American Politics Journal -- Why You Should Worry About Globalization

American Politics Journal

G8:
Why You Should Worry About Globalization
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 24, 2001 (APJP) -- With the summit meeting in Genoa ending with one dead and several hundred injured, the image most often seen on American television was that of anarchists running loose in the streets, trashing cars and defacing the majestic old buildings of Genoa.

Small wonder, then, that many Americans have the impression that the protesters consist mostly of communists unwilling to admit their cause is dead, fighting capitalism. It's easy to dismiss the protesters of you can dress them as a bunch of out-dated violent Don Quixotes, fighting lost battles against a concept that Americans are trained from birth to admire: capitalism.

But in fact, there were over 150,000 protesters in Genoa, and each time the G8 meet, the protesters get larger crowds, and the amount of international concern over their activities mounts.

The G8 itself, which is not intrinsically evil, recognizes that there are legitimate concerns. Thus it included in its deliberations this time an agreement to funnel one billion dollars into AIDS treatment and research, and the conference did try to work around the illegitimate neo-fascist regime of the United States on issues relating to the environment and worker's rights. That the United States, once the oldest and biggest democracy in the world, was the biggest roadblock is a shameful reminder of how far we've fallen in just the few months since the December coup. Even as Putsch met with delegates in Genoa, the US was quietly abdicating its obligations in the 26 year old treaty on germ warfare, announcing that it would no longer accept inspections by the UN. The day after G8, while Putsch made a fool of himself standing in the Roman coliseum and reminding everyone that he was no Seneca, 140 nations around the world signed Kyoto, a rebellion against G8 far more profound than the tens of thousands of protesters had been.

America, led by forces that its citizens neither understand or even perceive, is becoming an angry and bitter reactionary. It stands against a counter revolution that began in American in response to a revolution that began, also, in America. America originally championed free global trade. It was in Seattle where the opposition to globalization became evident. And it is America that is fighting the forces of both sides now -- the anti-free-traders of Genoa (who Putsch called "dead wrong") and the people who pressed for Kyoto (which Putsch called "fatally flawed"--being a corporate puppet does make it easier for him to have opinions).

Small wonder we're confused.

Those who oppose Globalization represent a wide variety of interests, and they all have different concerns that they want addressed. But it all boils down to one significant factor. The old world of nation states is dying, and being replaced with a corporate oligarchy. Whatever the benefits of such an oligarchy, the drawbacks are manifest. A new order is coming to power, one that has no laws, no justice, and only a proprietary interest in the welfare of the people. All the rights and gains fought so hard for over the past 800 years are essentially negated by this new order.

Corporations do not recognize the right of workers to unionize, or the right of people to elect representatives who will be accountable to the people. Corporations do not recognize freedom of speech save their own, and they don't recognize the need to place society ahead of profits.

It isn't because they are evil. It is because they are bureaucracies, devoted only to the generation of profits and self-preservation. Perfectly normal and -- by their own criteria -- moral behavior, as any libertarian will tell you, but when it conflicts with the welfare of the citizenry, corporations will behave as corporations, and if that means abrogating the rights and freedoms of the citizenry, then so be it.

Corporations have signed no agreements regarding minimum wage, worker safety, environmental protection, child labor, redress of grievances, habeas corpus, elections, search and seizure, or guarantees of privacy, or even life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, except the new boss isn't obligated to or even interested in that contract you signed.

Forget the noise about how the ethics of the market guarantee that corporations will bend to the will of the people because no business can survive without happy customers. That's a load of self-serving, unmitigated, unjustified codswallop that flies in the face of common sense and experience. It was the "invisible hand" of the market that persuaded Texas power generators to deliberately take plants off line, dropping supply, and causing prices to skyrocket. If you are a corporation, and your prime directive is to generate profits and make the stockholders happy, and a situation comes along where you can make a lot more money with a lot less effort, what are you going to do?

The rest of the world views America as a bad example of corporate rule. Corporations are seen as having taken down the mightiest nation on earth without firing a shot, with a propaganda apparatus so effective that many Americans can't even bring themselves to admit that something fundamental has changed.

Corporations, without constitutional justification, are accorded the same rights that the constitution recognizes in human beings living in America. From that bizarre notion has come the utterly lunatic notion that corporations have the constitutional right to compete with average citizens for the ear of elected officials, and may spend whatever it takes, in virtually any way they chose, to do so.

Here, in the "freest country on earth" (and if you stop and think, it's been a while since you heard anyone say that about America, isn't it?), eleven corporations control 95% of our commercial media (and during the G8 conference, a US Court was upholding the "right" of Rupert Murdoch to control an even greater percentage of NYC media than he already does). Corporations have the "right" to copyright genes, which gives them potentially absolute control over all crops and livestock, and could even pave the way to ownership of human beings. (They wouldn't be called human beings, of course. They would be called "genetic constructs"). Nearly everywhere Americans go, they are watched by the unblinking eyes of corporate cameras, and corporations are clamoring for the "right" to monitor, through GPS, the movements and activities of all Americans who are using corporate property--something that more and more means all property. Period. America has long since changed from a vital culture to a passive receptor of corporate entertainment. It used to be that Americans all knew the words to "This land is your land". Now they sing commercial jingles instead.

Why should multinational corporations want restrictions on greenhouse gases? By the time the climate has brought devastation, someone else will be on the board of directors, and it will be their headache. In the meanwhile, those who perpetrate should decisions get to skate, since corporations have the power and the legal firepower to hold any efforts national governments might make at bay. Note now the present administration surrendered to the tobacco industry.

Corporate propaganda in America has reached the amazing level where an entertainer making a quarter of a BILLION dollars, one who routinely bashes the poor, the sick, the weak, the powerless, can present himself, with a straight face, as the hero of the common man--and the common man buys it! This creature howls about how tort reform is needed to prevent "abuses by the trial lawyers" when in fact what he is really talking about is your redress of grievances! The right of Americans to sue is a major inconvenience to corporations, but if it is truly the threat Rush says it is, how come corporate profits are higher than ever? The American right has been so completely suborned by corporate influence that raving paranoids who howl incessantly that the UN is plotting to steal our guns shake their heads in puzzled anger over protesters warning that corporations are out to eliminate the concept of national sovereignty -- starting with what's left of America. It's an amazing sight, watching an American "journalist" argue that foreign entanglements are bad while simultaneously supporting GATT and the WTO. It's even more amazing watching blue-collar types who can barely keep up on the truck payments staunchly defend the right of corporations to compete financially for the attentions of their elected representatives, mano a whatever.

If you are living in America, you are surrounded by logos, and base much of your thinking upon the carefully-crafted perceptions they want to portray. You depend on corporations for nearly all of your entertainment, you base your self-worth upon their icons being present in your immediate environment, you wear their names on your clothes. You let them determine what news you will see, what ideas you will believe. They tolerate your religion because it provides them with a useful handle. You can't imagine life without them, and carefully do not consider what "reduced labor costs" and "reducing the regulatory burden of the EPA" might mean to your quality of life.

Corporations want to be the managers of global free trade, and access markets that provide the highest profit margin on the lowest overhead. Good economics, bad sociology. Low cost items won't do the average citizen much good.

You see, you're the "overhead".