War on Want, a British lobby group, on Friday launched a campaign
against Primark, Tesco and Asda for selling cheap clothes made
by Bangladeshi workers whom the lobby group claim are exploited because
they "regularly work 80 hours a week for just 5p
an hour".
I debated the charge that such "sweatshops" are harming
Bangladeshi workers in a debate with John Hilary of War on Want on BBC
Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show: Listen here
Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and to mark the occasion it is organising a race convention to debate race relations and the issues that affect them.
Corporate social responsibility – it seems impossible to be against it: who wants companies to be irresponsible towards society? But words are deceptive. The premise behind CSR – that the profit motive is tainted, global capitalism is leading the world to rack and ruin, and business has a duty to give something back to society – is fundamentally flawed. And so too is the practice of it.
In a comment on my recent post on the contribution of trade liberalisation to Asia’s success, Jim takes issue with my contention that
China and India are very powerful examples of the benefits of
liberalisation: before they started their reforms, growth was slow, but
as they have opened up their economies, growth has accelerated.
He argues that growth speeded up before they opened up, and that their growth since they opened up is not due to freer trade.
Time is running out for the Doha Round. It’s been said so many times, but this time it really is true. To see why, count back from July 2007. That is when President Bush’s fast-track authority, which forces Congress to vote on trade deals without the possibility of amending them, is due to expire.
With the president so unpopular, the trade deficit so huge and the
prospect of a Democratic majority in Congress by then, the chances of
fast-track being renewed are vanishingly slim: it only passed by one
vote the last time around.
Eleven international NGOs have signed up to a new accountability charter, which says
We recognise that transparency and accountability are essential to good governance,whether by governments, businesses or non-profit organisations. Wherever we operate, we seek to ensure that the high standards which we demand of others are also respected in our own organisations… We agree to apply the Charter progressively to all our policies, activities and operations.
It’s a positive first step. As I explained in an earlier post, NGOs have previously failed to live up to the high standards that they rightly demand of others. But it still doesn’t go far enough.
In a thoughtful comment on my recent Doha post, Matthew argues that
It is simply not the case that the enormous growth of the Asia tigers
is evidence of the efficacy of free trade because most of those
economies were protected behind trade barriers and currency controls
for most of their development and still are.
I started replying in a comment, but then I thought the subject was so important that I would start a new post about it instead.
NGOs demand that governments, businesses and international organisations be open and accountable for their actions. Hear, hear. But what about NGOs themselves? The likes of Oxfam and Greenpeace fall far short of the standards on which they rightly insist in others. These self-appointed guardians of global rectitude are scarcely models of transparency and accountability – a flagrant case of "do as I say, not as I do". As I have long argued, if NGOs are to be taken seriously in global politics this has to change – and it appears that they are finally starting to put their houses in order. The FT reports that 11 NGOs will on Tuesday sign a voluntary “accountability charter”. Sounds promising. Watch this space.
Discussing debt relief and third world development with Noreena Hertz on the Today Programme. Listen here
Many French people rejected the constitution because they regard Brussels as the handmaiden of "ultra-liberal" Anglo-Saxon capitalism, intent on deregulating markets and opening up the French economy to competition. Just look, they say, at the EU’s proposed services directive, which would tear down barriers to trade in services, or at the eastward enlargement of the EU, which has exposed French workers to competition from low-wage, low-tax economies such as Poland. The upshot, they claim, is that the EU is driving social standards down and pushing unemployment up.
Globalisation is not perfect, but it is overwhelmingly a force for good. The rapid growth of trade and investment across national borders is spreading greater prosperity and opening up new opportunities to billions of people around the globe. China has recorded the fastest fall in poverty the world has ever seen. Global inequality is now declining for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, as China, India and others begin to catch up with the West. Those countries that are still floundering notably in Africa are largely victims not of globalisation, but of a lack of it.
"Listen man, I smoke, I snort … I’ve been begging on the street since I was just a baby. I’ve cleaned windshields at stoplights. I’ve polished shoes, I’ve robbed, I’ve killed. … I ain’t no kid, no way. I’m a real man."
Globalisation has become a convenient catch-all for everything many people dislike about the modern world. In truth, it is simply shorthand for how our lives are becoming increasingly intertwined with those of distant peoples and places around the world – economically, politically and culturally. These links are not always new, but they are more pervasive than ever before.
Eight years ago, in "The Next American Nation", Michael Lind terrified Americans with the threat of "ever-increasing low-wage, high-skill competition" from the third world, to which free-traders allegedly had "no answer." But after this menace failed to materialise, Lind changed his tune. Developing countries, far from being hypercompetitive are, in fact, unable to compete with rich countries, he now argues (Prospect, January 2003).
On BBC News 24’s HARDtalk tonight (Friday 13 December), Allan Little interviews Philippe Legrain, economist.
Globalisation is, to many, the issue of our age. More trade means more wealth creation and greater prosperity for rich and poor alike, its supporters say.
Why then after a decade of radical liberalisation is so much of the world sinking into deeper poverty while the rich nations get steadily richer?
And why does the anti-globalisation movement seem to have ignited the passion of so many, especially the young?
Philippe Legrain is an evangelist for globalisation. He is an economist and a former special advisor to the World Trade Organisation. He talks to Allan Little.
Progressive politics ought to be about hope: that we can create a fairer society where everyone can make the most of their potential. Yet the prevailing mood on the left is despair. Globalisation, many believe, is leading the world to rack and ruin – and there is little we can do about it. American-led corporate power is elbowing aside government and trampling on democracy.