Dialogue: Globalisation has made most of world poorer

By SUE BRADFORD*

There has been intense media interest in the demonstrations at the World Economic Forum meeting in Melbourne last week and some people have been critical of the Green Party's decision to send Nandor Tanczos and myself as representatives.

To understand why we felt it necessary to support the demonstrations it is important to understand exactly what was happening in Melbourne last week.

The World Economic Forum was a meeting between hand-picked representatives of the 1000 richest corporations and individuals and guests from the Government, academic and media elites of the world.

Essentially, the meeting was held to give the world's wealthiest people unparalleled access to global decision-makers and Governments from around the world.

The meeting was to discuss how "free trade" could be sped up and how a "global economy" could be further advanced.

Against the backdrop of this meeting, let's consider these basic and indisputable facts, the clear results of globalisation:

The world has around 500 billionaires, whose combined assets are roughly equal to the combined annual income of the poorest half of all people on the planet.

The collective assets of the world's top three billionaires equal more than the combined gross national product of the 600 million people in the least developed countries.

The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth between 1994 and 1998 to more than $1 trillion.

The richest fifth of the world's population has amassed around 86 per cent of the world's wealth. The poorest fifth gets just 1 per cent of that wealth.

It was the economic elite of this richest fifth who were represented at the World Economic Forum. Despite the talk about improved prosperity for everyone in the world, we should not forget it was the 1000 richest who were invited to attend.

Neither the Green Party nor I have a problem with people making profit from work or enterprise, or living a comfortable existence. We recognise that New Zealand is a trading nation and that some trade is essential to our economic prosperity.

However, we also recognise that there are limited resources on Earth and if a small group of people own or control big chunks of it, there is less for everybody else.

The accumulating wealth of these people and companies comes at a price - not only through deprivation of resources and wealth for smaller, developing nations, but also through environmental degradation and the exploitation of the people who make the goods and supply the labour to create these profits.

The Green Party deplores the sweatshops of South Asia where Chinese workers earn 23c an hour and Bangladeshis 1c an hour, with no union or human rights.

New Zealand has unfortunately been a world leader in the ideology of globalisation. We have removed nearly all the protections for local production and have sold off or privatised huge chunks of our economy to foreign interests.

These changes have led to lower wages, increased unemployment and the absurd situation where we import goods which we should be making ourselves - such as pet food, biscuits, clothing and footwear.

New Zealand production plants - Bendon clothing factory, Mataura paper mill, car-assembly plants - have closed as global competition squeezes prices to see who can produce goods the cheapest and secure entrance into other markets.

The drive to produce the cheapest goods means cutting corners. Producing environmentally friendly goods and looking after the environment are all viewed as costs and, as such, the environment has been a huge loser from globalisation.

Over the past 30 years the environment has been damaged more than in the whole history of human life on Earth. Mighty rivers have been dammed, rainforests felled, toxic waste dumped, oil spilled and many, many species made extinct through habitat pollution or destruction.

Globalisation has also ensured the reduction of national sovereignty - especially in New Zealand. It has meant that if New Zealand had decided to implement our own independent system for labelling genetically engineered foods, we would probably have been breaking the "laws" of the World Trade Organisation. It means that national environmental standards are not allowed to stand in the way of business interests and that human rights do not feature or interfere in trade decisions.

The Green Party supported and attended the protests against the World Economic Forum in Melbourne because we wish to make it clear that there is no consensus among the people of the world on the economic agenda promoted by the likes of the World Economic Forum and the International Monetary Fund.

More and more people - Church leaders, human rights advocates, environmentalists and trade unionists - are actively opposing this system.

These people are right to challenge this system because it is undemocratic and inherently unfair. The evidence of the huge inequities in this system are all around us.

The Green Party advocates a vastly different system - one which is based around environmental sustainability, respect for all people, human rights and fairness.

We support a system of fair trade over free trade.

Fair trade does not exploit one country and its people to the benefit of another, and we fully back the adoption of binding international environmental codes for transnational corporations.

We call for the democratisation of global financial institutions, including the WTO and the IMF, and the cancellation of all debt held by these institutions.

We support democratic economic and political systems which are not based on the exploitation of working people, local communities, indigenous people or the planet. Sadly, the WEF is at the other end of the spectrum from these goals.

I accept some quarters did not welcome our attendance at the WEF demonstrations. Some people say they were embarrassed. Personally, I am embarrassed on behalf of all the world's poor and exploited who have been the losers from this system our Government endorses.

People around the world are waking up to how this system works and who runs it and why. They are rightly angry.

The tide is fast running out on organisations such as the WEF, and when people think about exactly what this organisation is, nobody should be surprised.

When people in New Zealand look back at the campaigns against the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa and nuclear ships in our harbours they see these struggles as enlightened and for the benefit of people and the planet.

I hope the day will come - and I believe it will come soon - when the majority of people in this country see the work of some of us now as work for a more equitable world economy.

* Sue Bradford is a Green MP.