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Celebrate, Don't Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks
Predictably, the cheerleaders for corporate globalization are bemoaning the collapse of World Trade Organization negotiations.
"This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy when we really needed some good news," said Peter Mandelson, the European Union's trade commissioner.
Even worse, says the corporate globalization rah-rah crowd, the talks' failure will hurt the developing world. After all, these negotiations were named the Doha Development Round.
"The breakdown of these talks is bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," laments U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.
But don't shed any tears for the purported beneficiaries of the WTO talks. If truth-in-advertising rules applied, this might have been called the Doha Anti-Development Round.
The alleged upside of the deal for developing countries -- increased access to rich country markets -- would have been of tiny benefit, even according to the World Bank. The Research and Information System for Developing Countries points out that Bank analyses showed a successful conclusion of the Doha Round would, by 2015, increase developing country income in total by $16 billion a year -- less than a penny a day for every person in the developing world.
The World Bank study, however, includes numerous questionable assumptions, without which developing countries would emerge as net losers. One unrealistic assumption is that governments will make up for lost tariff revenues by other forms of taxes. Another is that countries easily adjust to import surges by depreciating their currencies and increasing exports.
In any case, the important point is that there was very little to gain for developing countries.
By contrast, there was a lot to lose.
The promise to developing countries was that they would benefit from reduced agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the rich countries. Among developing nations, these gains would have been narrowly concentrated among Argentina, Brazil and a few other countries with industrial agriculture.
What the spike in food prices has made clear to developing countries is that their food security depends fundamentally not on cheap imports, but on enhancing their capacity to feed themselves. The Doha rules would have further undermined this capacity.
"Opening of markets, removal of tariffs and withdrawal of state intervention in agriculture has turned developing countries from net food exporters to net food importers and burdened them with huge import bills," explains food analyst Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute. "This process, which leaves the poor dependent on uncertain and volatile global markets for their food supply, has wiped out millions of livelihoods and placed nearly half of humanity at the brink of hunger and starvation."
Farmers' movements around the world delivered this message to government negotiators, and the negotiators refused to cave to the aggressive demands made by rich countries on behalf of agricultural commodity-trading multinationals. Kamal Nath, India's Minister for Commerce and Industry, pointed out that the Doha Development Round was supposed to give benefits to developing countries -- especially in agriculture -- not extract new concessions.
The immediately proximate cause of the negotiations' collapse was a demand by developing countries that they maintain effective tools to protect themselves from agricultural import surges. Rich countries refused the overly modest demand.
And agriculture was the area where developing countries were going to benefit.
The rough trade at the heart of the deal was supposed to be that rich countries reduce market barriers to developing country agricultural exports, and developing countries further open up to rich country manufacturing and service exports and investment.
Such a deal "basically suggests that the poor countries should remain agricultural forever," says Ha-Joon Chang, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge and author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. "In order to receive the agricultural concession, the developing countries basically have to abolish their industrial tariffs and other means to promote industrialization." In other words, he says, developing countries are supposed to forfeit the tools that almost every industrialized country (and the successful Asian manufacturing exporters) has used to build their industrial capacity.
In sum, says Deborah James, director of international programs for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, this was a lose-lose deal for developing countries. "The tariff cuts demanded of developing countries would have caused massive job loss, and countries would have lost the ability to protect farmers from dumping, further impoverishing millions on the verge of survival," she says.
By the way, it's not as if this is a North vs. South, rich country vs. poor country issue. Although there have been multiple lines of fragmentation in the Doha negotiations, the best way to understand what's going on is that the rich country governments are driving the agenda to advance corporate interests, not those of their populations. That's why there is so little public support for the Doha trade agenda, in both rich and poor countries.
Says Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch: "Now that WTO expansion has been again rejected at this 'make or break' meeting, elected officials and those on the campaign trail in nations around the world -- including U.S. presidential candidates -- will be asked what they intend to do to replace the failed WTO model and its version of corporate globalization with something that benefits the majority of people worldwide."
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.
(c) Robert Weissman
32 Comments so far
Show AllNow that WTO talks have collapsed, can we look forward to the collapse of the WTO?
I am certainly celebrating this--have been since we got word of the failure of this Doha round.
Listening to the business reports from virtually every major TV news organization, you'd think the world was coming to an end. Well, maybe it is for giant agribusiness, which has turned my home province--Saskatchewan--into one gigantic genetically-engineered, pesticide saturated wheatfield and bankrupted countless family farms.
""The breakdown of these talks is bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," laments U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue."
