Victor Milne:
>No question about it--the Nazis had a lot of popular support. (So does Mike
>Harris in Ontario.) However, any history and culture is made up of a lot of
>conflicting traditions. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's biographer relates that the
>morning after Krystallnacht, Bonhoeffer's grandmother, an aristocratic
>Prussian dowager, emerged from her home, stared icily at the brownshirts on
>the street, and walked into the Jewish butcher shop where she had dealt for
>decades.
Good point. Many Germans detested what was going on.
>As was pointed out in one of the reports, the goal of the demonstrators was
>not to end trade or reduce, but to end the corporate hegemony employing the
>WTO to ensure that the interests of capitalists (the filthy rich) will
>always take precedence over environmental and social issues. A case in
point
>would be the recent banana wars in which the USA got a ruling that E.C.
>countries could not give preferences to their former colonies in the
>Carribean; they had to buy the cheaper bananas produced by US-owned
>companies in Central America, companies which are more exploitive of their
>labour force.
As I understand it, the WTO is supposed to take its directions from its
member governments, not from corporate capital, yet I recognize that member
governments will promote the interests of domiciled corporations which are
engaged in international trade and investment. Has it not always been thus?
With an organizations such as the WTO, there is at least some possibility of
a common set of rules by which trade and investment take place. I would not
suggest that such rules would bring about a level playing field or favour
the poor and powerless. Power is power. Perhaps the best thing one can say
about the WTO is that it mightmake what is already going on more visible and
open to scrutiny. However, I think that the WTO died in
Seattle, not because of the protesters, but because member states could not
agree on an agenda. It wasn't only the interests of corporate capital that
were at stake; other interests were as well - e.g. European farmers.
>I would agree that Jamaica is in no condition to start a movement of
>re-asserting national sovereignty over corporations. The move would have to
>come from within the G-7 to have enough clout. And who knows if that will
>ever happen?
A corporation has to be registered and domiciled somewhere. The government
that grants its charter should be able to lay down rules of behaviour
whether it operates domestically or abroad. I recall reading an article by
a Japanese economist who argued that Japanese corporations, wherever they
operate, must not only observe local laws and customs but also Japanese
standards of corporate behaviour. By "re-asserting national sovereignty
over corporations" I would understand something like setting standards for
corporate behaviour along such lines. Such standards would include labour
and environmental practices which would apply whether or not they were
required by local laws and customs. However, I recognize that this is a
"nice thought" which is unlikely to happen in our self-interested world.
Ed
