>Ed,
>
>In a parallel posting directed at Tim Rourke I've indicated that I agree
>with your main point about the dangers of ideological labeling of groups of
>people, but I don't quite agree with your comparison of the vandalism in
>Seattle to Krystallnacht on a smaller scale.
>
>The important difference is this: Krystallnacht was the work of a single
>powerful group, the Nazi Party, acting on orders from the top. The
>demonstrators in Seattle were a whole bunch of different groups of
>relatively powerless people protesting against the actions of the powerful.
>The vast majority of them were non-violent, and there was no top command to
>order the vandalism. Indeed we do not even know for sure if the vandals
were
>protestors of any stripe. It may be they were just vandals, drawn by a
large
>noisy crowd and the opportunities it presented for mischief. Quite possibly
>the window-breakers wouldn't be able to tell you what the letters WTO stand
>for.
I agree. But I would suggest that Krystallnacht was not only the work of
the Nazi Party, it was supported by many Germans of the time. As Daniel
Goldhagen argued (convincinly in my view), the Nazi Party itself, with its
notions of racial purity and superiority and its intolerance of "inferior"
people like Jews and Slavs, was a product of German history and popular
culture. A great number of strands came together in the virulent
anti-semitism that produced Krystallnacht and the Holacaust. There is
always danger whenever enough strands come together on any identifiable
common enemy.
Speaking of that danger, there is an obit in today's Globe and Mail for
Victor Perlo, a leftist economist who fell under the eye of Senator Joe
McCarthy and the House Unamerican Acitivities Committee. Some of us are old
enough to remember the hysteria of that time. Again, for a while, enough
threads came together. A common enemy was identified and persecution
followed. Fortunately, McCarthy went too far and brought himself down.
>In another posting you expressed a wish that the WTO could be fixed rather
>than abolished. Like you my initial response is to press for reform rather
>than destruction. In this case I think not. The WTO is so singlemindedly
>dedicated to the anti-human interests of the trans-national corporations
>that polite requests for reforms will produce nothing at all, at most
purely
>symbolic gestures. ("Oh, we really want to raise the living standards of
the
>toiling masses. That's why we're employing child labour at 20 cents an
>hour.") If we press for the destruction of the WTO, it may, just may,
>transform itself into something acceptable in order to avoid the death
>penalty.
I don't want to see the WTO destroyed because, as I believe I've stated in
other postings, the removal of trade barriers and extension of trade
represents one of the surest ways of so completely enmeshing the world in
common interests that any part of it would be foolish to be in serious
conflict with any other. Rather the WTO promoting peaceful trade and
competition among all countries than the development of large economic
blocks which could become political blocks and ultimately military blocks.
When it comes to labour standards and the environment, I rather like Sylvia
Ostrey's idea of a meaningful ILO (International Labour Office) and a WEO
(World Environment Organization). I would even accept that the latter two
should have primacy of place over the WTO, as someone on the list has
suggested. If you simply kill the WTO, nothing much will happen that is not
already happening -- i.e., the continued formation of blocks of interest and
an increasingly polarized world.
I should add, though, that most of these blocks would probably act benignly
to each other. But Russia and China have been moving closer together
recently. Would it not be better to have them participate in a common world
trading system than have them become a major pole in a polarized world?
>To me the answer lies in a re-assertion of governmental sovereignty, i.e.,
>the rule of the whole community in the interests of the whole community. If
>that were done, we simply would not allow pollution. Manufacturers would
>have to bear the cost of producing their products through pollution-free
>processes and then pass the costs on to their consumers instead of relying
>on the community to subsidize them by either absorbing extra pollution or
>paying the costs of the cleanup. Corporations should be stripped of their
>fictional legal status as persons--and not be allowed to make any political
>contributions. A hefty Equities Sales Tax (EST) should be slapped on stock
>market transactions to stop this insane casino in which "investments" are
>bought and resold within a matter of minutes, and disemployment of workers
>is a favoured tactic of management to ratchet up the price of their stock
by
>a few points. And on and on. There's an endless list of things that could
>and should be reformed by a government of the people, by the people, for
the
>people.
You may be right about the solution, but I would question how capable
governments are of re-asserting sovereingty in the sense that they are able
to dictate terms to foreign investors. Many countries, especially
small ones, are enormously dependent on such investment, which
unfortunately often has far more options than they have. For the most part,
they are fortunate if they have a relatively strong negotiating position.
Often this is not the case. I spent a month in Jamaica recently and hate to
think of where that country would be without investment in, and revenues
from, bauxite and tourism. There are other sources of bauxite in the world,
and tourists can now go anywhere, and have indeed been going elsewhere
because Jamaica has developed a reputation for violence. The Jamaican
government is in no position to dictate to either of its major industries.
All it can do is hope to negotiate favourable deals.
And as long as it is in a state of dependence, a country is not really in a
position to "assert". It must negotiate, and its chances of getting a bad
deal may be far less than its chances of getting a good one. This again
suggests a need for global rules around matters such as host country/foreign
investor relations, labour standards, environment, etc.
Best regards,
Ed
