PHA-Exchange> Yes, it is easy to have simplistic views about Globalization...(2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

(part 2)

The Equity/Equality approach:

Equal relations between unequals reinforces inequality! (3)

To illustrate this, think for a while that equity under Globalization is a
bit like the fight of the Mongoose and the Snake:
Both are of about the same strength, but invariably the mongoose wins
--it is more resourceful and it organizes its strategy better to strike.
The First World is like the mongoose; the Third World is like the snake.
The lesson of this fable is that an asymmetry in the use of market power
aggravates inequality. The affluent always end up having more political
clout (and more wealth).  Therefore, promoting self-interest (the soul of
the market) is simply not enough.  We have to put some heart into it; add
solidarity to self-interest. (14)   [A modicum of anti-greed policing
actions may help as well.].
To achieve greater equity, a set of  "equity modifiers" have been proposed.
These include: targeting interventions (geographically and/or to vulnerable
groups or individuals), land reform, educational/water and
sanitation/health/nutrition and family planning interventions, employment
generation, grassroots participation in setting priorities, development of
the non-farm rural economy, aid to rural women, and the levying of taxes on
polluters and degraders. (2)

As pertains to gender, the latter has reached a unique status in the
transnational liberal order. Gender equality is (finally) considered
compatible with the basic tenets of the neo-liberal credo.  But economic
equality, not. (16)

Remedies proposed to specifically increase equity and access to basic
services thus include financial and non-financial approaches. To recap and
add, among the former are the targeting of subsidies (i.e. selective
subsidies of goods and services disproportionately consumed by the poor),
prepayment plans (e.g. community-based health insurance), exemptions and the
selective dropping of some fees (e.g. health and educational). Among the
latter are a greater emphasis on decentralization, on the use of social
marketing (*), on prevention and on improvements of the quality of care (in
health), as well as on a fairer urban/rural distribution of resources.
[(*):Social marketing --one of the sweetheart companions of Globalization
attempting to give it a human face--  focuses on high-powered "Madison
Ave-type" messages and communication strategies that pursue behavior
modification and not informed choices.  It is quite obvious that we should
rather be trying to better understand what motivates people to change and
why, and then letting them decide by themselves what steps to take to get
there].

Surprising as it may seem, the IMF thinks that more equity need not hamper
growth, it could indeed reinforce it! (sic)  They actually see a strong
negative link between high unequal distribution of assets and subsequent
rates of growth.  They see equity only requiring 'equality of opportunities'
, though, not necessarily 'equality of outcomes'. In that sense, they agree
the poor need to increase their human capital. Equity, to them, is critical
for the political viability of Globalization. (sic).  Therefore,
decentralization and changing the composition of public expenditure is for
them a must.  For instance, expenditures on health have to increase, they
say, but to be equitable, they have to be concentrated on preventive
activities in rural areas and should be targeted to the lower income
quintile (*). (11)
[(*): Beware that valid arguments have been raised against 'targetry':
Targeting misrepresents complex realities, involves big cost in monitoring,
distorts policy and destroys political momentum for structural changes. (16)
(17)]

Regardless of whether the IMF follows up with concrete actions on what they
philosophize, we need not apologize to act with a more resolute equity bias
beyond lip service since such a bias is an important corrective to the other
more dominant inequitable value biases out there in the heartless market
place. (One of them, for sure, is basing decisions on interventions on
cost-benefit analyses only; cost-benefit analyses are understandable to
economists and policy makers, but they are grounded in a different reality
than most of us live in.  Economists make decisions guided by what is
ultimately measurable if convertible into monetary value only).

Is this  more resolute equity bias a radical proposition?  Yes.  Is it
necessary?  Absolutely.  Is it impossible?  Possible.  Is it likely?  Not
very likely based on my latest dispassionate reality check.  But what, then,
are the alternatives and could they do the job on time?  (5)

The Human Rights approach:

A human rights framework is the emerging UN response to foster development
in the new millennium.

Globalization may be inevitable, but what it looks like is not --there are
forces that can shape it, and human rights must be one of those forces. (18)

As someone said, human rights can set limits to the sways of the market.
(19)

To restate the dogma of Human Rights, they are indivisible; they do not
apply some yes and some no, some today and some tomorrow, some to us and
some to them, some to the rich and some to the poor, some to women and some
to men.  These obligations are universal for their implementation. We are
therefore compelled to operationalize civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights in our daily work..

We have to be on the lookout, though. There is still much righteousness and
hypocrisy in this field.  One can easily lose faith in those who preach
human rights and have little to offer.
Actually, with Globalization, "Might is Right" has come back with a
vengeance.  And in a defeatist stance, we have so far accepted this fact and
have bowed to the forces we think we cannot effectively oppose. (20)

To make the human rights approach concrete and giving it substance is a
political task. Their enforcement and holding governments accountable for
their human rights record can only be achieved through political action.
Soft approaches will not do. (21)

Steps in the right direction, at this time, will be the establishment of
National Human Rights Committees and the setting of concrete examples of
rights-based programming. But bolder steps will have to follow.

