PHA-Exchange> neoliberalism worldwide (2 of 2)

[schuftanc at who.ch]

(contd)

7. When health clashes with wealth.

The financial benefits of globalized production practices are reaped
predominantly by a financially sophisticated few while costs are usually
passed on to the public. For instance, there's
now 75,000-plus man-made chemicals in use worldwide; all end up somewhere.
Where? More than 500 measurable chemicals are found in our bodies (they were
not in anyone's body
before the 1920s) probably causing a range of adverse health effects.
`Civilized` governments have rules that imprison those who cause intentional
harm to others. Yet WTO rule-makers  object if lawmakers propose sanctions
on managers who dump known carcinogens into the environment. To date, the
WTO has ruled against every environmental and conservation law it
has reviewed, dismissing each as a "non-tariff barrier."

8. Of free-trade, protectionism and debt.

OECD nations channel $326 billion a year in subsidies to their own farmers
while (a) restricting agricultural imports from developing countries, and
(b) insisting that debtor nations repay their foreign loans in foreign
currency, which they can earn only by exporting. According to a World Bank
study, the elimination of import barriers against textiles, sugar and a few
other key exports of developing nations would raise their export earnings by
more than $100 billion a year --enough, if those restrictions had been
removed since 1982, to repay all debts presently owed. In other words, the
richest nations have insisted that poor nations pay debts, but have refused
the entry of goods offered in payment.  
In 1999, leaders of the G-8 nations announced the debt reduction initiative
for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, aiming to cap debt servicing for each
of the world's 41 poorest countries at 15-20 percent of export earnings. So
far, these measures remain poorly enacted and results are yet to show real
impact.

9. Of tax payers and tax evaders.

Financial experts report that roughly $8,000 billion of the wealth of the
rich is hidden in tax havens worldwide, ensuring that many among the most
well-to-do can benefits from globalization without incurring any of the
costs. If WTO rule-making identified the owners of that $8 trillion, held in
an estimated 1.5 million offshore corporations, this could generate $280
billion public revenue each year. That's 165 times the current budget for
all UN development programs, or 93 times the UN's annual expenditure for
peacekeeping operations. That's enough to build 140,000 schools at $2
million a piece. That's also the bulk of the $300 billion that environmental
researchers report would  be required to "save the planet." 

10. Warfare or welfare?

UNDP identifies six core ingredients as minimal conditions for a decent
life: safe drinking water (1.3 billion people lack access to clean water),
adequate sanitation, sufficient nutrition, primary health care, basic
education (one in seven children of primary school age is out of school),
and family planning services for all willing couples. UNDP calculates the
ongoing cost at $35 billion each year. That's about what the US spent in
1999 to maintain its nuclear readiness. For the  world community to bear the
annual cost would require 1/7 of 1% of global GDP. The US
typically contributes roughly 0.09 percent of its GDP to foreign aid. Every
jet fighter sold to a developing country costs the schooling of three
million children. The cost of a submarine
denies safe drinking water to 60 million people. The current US defence
budget tops $343 billion in annual outlays. According to FAO, more than
35,000 children die each day from conditions of starvation.

11. To add insult to injury, globalization is leading us from a world of
diverse cultures to a monoculture.

12. Of markets, democracy, personal and financial freedoms.

To equate markets with the expression of the common will of people is
misleading, even  deceptive. Markets don't respond to people, but to people
with money. Private enterprise is
based on the sanctity of private property as a bedrock component of Western
democracy. Yet for its legitimacy, private property depends on concentrating
ownership in a way that endangers both
private enterprise and democracy. In the US, unlimited personal cash outlays
equate with the right to unlimited free speech and being elected to office.
Both markets and democracies are based on the  principle that people should
have an influence on forces that have an influence on them. Today's economic
model would strike Adam Smith, the father of free enterprise, as a freak of
free enterprise. He assumed that financial capital would
remain in the country where it originated. As we've discovered,
over-reliance on today's neoliberal model is at the cost of lack of social
effectiveness, lack of civil cohesion, lack of cultural diversity and
environmental unsustainability.

13. Of job-holders and wealth-holders.

Industrial entrepreneurs pit the employed in the North against a global
labor pool, so capital gravitates to wherever labour costs are lowest. Such
labor-cost savings abroad show up back in the North as weakened consumer
demand and record-breaking consumer debt. The pay gap between top executives
and production workers in the 362 largest US companies grew from 42:1 in
1980 to 475:1 in 1999. 

14. Of education and incarceration.

Since 1980, US prison outlays have increased at a pace six times faster than
that for higher education. States spent roughly $25 billion on prison
construction during the 1990s while annual operating costs for state and
federal prisons totalled roughly $30 billion. In 1973, the US imprisoned
350,000 people nationwide. By early 2000, the prison population exceeded two
million or roughly 687 people per 100,000 (6,926 per 100,000 for
African-American men). Europe-wide, the imprisonment rate is 60 to 100 per
100,000. Florida now spends more on corrections than on colleges. California
spent ten percent of its 2000 budget on prisons. On a typical day, one of
every three African-American men ages 20 to 29 is either in prison, in
jail or on probation/parole. 76% of African-American 18 year-olds living in
urban areas can now anticipate being arrested and jailed before age 36. In
1865, African-Americans owned 0.5 percent of the nation's net worth. By
1990, their net worth totalled 1%.

15. From myth to reality.

Today's neoliberal-dominated perspective on progress insists that
globalization has helped the US achieve two decades of unprecedented
financial prosperity. Yet social, fiscal, cultural,
political and ecological indicators confirm that the world's richest nation
is experiencing a steady 20-year decline across a broad array of key
quality-of-life indicators, and in numerous
living systems.
Jeff Gates