PHA-Exchange> Food for a faceless and cozy thought

[Claudio]

Human Rights Reader 134

 

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE CORRIDORS OF POWER.

 

1. With their unchallenged dominance of fundamentalist market ideology, transnational corporations have time and again violated human rights (HR), disregarded core labor standards, disregarded on-the-job safety standards affecting the health of blue collar workers, destroyed the environment and fostered corruption. (F. Bliss)  

 

2. Throughout history, the face(s) of power had always been visible. With Capitalism was born the faceless society, one that has prevailed through its latest stage, namely Globalization. It was through corporations, for the first time, that men exercised power with impunity through the faceless front of national and transnational corporations and the faceless men who run them. (M. Scorza, La Danza Inmovil, Plaza y Janes Literaria, Barcelona, 1983)

 

3. Globalization further denies developing countries the very basis by which rich countries themselves succeeded in developing, namely, state intervention to keep the vicissitudes of the market under control. And we know that ultimately, markets react to purchasing power, and not to needs in health, nutrition or education or, for that matter, human rights. 

 

4. On this issue, it is rather fascinating to note that the World Development Report 2006 (WB, 2006) makes a remarkable statement. It says that economic inequality results from unfair power structures and political influence and an absence of corrective measures of market failures.  BUT it fails to take-on the issue of proposing any accompanying policy recommendation(s) that will address this state of affairs.  It basically fails to say that the 'further-faster-more' mentality of the powerful driving the global market economy cannot go on indefinitely.  This prompts me to ask: Can we thus speak of the World Bank here (again) being a pessimist-with-vested-interests?  This shows to me that the WB is most eloquent where it is silent by being delightfully vague on what to do about their often good analytical documents.

 

5. The WTO is not much better. It is one more instrument in the toolbox of rich countries together with bilateral and regional trade agreements which do as much to tilt the balance of trade in favor of the rich. 

 

6. To consolidate this tilt, rich nations' elites are actually cozying-up with those of poor and middle income countries. That is a win-win situation for all concerned: For all-that-'matter', that is!  

 

7. This comes as a corollary to the fact that poor and middle income countries have typically strived to catch up economically with rich nations rather than focusing on reaching the MDGs (with its poverty reduction and public health goals) and on fulfilling their obligations towards people's rights --in most cases, in spite of persistent poverty problems in those countries. 

 

8. As this Reader has said many times before, achieving the MDGs will require rather massive transformations in the political economy of those countries --a change that no external power is in position to bring about.  

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn 

 

Mostly adapted from D+C, Vol.32, No. 10, October 2005,  D+C, Vol.32, No.11, November 2005,  

D+C, Vol.32, No.12, December 2005,  D+C, Vol.33, No.3, March 2006, Development in Practice, Vol.16, No.1, February 2006, and  'Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument' (HeRWAI), HOM, Utrecht, 2006 (www.hom.nl).
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