PHA-Exchange> More good one-liners on Globalization

[Aviva]

The following come from several issues of UNRISD News and the South Letter: Use them!

1. Globalization is a non- territorial form of imperialism, imposed by legally binding obligations of compliance with rules favoring capital, enforced by trade sanctions and by a denial of access to finance.

2. We need to be absolutely clear: through the Globalization process, the quest of the North is for control of global space; and when we talk about financing development, we are talking about furthering the capitalist model that furthers such a quest --for it is the only model accepted by the financers.

3. Globalization and its companion structural adjustment leave behind poor economies and weaker strata in strong economies. This has fueled a rise in income inequality both across and within countries thus making the reduction of poverty difficult to achieve.

4. When engaging in structural adjustment measures, fiscal deficit reductions can be achieved through higher taxation rather than expenditure cuts in the social sector!! Yet the former approach is rarely espoused by the IMF. Rather, with Globalization, the non-poor benefit disproportionately from public spending, their benefits far exceeding the taxes they pay.

5. Pro-poor structural reforms we so much talk about are yet off-limits for the macro policy establishment.

6. At the macro level, 'the social' continues to be an afterthought. But macroeconomic policies should add on to social policies if they are to achieve poverty reduction. But the macroeconomic agenda is not open for such a debate... Ironically, 'open' capital markets lead to an 'absence of openness' in socioeconomic policy discussions. Therefore, macroeconomic policies tend to be quite unsound in human terms: Globalization treats social welfare as an optional extra.

7. The discovery of 'the social' by international financial institutions is happening mainly at the micro level. At the macro level, attention to social questions is still very much an afterthought: 'sound' macroeconomic policies are designed and then social 'band-aids' are applied in order to achieve acceptable outcomes.

8. Resulting targeting policies suggest that the social exclusion inherent in neoliberal growth models should simply be attenuated, not rejected. Amelioration of exclusion is not inclusion. We should accept nothing less than social inclusion of the poor.

9. With Globalization, the trend is thus toward a drastic reduction of state-based entitlements and their replacement by market-based, individualized entitlements... But the invisible hand of the market has no capacity to create a decent society for all. The law of supply and demand can fix the market price of bread, but it does nothing to alleviate hunger, famine and ill-health.

10. Moreover, with Globalization priority is granted to efficiency over other values such as social justice or environmental sustainability.

11. Local level participation, while important in building communities' organizational and individuals' personal capacities, should not be overemphasized as the major strategy for change.

Often, local participation begins to challenge the status-quo at the macro level and those in power tend to react strongly. This forces the experience back into the micro level and sometimes even threatens any gains that had been made. We no have to think globally and act both locally and globally. 

12. Following the Globalization orthodoxy, recommendations are made these days to privatize social protection (but privatizing basic social services and social insurance is antithetical to redistribution and equity... With increasing vulnerability to global economic forces, the development of adequate social insurance mechanisms is a must). The idea that any pivatization is better than no privatization should be rejected.

13. Effective redistribution involves gaining the support of the middle class: services have to be paid for, made accessible and used by all citizen -not only the poor. The current emphasis on targeting and privatization goes in exactly the opposite direction; it makes the needed solidarity with the middle class more difficult.

14. In sum, Globalization is reversing some of the social gains already made; it is lessening the likelihood that developing countries will have the necessary policy autonomy and fiscal capacity to carry out and finance comprehensive social policies.

15. Developing countries cannot afford to remain in a reactive mode less they lose strategic ground. They need to fight for a different system of trade-offs where market access is exchanged for concrete market access and not for 'policy space' and promises.

16. Although NGOs have enjoyed a high profile in recent years they have mostly remained in the reactive mode. There are signals that their heyday is over. Many stand accused of complacency and self-interest on the one hand, and of being ineffectual and irrelevant on the other.

Claudio

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20020623/810081cf/attachment-0001.html>