Tim Donohue also went on to add, when he said 'world's businesses' what he really meant were 'U.S. businesses' or American business interests, as that is the only thing that ever really mattered. He also mentioned he threw in "workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," so as to provide a veneer to what can be best described as 'blatant U.S. self-interest'.
world trade organization should change their name to the more appropriate, WORLD TYRANY ORGANIZATION!! AND the IMF or international monetary fund should likewise change their name to the more apt INTERNATIONAL MONOPOLY FUND!!!
Yay! U.S. out of the WTO!
Maybe Congress should re-think it's Homocidal Farm Policy. If Bush got his way there would be over two billion people at risk of starvation.
FEED YOURSELF WORLD. Don't depend on "BAD SAMARITONS". Give us the bird and walk away. Better yet don't give wto your time.
We have a catastrophically dysfunctional cultural norm in the USA where the people unthinkingly adopt elite positions and values. So the title should say:
Let the People Celebrate, While the Elites Mourn, the Collapse of WTO Talks.
More generally:
Let the People Celebrate, While the Elites Mourn, the Death of Friedmanite "Laissez-Faire" Capitalism.
To get an idea of concerns in Brazil which is experiencing massive agribusiness expansion much of which is through international banking, scan Brazil of Biofuels.
The report is generated by a group of NGOs that obviously want the english speaking world to know. When we talk about import/export its worth having an idea of what on the ground at the other end.
Brazil of Biofuels
Impacts of Crops on Land, Environment and Society
http://www.reporterbrasil.org.br/biofuel/
""The breakdown of these talks is bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," laments U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue."
In "1984" Oceania (USA in 2008), "Love is Hate. Truths are Lies. War Is Peace." And hierarchical capitalism is good for the poor. Everyone in the USA knows that propaganda line. Tom Donahue might have believed it for most of his life. But to gain a position among the ruling elite, and be an effective keeper of the status quo, he had to quietly put away that belief and learn the truth that hierarchical capitalism stands on the backs of the poor (exploiting their labor and violating their rights to land, water, food, education, healthcare, economic stability). He has to be aware of some of the many examples where the people flourished without hierarchical capitalism, or rose up against it, so he can appreciate the seriousness of the perpetual threat, to more effectively protect the hierarchy.
"...bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor"
au contraire! Those are all the areas the WTO and IMF have plundered over the last 25 years. I'm surprised they can make such comments with a straight face. I guess expecting them too blush is asking too much.
Hangin's too good for'em!
Doobie time.
I don't want to sound too cynical here but the development of the WTO was negotiated by Clinton. The WTO predecessor the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)was a loose knit agreement between trading partners which sought a more structured environment with less individual national sovereignty and a 'court' for dispute settlement. What was lost in the WTO negotiations, and was fought for by many, were health, safety and environmental standards set by individual trading partners according to their customs and traditions. This was seen by corporate hacks like the US Chamber of Commerce as 'trade distorting barriers', and Clinton capitulated. It will not be long before the corporatists get back on their track and when Obama feels their pressure he will be waiting for the progressives to GET TOGETHER and MAKE HIM include health, safety and environmental standards which are easily understood for all.
Chalk one up for the good guys :)
The WTO is probably the most undemocratic institution in the world, and as such it does absolutely nothing for the poor of any nation, but sure does enrich the people who have the most of what there is to get while not protecting the workers who make the stuff or environment that provides the stuff to be made. That said, I'll be brief. Fuck the WTO.
riddimboy July 31st, 2008 1:21 pm
Absolutely correct.
This food crisis is not about quantity of food but about the price of food. Developing countries need to have food sovereignty. When a country is dependent on imports they are subject to world markets price for food.
Over the last few decades, so called 'world' organizations like the IMF, WTO and World Bank have forced their neo-liberal policies on poor countries around the world in exchange for loans.
Their policies forced these countries to abandon subsidizing their farmers and forced them to open up their markets to imports. Mostly American and European who SUBSIDIZE their farmers. So IMF forces poor countries to abandon agriculture subsidizes while allowing 'western' countries to continue. These western subsidized food products flood the poor countries and local farmers are unable to compete. This is how these countries have become dependent on imports. They need to regain food sovereignty. But I doubt those same 'world' organization will ever allow them to do so.
A good example of this is Haiti and rice. Until twenty years ago Haitian farmers produced 95% of domestic consumption. After 20 years of neo-liberal policies, three-quarters of the rice eaten in Haiti comes from the U.S.
