of the “movement” I angered you and got your gander up. But perhaps you, in turn, can be more careful about your charges of naivete and hypocrisy.

Until then… :slight_smile:

53

In the interest of clearing things up

Very well, I misread your comment there, although I don’t accept the full implied characterization in re undemocratic decisions.

In re “Moral” position of free trade

I start by observing that I reject the characterization or dichotomy set up betweeen “multinationals” and civil society. Strikes me as more Capital versus everything else, and I don’t see that as suppportable. We have some fundamental differences here which shall prove difficult to ressolve when the time comes around.

I want to be exact, I do not take the position that all criticism of the status quo is naive or hypocritical, only that of this movement, such as it is. Or better the most vocal portions I hear in association with these protests.

Easily, I don’t see very much engagement of well founded rational critiques. A rough but valid distinction in my book.

Bah. A weak case in my book, unless one adopts a highly elastic definition of imperialism.

I believe you will find I always attempt, with varying success of course, to place discussions in a good historical context, while at the same time remaining present focused. I am very aware of the roots of present conditions in the second phase of imperialism. However, I don’t find this a convincing way of addressing forward looking problems.
[On books about globalization]

Same same

Agreed.

Granted.

We can leave out Spivak, Said and Chomsky, I have no interest in discussing their economicly illiterate economics nor terribly much interest in their analysis of cultural globalization. I rather despise the lot of them. I have no idea who Greider is.

You’re quite right and I am sorry about getting rather too upset. To explain, I took the citation or rather what I read as the implication (intended or not) rather badly as I rather read it as implying I was being a … well I won’t name names, but one of those naive free market capitalism worshippers who so love to abstract away from the problems. REgardless, no need for rancor.

54

This was from the article cited on the first page of this thread, Eyewitness: Street violence in Genoa by Patrick Nicholson

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1449000/1449492.stm

[QUOTE]
We came here with a serious message. We’re trying to represent the voiceless, people in the third world who can’t come to these meetings. They’re not invited.[/QUOTE}

I just thought it was an interesting quote, coming from someone who WASN’T INVITED, EITHER.

(but, all in all a good article, pretty fair handed in showing that the protesters were just as culpable for the violence as the police.)

I still think that they need to hold these meetings in a third world country.

55

I’ve just started on reading this thread, but so much of this post is BS I can’t help start refuting until the SD closes down:

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**

By and large, what people are protesting against is how their governments are using the power of the state to enforce the agenda of multi-national corporations–an agenda that has usually not been approved by voters and is often against voters’ interests.
**
Can you give any examples of this?
**
Sometimes this involves a small nation’s acceptance of loans in exchange for the removal of “protections” that for decades have subsidized a local industry on which a large number of native people depend. Multi-national corporations want to end such subsidies so that they compete more cheaply with those domestic producers–the end result of which is typically to put domestic producers out of business. So such people end up ruined and part of an ever-expanding global pool of cheap labor.
**
Complete BS. What multi-national corps want is an ever-expanding pool of middle class people who can buy their products. If the world was full of poor people who would buy their stuff?
**
If there were great jobs waiting for such people maybe this wouldn’t be a bad thing. But, of course, there aren’t. In some countries this has led to families resorting to sending their children to work as factory laborers or prostitutes to survive.
**
Unfortunately, families have been sending their kids to work as laborers or as prostitutes for thousands of years. This has nothing to do with multi-nat corps.
**
Of course, in a highly developed nation such as the US or in Europe, the problem is somewhat different. Here the challenge is to build up the position of foreign laborers so that the excellent standard of living enjoyed by Western laborers isn’t undermined b/c of cheap and highly exploited international labor. For example, in 1995, the average cost of employing labor in China was 50cents/hour; in Germany it was (if I recall rightly) over $20.
**
This is completely misleading. There is a reason why labor is 50cents/hour. It’s because meals are $1 and rent is $5/month. If 50cents/hour was starvation pay, how many people do you think would sign up for it? All that will happen if you increase the pay to $5/hour is local inflation. Don’t believe me? It’s happening right now in America, everywhere. Look at Bay Area housing cost during the Internet boom. Housing shot up to $500-700K for cottages because people suddenly had so much money. People like Mandelstam always quotes these statistics because they are attention grabbing but they are meaningless.
**
Naturally multi-national employers would like to shift as much of their labor costs to countries with a pool of cheap labor (not to mention no safety standards, or regulatory oversight, etc.).
**
Complete rubbish again. There have been leaps and bounds in improvements of safety standards when the multi-nat corps establish businesses there.

