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A global monoculture
(Tuesday, July 8, 2003 -- CropChoice) -- Ms. Helena Norberg-Hodge, International Society for Ecology and Culture, UK:
Governments around the world are promoting more global trade in the blind
belief that their ailing economies will be boosted by throwing themselves
open to economic globalisation. The goal of free trade--of all the
treaties, agreements and single markets-- is to amalgamate every local,
regional and national economy into a single world system.
And all around the world the hidden subsidies promote industrialisation to
fit in with the demands of the 'global marketplace'. Internationally, our
tax money is being used virtually without our knowledge or consent to fund
the building-up a large-scale industrial infrastructure -- irrigation
schemes, roads, freight terminals, power stations, credit arrangements and
tax-free 'enterprise' zones -- all of which favour industrialisation and
globalisation.
And all over the world, it is the big, global enterprises which are in the
best position to profit from such subsidies, such policies. Often
transnational corporations do best of all: companies like Del Monte which
owns plantations all over the world, companies like McDonalds which owns
fast-food outlets all over the world, and companies like Cargill which
sells the crop varieties which the other transnationals want to buy. Only
4 cents of every food dollar in the US goes to the farmer, while 96 cents
goes to the middleman.
The impact of export-led economics is particularly evident in developing
countries, where the impact is more recent and the process is
frighteningly fast. Industrial, export-oriented production of food for
example, allows goods to be produced on a large scale, to be transported
long distances and sold at artificially low prices -- in many cases lower
than goods produced locally. For example, Ladakh, a region on the Tibetan
plateau, has provided enough food for its people for 2000 years.
However, now the Indian government is bringing in subsidised food from
industrial farms located on the other side of the Himalayas. Ironically,
the food arriving in lorries by the tonne is cheaper in the local bazaar
than food grown five minutes walk away. In Mongolia, a country which has
survived on local milk products for thousands of years, and which today
has 25 million milk-producing animals, one finds mainly German butter in
the shops. Under these conditions, most small farmers find that it is no
longer worthwhile to continue farming.
The end result of all this long-distance transport of subsidised goods is
that local economies are being steadily dismantled and the fabric of local
communities is being destroyed. Thousands and millions of rural people,
their livelihoods destroyed, flood into the burgeoning urban slums where they
hope to find a job. Urbanisation is, indeed, equated with 'development,'
and seen as the future for all nations, with 90 per cent of the world's
population predicted to be living in cities by the year 2015. Yet in the
rapidly burgeoning megalopolises jobs are few and far between, and wages
and working conditions are often grossly inadequate. A growing middle
class in some developing countries is entering the consumer culture on the
back of this economic 'progress'. But they are in the minority. For the
majority, the end result of these changes is a fragmented society
suffering growing levels of crime and violence, AIDs and child neglect,
drug abuse, homelessness and despair.
And in the West the urban poor are experiencing similar stresses. And just
as rural society in the developing world is disintegrating, so it is in
the West. Social fragmentation in the British countryside may be quieter
than in the cities, but it is every bit as painful. The recent farming
crises--BSE and Foot and Mouth--grew straight out if the intensive farming
system and it is mostly small farm that are being broken under the strain.
Farming has one of the highest suicide rates of all British occupations.
The many negative impacts listed here are all too real. But because they
aren't apparent in the national balance sheet, the GDP, they are ignored
by economists. The GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, measures the "health"
of the economy by how much money changes hands per capita in a given year.
Economic theory claims that this system brings gains for everyone.
However, all expenditure and profit is included, which means that costs
resulting from injury, pollution and social stife are counted as part of
a healthy economy. Goods and services that are given, shared or traded
and do not involve monetary transactions are simply not counted.
Some regions enjoy comparative advantages over others in given areas of
production, so to economists, it makes sense to specialise in monocultures
for trade -- be the monoculture manioc grown in Thailand to feed European
cattle, or cheap labour in China producing plastic carrier bags for
British supermarkets. This adds to everyone's GDP. But when distantly
produced goods are heavily subsidised, often in hidden ways, we cannot
really talk about comparative advantage, or for that matter free markets.
We should instead be talking about the unfair advantage that industrial
producers and huge corporations, enjoy at our expense.
It is therefore in everyones interest that the process of globalisation
be reversed. The most effective way of doing this would be for
governments to get together to curb the power of multinationals by
negotiating new trade and investment treaties that would remove the
subsidies powering globalisation and give local production a chance. For
example, if the hidden subsidies for fossil fuel use were removed, local
and national economies would become much stronger. But such international
measures would not in themselves restore health to economies and
communities: long-term solutions require a range of small local
initiatives that are as diverse as the cultures and environments in which
they take place.
Unfortunately, many people are opposed to the creation of stronger local
economies for all manner of reasons. Some, for example, imagine that the
aim of economic localisation is complete self-sufficiency at the village
level. In fact, localisation does not mean everything being produced
locally, nor does it mean an end to trade. It simply means creating a
better balance between local, regional, national and international
markets. It also means that large corporations should have less control,
and communities more, over what is produced, when, where and how; and that
trading should be fair and to the benefit of both parties.
It is also sometime feared that localisation will lead to repression and
intolerance. On closer examination, however, it is clear that the
opposite is true: the global economy is itself nothing less than a system
of structural exploitation that creates hidden slaves on the other side of
the world and forces people to give up their rights to their own
resources. Localisation is not about isolating communities from other
cultures, but about creating a new, sustainable and equitable basis on
which they can interact. In the North, being responsible for our own
needs means allowing the South to produce for itself, rather than for us.
We need to reveal the connections between our many global crises to spell
out the truth about trade and the way we measure progress, and to
graphically describe the ecological, social, psychological and economic
benefits of localising and decentralising our economies.
Helena Norberg-Hodge
7 July to 21 July 2003: gpgNet Forum on "The Multilateral Trade Regime Seen
Through a Global
Public Goods Lens: New insights on old problems."
Read the complete background paper to the discussion
at http://www.gpgnet.net/discussion.php | |
