Post by Rick Shea on Jan 21, 2007 14:30:44 GMT -5
Karen Abramsen, chairperson of the Kelowna chapter of the Council of Canadians, rightly raises concerns in the local media about the corporate assault on democracy embodied in the secrecy-shrouded Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement, which would give corporations unprecedented levels of control over local and regional governments.
Unfortunately, this agreement is simply a minor skirmish in a much larger (and so far, very successful) assault mounted by the corporate world on governments around the planet. Globalization, accompanied by free trade agreements, ensures that capital can flow freely across borders. Corporations can close plants in expensive areas, and re-open them where labour is cheaper, where environmental issues are ignored, and where government regulation is generally more favorable to the bottom line – to profit.
Such corporations have no ties to a community, or even a country, and indeed often “downsize” and dismantle communities by closing plants and factories in order to seek profits elsewhere. In their haste to save jobs, in misguided attempts to protect their constituents, and in order to keep economic throughput from dropping off; governments feel pressured to enact more business-friendly legislation. Governments are forced to bow to pressures from global corporations to deregulate, and, in Ms. Abramsen’s words, to generally give “exclusive privileges to business at the expense of every other sector of society.”
The prolonged presence of such policies, and of a single-minded obsession with the corporate bottom line, will drive wages down in developed countries, lead to horrendous environmental consequences (often with the tacit agreement of local citizens who fear for their jobs), and generally undermine any attempts to make local economies sustainable. The evidence is clear, from historical Dow Chemical disasters, to the booming economy in China accompanied by unconscionable amounts of pollution, to Third World countries suckered into debt by so-called “development” agencies and policies: despite corporate propaganda, the bottom line is really all that matters.
We can leave behind radioactive waste that is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, because profit is what matters. We can expect and tolerate numerous industrial deaths every year, because profit is what matters. We can saturate the planet with countless toxic chemicals, because profit is what matters.
We are so entangled in corporatism and globalism that any cure would be extremely painful. The free trade agreements that serve to help corporations and simultaneously harm national citizens would have to be completely scrapped. Governments would have to be disentangled from the influence of business and corporations. Sustainable economies at the national level, and even on a local scale, would have to be carefully rebuilt.
It can be done, but only by a massive effort from national governments, and by a level of involvement in the democratic process which, at present, seems unthinkable. But then again, so does the alternative. To paraphrase Ms. Abramsen, that alternative is a “massive ‘pillage and plunder’” of the entire planet and every living thing on it.
Unfortunately, this agreement is simply a minor skirmish in a much larger (and so far, very successful) assault mounted by the corporate world on governments around the planet. Globalization, accompanied by free trade agreements, ensures that capital can flow freely across borders. Corporations can close plants in expensive areas, and re-open them where labour is cheaper, where environmental issues are ignored, and where government regulation is generally more favorable to the bottom line – to profit.
Such corporations have no ties to a community, or even a country, and indeed often “downsize” and dismantle communities by closing plants and factories in order to seek profits elsewhere. In their haste to save jobs, in misguided attempts to protect their constituents, and in order to keep economic throughput from dropping off; governments feel pressured to enact more business-friendly legislation. Governments are forced to bow to pressures from global corporations to deregulate, and, in Ms. Abramsen’s words, to generally give “exclusive privileges to business at the expense of every other sector of society.”
The prolonged presence of such policies, and of a single-minded obsession with the corporate bottom line, will drive wages down in developed countries, lead to horrendous environmental consequences (often with the tacit agreement of local citizens who fear for their jobs), and generally undermine any attempts to make local economies sustainable. The evidence is clear, from historical Dow Chemical disasters, to the booming economy in China accompanied by unconscionable amounts of pollution, to Third World countries suckered into debt by so-called “development” agencies and policies: despite corporate propaganda, the bottom line is really all that matters.
We can leave behind radioactive waste that is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, because profit is what matters. We can expect and tolerate numerous industrial deaths every year, because profit is what matters. We can saturate the planet with countless toxic chemicals, because profit is what matters.
We are so entangled in corporatism and globalism that any cure would be extremely painful. The free trade agreements that serve to help corporations and simultaneously harm national citizens would have to be completely scrapped. Governments would have to be disentangled from the influence of business and corporations. Sustainable economies at the national level, and even on a local scale, would have to be carefully rebuilt.
It can be done, but only by a massive effort from national governments, and by a level of involvement in the democratic process which, at present, seems unthinkable. But then again, so does the alternative. To paraphrase Ms. Abramsen, that alternative is a “massive ‘pillage and plunder’” of the entire planet and every living thing on it.