dominica2day: GLOBALISATION; Fantasies & Illusions. The joke is on you.

GLOBALISATION; Fantasies & Illusions. The joke is on you.
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chaichai on 29 April, 2006 05:00:00
 
It’s in the news, it’s at the work place, it’s the motto of our saviors, and is
now woven in the very fabric of social relations. Globalisation, Global Village,
One Community, Fair Trade and Free markets are used so freely, that one can
expect to be liberated soon.So this is globalization in its true form as you
will read, and I must admit, very difficult to swallow, but none the less very
crucial that it’s understood.
Globalisation in every sense of the word is pure capitalism, but guised to
perfection in a the cloak worn by the new multi national corporations with the
exclusive purpose of remedying the inequality among nations, and finding a
medicated economic solution to country’s like Dominica which seem to be out of
chances. As you know, capitalism blossomed sweetly in a setting categorized by
subordinate nation-states whose sole role was to act as enormous supply depots
of natural resources and labour for their colonial master states. If you
remember, this was Dominica’s role during slavery and well into the “New Free
World”.
This system of all countries, as one nation slice[s] across all kinds of
communities and interests, bringing people together who have nothing to do with
each other, creating the ideal prerequisite for global corporate rule (…..but
how does this affect our little Dominica, we have our own rules). The claim made
by many political and economic analysts is that there has been a shift in power
over the past few decades that have profoundly affected the decision-making
capacity of nation states.
Decision-making powers have been seized by an alliance of non-democratic or
non-representative organisations and institutions ranging from transnational
corporations, to global governance bodies such as the World Trade Organisation,
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (…which of these
organisations shape this island, to economic stability? What is Dominica’s or
the region’s representation and impact at the decision table?). Caribbean
Organisations like; CARICOM, OECS, ECTEL etc...  Are the alternatives and seen
as conscious efforts by the collective region to be treated and bargained as a
geographical block. But as you would have anticipated, these organisations are
with their limits, as they are funded and mandated by the super organisations.
The information age has spurred on the phenomenal capacity of technology to
deliver real-time transactions allowing financial capital to cross boundaries
without monitoring or controls (the two words are effective and ethical
methods). Did you know, that daily, trillions of dollars of tentative capital
whisks around the globe in search of higher returns, with the potential to
destabilise entire regions. And if you are tuned in to the Business World, the
antics of the stock exchange at the end of each day always affects you and never
them (Colonialism, which one socialist writer of the past claimed was a cousin
to the stock exchange, was one era's "globalization" problem.).
There are many examples where the influential of a country borrows excessively
from the World Bank , and make weak investments with the money, or use the money
to prepare certain agricultural or industrial sectors for foreign investment and
tenure. When country Y is called to repay their loan, the debt is shifted to the
public, who must be taxed to settle of arrears. As the interest becomes
intolerable, previously owned public assets are auctioned off to foreign
interests to meet payment timetables.
Social services, health care, welfare programs are advised to be transferred
over to the private sector, all in the spirit of pure competition and better
services. Soon the country Y becomes unstable, with no assured minimum standard
of living, persistent job insecurity, huge inflation, and eternally poor
citizens. Eternally poor citizens mean eternally cheap labour, which is what
corporations prefer. So Dominica, who has your real interests at heart? Only
you, always has been and always will be.