Furthermore, we have to fight the indifference of our youth to the present
human rights situation. Our young and upcoming colleagues also remain
largely indifferent to the overwhelming negative effects Globalization is
having in the world. [It is during our youth --when we have faith in and
fight for the ultimate answers-- that we have to interest the upcoming
generation in Globalization.  Later, we cave-in and accept that we are
always going to have to live with the big questions leaving the responses to
undefined others].  We have thus to enroll the youth before they resign
themselves to the fact that all they can do is pose the same unanswerable
questions over and over again (even if in new ways), without sticking their
own necks out to seek the right answers. (1)

Our youth seems more interested in the information superhighway.  As if
Marshall Mc Luhan's predictions were right, in terms of action orientation,
the Internet has so far been  more part of the problem than of the solution.
There is a valid growing lament that wisdom, imagination and virtue are lost
when messages double, information halves, knowledge quarters, and often
deceiving noise without origin, quality and purpose is everywhere.  We have
to overcome this downward spiral by using the same medium to give more
appropriate direction and guidance on options to counter Globalization and
more aggressively foster human rights.

Our endeavors to achieve the latter two in the new millennium will only
succeed if and when the youth becomes more central in the process of
intellectual rejuvenation (a role they are now not taking up), and women
(whose gender roles are being explicitly suppressed) also move more to
center stage. (22)

In sum, an effective challenge against Globalization and its negative
effects on human rights is possible, but demands the same kind of
intellectual commitment and vigor that characterized anti-colonial or
independence fights.

Questions of the relevance, accountability  and utility of the social
sciences in this process need to be explored.  Are they confronting the real
problems? Are the problems of Globalization and the violation of human
rights being made focal points of the social sciences' analyses and actions?
Western intellectuals have simply abandoned their commitment to challenge
the exploitation and oppression of the poor as they continue being brought
about by Globalization. Concerted campaigns and struggles against poverty,
tyranny any exploitation will form the only sustainable basis of an
intellectual renaissance of our youth and of ourselves.

Bolder steps are needed:

When we talk about Sustainable Development, we're talking about what we
should try to become today and in the future and what that compels us to do
now.

Taking a minimalist stand towards Globalization will do no harm, but neither
will it do much good.  Inertia in history (has) and will always work(ed)
against the more visionary and radical changes deemed necessary when the
same fall outside the ruling paradigm. (1)

Development cooperation must thus become more political, because only
structural reforms will deliver sustainable development.
In many an aid recipient country, conventional politics simply is
increasingly losing its primacy over commerce and industry.  (All too
frequently we see the failure of elections as an instrument of political
renewal. As somebody said, the problem with political jokes is they get
elected). Therefore, new, bolder approaches are needed. Solutions must be
geared to control that which fuels the problem at its roots.

The solutions to the consequences of Globalization on the health and
nutrition sector, for example, cannot be medicalized any longer.  Technical
assistance focused on health/nutrition matters only is not enough to uproot
the structural inequities underlying pervasive and unrelenting ill-health
and malnutrition in the world.

But the inertia is so great and our collective virtual view of reality so
distorted and entrenched, in part due to Globalization, that the likelihood
of us changing that reality remains dim.  Neither greater individual
responsibility nor containment strategies will do. A solution will somehow
have to be imposed on us by some powerful or strategic force, either by fate
or by design and it better be soon.

In short, we need to give a larger intellectual and political scope to our
discussions on Globalization.  In doing so, we have to manage to develop a
political program of more universal appeal.  We need to set up the framework
that will connect all the different social actors to come up with a focused
common agenda.

More than ever before, we need an overt political intervention, simply
because economic violence is best counteracted by political antibodies, and
what the people's movements around the world want is simply  "More", from
life, from history and from us.

When economics has ceased to strengthen social bonds and its prescriptions
are actually further pauperizing millions, it is time to start thinking in
political terms again. This is one of my cherished iron laws.

Three caveats:

1) As hinted above, intellectual and cultural imperialism now penetrates our
minds by remote control via satellite links and the information superhighway
and poses great danger to the production and development of local knowledge.
But this is not a fatalistic statement.  While not denying that the giant
tentacles of Globalization reach into every corner of the world, this should
not be equated with omnipotence.

2)  Stereotyping the object of criticism (Globalization) risks to
emotionalize the issue rather than objectively analyzing and diagnosing it.
We have to give up our quick prescriptive impulses (saying what should have
been done) and become more empirico-analytical (describing and dialectically
interpreting what is actually happening). (22)

3) One can set morally desirable goals so high or set goals without
following them with sincere, workable policies that they remain out of all
realistic reach and lose all power to determine the direction of action.
Even rules can be set or imposed more as a source of comfort than of good
choice. (23)

In closing:

As you finish reading this, make no mistake, these seemingly abstract issues
about which we write papers are matters determining the lives of millions of
people. We all know that, as Benjamin's law says, when all is said and done,
a lot more is said than done.  It is therefore not enough to bring these
issues under the spotlight; as someone else said, we need to make more
light!  (24) (25)

The facts discussed here are more than enough to allow us to go negotiate
(or struggle) for new more radical equitable/pro-poor/pro-women/human rights
based strategies on the highest of moral grounds. (3)

We need to awaken the 'investigative reporter' in us to constantly go after
the human story behind the statistic.  After all, journalism is the rough
draft of history --and we want to be counted in shaping it. Those whose
interests we claim to serve also expect it from us.

Claudio Schuftan, Hanoi
aviva at netnam.vn

References available upon request