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Nov 12, 2002 Every time the World Trade Organization meets there are many people that go to the city where the meeting is held. They go there to hold big demonstrations against globalization. They arrange it together with different groups from different countries to make the demonstrations as big as possible. In other words: They globalize to demonstrate against globalization. Very funny! But why are they so scared of globalization? They claim that it is bad for third world countries. That doesn’t make any sense. The World Trade Organizations goal and task is to create the laws and circumstances to make trading easier and more fair. At the moment many countries, especially the “first world” countries have protected their trade and economy very strongly. This makes it practically impossible for third world countries to penetrate the “first world” economies and sell their products. Globalization means that market protection is reduced so that everybody has more equal chances. Also countries have to live by the rules of the World Trade Organization. Third world countries benefit of this too because foreign companies that start in the third world countries also have to live by these rules. Unfair profiting of a country will just be more difficult. This is the ideal world of course, and the anti- globalization groups do have some points. The way globalization is reached may not be so ideal as its goal. There are a few ways to globalize. The Europeans have to reduce their market protection, especially in the agricultural field. This is difficult but will happen over time. The Americans have to learn that free market zones are not the same thing as integrating markets. Then there are anti globalization groups that have a second agenda. Unions in the USA for instance are against globalization. Not because they feel that the third world will be exploited because of globalization, but because they are afraid that people in the USA will loose their jobs. If the same kind of products can be made abroad at lower salaries and then be imported with less import taxes, people could loose their jobs. The USA is not particularly good in efficiency so this chance is definitely real. But how can we globalize with all these big interests. Every country has its own interests and are not very willing to give it away. A beautiful example of this is Bush, telling Asian countries that free markets are the best. 2 weeks later he increased import taxes on steel. Globalization is not a thing that can be planned. Globalization did not start a couple of years ago, but thousands of years ago. From villages to cities to countries to unions of countries! And it won’t stop all the sudden. These processes are much longer than one life time so we don’t really notice it happen. Now with the World Trade Organization, globalization has become touchable and now we fight for or against it. But really, it is unstoppable. The alternative is war, which in the end brings so much devastation that after the war things are arranged to make sure it won’t happen again. And that is part of the globalization process. ------------ Peter Faber is Dutch and has recently moved to Brazil. Visit Peter's website. Email Peter: getting_there@uol.com.br Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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