**
Right now, the people most aware of this trend in the US are the factory workers who’ve been losing their well-paid jobs for decades; but it’s begun to affect workers higher up the ladder as well. And then there are those civic-minded, people who are simply concerned about what is going on in other countries on humanitarian and environmentalist grounds. They also have a right to be concerned since their taxpayer money and their US government are being used to support these “globalizing” activities but in ways that very few voters understand.
**

Many of Madelstam’s points are overly simplified and of the “save the children” vein. All emotion and no common sense. If you pay your local textile worker a nice salary of $70K a year, it’s a sure bet that you’re going to want to sow your own T-shirts because you can’t afford store bought ones anymore.

56

FWIW I don’t think the 3rd World should be able to write off their debt. Writing off their debt is just a long winded way to keep them 3rd world down. Moneywise, it don’t mean a dang thing to the rich nations anyway.

For the 3rd world to succeed, they need to learn to dig themselves out of the hold. If they can get a hand out everytime, they won’t amount to anything. You can see this in a much smaller scale in kids. Kids who get everything handed to them never amount to anything. They never learn to be self sufficient. You want to spoil the kid? Don’t ever let him have to work for anything.

57

I don’t know for sure, of course, but I’m guessing that countries don’t have a coherent pscyhological process, so punishment or rewards may not affect its behavior.

58

Say you’re a 3rd world nation. You’re $15 million in debt. You can either develop your natural resources, educate and train your citizens or you can ask for a handout. You ask for a handout. Five years later, you’re $10 million in debt again. From your experience, what’s the easiest way to get out of debt?

59

Say your a third world nation. Little to no infrastructure. An unstable government supported by a largely corrupt and power-hungry army. An uneducated labor class. A weak justice system. Little implementation of governmental authority in the more rural areas.

How would you go about “developing” this nation’s natural resources?

60

I have to take exception to MJ understanding of debt releif for the 3rd world, which strikes me as painfully simplistic.

First, loans are not hand outs, laying that aside we have to look at the actual situation. Large amounts of 3rd world debt date from the the era of state directed development.

A failure to be sure, but much of this funding was rather politically colored (depending in part on whether we are talking about privately held sovereign debt or sovereign debt held by other sovereign nations) aimed at rewarding political friends regardless of their prudential character, and so we can’t easily just point the finger at the current governments.

Now, under pressure from G-7/G-11 nations, many of the same nations are undertaking painful restructing programs, which involve reduction of government spending to near balanced budget terms, etc. At the same time many of the same nations are either trying to establish democracies or working towards the same. However, the payment on essentially unproductive debt, wasted through corruption, poorly concieved development etc eats a gaint hole in their budgets. Impossible or at least terribly difficult to properly invest in physical and human infrastructure when better than half your budget goes to paying interest. Not productive either for the entity which made the loans. Time to restructure and forgive debts which are clearly bad. Happens all the time.

No debt forgiveness program is a simple give away. Not a single live program. None, NADA, zilch, ZERO. All of them require the country in question commit to and achieve painful changes in terms of their financing. However, the changes are supposed to be positive and will hopefull improve the long term health of the country.

Debt relief then is good for the creditor and good for the debtor, rewarding good financial behaviour and giving the creditor a means to get out of the whole and increase overall global wealth. The objections noted below in the prior message long ago occured to the IMF and other entities which have worked at designing positive, helpful debt relief programs.

The Major should, perhaps, in the future, restrict objections to where he is better informed.