The
Great Myths Of Globalization
The
Insurgent
We cringe every time we hear
someone respond to the assertion that globalization--more accurately
global corporatization--is creating wealth and is the best hope for
lifting people out of poverty. Inevitably, the response is "yes,
but the benefits aren't reaching the most needy people."
While we agree that human
progress should be evaluated by whether it helps the most needy people,
that response accepts the premise that corporatization has increased
economic growth. Yet that premise is demonstrably false.
In perhaps the most comprehensive
such study to date, Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000, Mark Weisbrot,
Dean Baker and other researchers at the Center for Economic and Policy
Research documented that key measures of progress have declined globally
in the past twenty years.
Economic growth and rates
of improvement in life expectancy, child mortality, education levels
and literacy all have declined in the era of global corporatization
(1980-2000) compared to the years 1960-1980--a period in which many
countries maintained protectionist policies to insulate their economies
from the international market to nurture their domestic industries and
allow them to become competitive. Those policies are the same ones on
which U.S. economic prosperity was built.
From 1980-2000, most countries
followed the paths of public spending cuts, corporatization of public
services, implementing fees for health care (and education in many case),
and removing government protection for young industries. Many of the
world's poor and mid-income countries experienced unprecedented levels
of foreign debt and loss of their wealth to interest on loans during
the period.
The Scorecard findings include:
An overall slowdown in reducing
infant and child mortality and in improving overall life expectancy
(not necessarily an indicator of policy failure--it could be a natural
flattening of progress curve).
Reduced progress in education
as evidenced by declining school enrollment rates and literacy. Slower
growth in domestic spending correlates to decreased educational spending;
Slower economic growth for
countries at all income levels;
A negative growth rate for
the poorest countries;
For moderately wealthy countries,
income growth declined from 100% increase per capita between 1960-1980
to a 21% increase in the last two decades
As a result of these trends,
millions of people who could have escaped a lifetime of poverty under
the former rules of market economics under democratic limits with were
unable to do so under the new rules of global corporate governance.
The results here are not
conclusive proof of failure of many policies, but the evidence indicates
that structural and policy changes implemented during the last two decades
have failed to improve incomes and quality of life in most countries.
it's worth noting that these
numbers do not account for the fact that even modest gains in income
may be a backslide toward poverty when population shifts from rural
to urban as a result of substituting export foods for subsistence crops
or other "income enhancing" strategies. For those living on
the land, needing little income to keep fed and hydrated, an increase
in income is no compensation for being forced into purchasing food for
subsistence.
Scorecard on Globalization
author Weisbrot also notes that the World Banks own projections
do not support the contention that removing laws that control international
commerce would benefit poor countries. If the richest countries eliminated
all laws limiting or taxing imports by 2015, how much annual income
would the low and middle-income countries gain as a result of this increased
access to the markets of rich countries? According to the Bank, about
0.6 percent.
This presumes the poorest
countries would get an equitable share of growth gains, a questionable
assumption, but imagine that they did: a country in Sub-Saharan Africa
with current per-capita income of $500 a year would, as a result of
this trade liberalization, crawl to $503 in constant dollars. Its
a rather meager reward for trading away a substantial degree of self-governance.
The full report is available
online from the Center for Economic and Policy Research: http://www.cepr.net/globalization/scorecard_on_globalization.htm