These so called world organizations (who are not elected by any of the citizens they try and control) are the cause of the problem; therefore should not be the ones we look to fix it.
At least the elite hedge fund investors are making money off commodities; though it is on the backs of the poor. I guess the ones who starve are just collateral damage in their quest for a good return on their millions/billions.
"Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people." - Henry Kissinger
I applaud the decision of those countries which refused to be taken in by the Doha round of talks.
I look forward to them setting up barriers to protect thier own agricultural industries and throwing out the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank.
By empowering the small local farmer, they empower the citizen. By allowing the local farmer to grow food for themself and their neighbours, they help to remove the control of the Agri-businesses.
I hope that they next take the example of Chavez and start throwing out the Multi Nationals that control their resources.
Jamaica, El Salvador, Malawi and others are all examples of countries that used to be self sufficient in food until they entered in these "Liberalization " schemes where their marketplace was flooded by food from the already rich first world nations.
All countries should do all that is in their power to be self sufficient in food stuffs. Relying on outside suppliers is a recipe for disaster.
PK
Amen. Down with WTO. And kick out the UN. Let the bloodsuckers take their neo-malthusian polices to Beijing and enough of this Globalization crap. And dump the Fed. Vote for anyone by a Republican or Democrat. A vote for anyone belonging to these 2 parties is a vote for treason and a vote against the republic and our constitution.
Well, that felt good. Now back to reality, where most people think Obama will save them. Rinse, wash, repeat.
They didn't sign? Couldn't they be bought? Are there really leaders the US cannot buy? Hmmm, interesting....
How do you spell RETRENCHMENT! great news. Now lets devote time on putting this country back on track. New labor rules. living wage, environmental protection, universal health, public ally financing of elections, truth in advertising, review and change of the disastrous laws on substance abuse.
Be very careful about our own food supply here in this country......we could also find ourselves behind the WTO eightball if the delusions of bio-fuels reign supreme.....major ag planting "bio-fuel" crops to feed the hungry auto industry at the expense of wheat, eatable corn, etc....
Notice over the last 50 or so years all the shrinking of local farms surrounding cities and a gradual dependency on imported crops.....
Globalization for consumer goods might be ok; not for our food (or any other country's).
That will eventually lead to global disaster.
The rules for food in the WTO is and will continue to be the "third rail" for them...and rightly so!
Call it whatever you wish...WTO, World Bank, IMF, NAFTA...all the same plot: exploit, pillage and steal from the poor to give to the rich. Enough already. No shame, no morals and no conscience.
sierra:
Have to disagree that "globalization for consumer goods might be OK...". I suspect that that's why this whole corporate globalization scheme left the agricultural agenda until last/near last. The MNCorpse that are behind this nonsense knew that if they started out with agriculture, the whole enterprise would never have gotten off the ground, ("not for our food", as you stated) so they started in areas where they figured resistance was lower. Americans will do anything to get cheap goods, so all they had to do was promise us low prices at Wal-Mart, our eyes glazed over and we signed on the dotted line, trading away our jobs, our unions, our middle class in the process, And this all did begin, or at least accelerated, under Clinton. But us white collar folk didn't much care that the blue collar folk were losing their jobs. "Hey, just go back to school " we told them as we gloried in our wonderful stock returns during the dot com bubble. (NAFTA is why I voted Nader in '96). I remember not feeling as sorry as perhaps I should have when the stock market crashed around the turn of the century because I thought "well, white collars, now its your turn, if you had paid attention and come to the aid of the blues you might have avoided this pickle." But we blew it again and supported Free Trader Gore in '00, even after marching in Seattle in protest over that WTO meeting
Agriculture is not the only thing that suffers under "globalization" as we know it, everything does - manufacturing, workers, the environment are all worse off. Ha-Joon Chang's book "Bad Samaritans" is excellent - read it. It reminds us that our country's manufacturing base was built and became the powerhouse it was through protectionism, the one word that progressives still won't utter. Every nation needs to do the same - protect its own land, food and manufacturing base for its own people. Who started this nonsense about "needing to compete in the global marketplace" anyway? That's a bunch of hogwash. How secure is a nation that can't feed itself? For that matter, how secure is a nation that doesn't even make its own underwear anymore?
It's corporations, not countries or peoples, that benefit from playing one group off against another. If we really wanted to help "underdeveloped" countries, we would engage in a transfer of technology to help them grow and process their own food, make their own clothes and any other implements they might need to sustain themselves and improve their own lot. The old "give a man a fish ....." routine.
Once again, it is the people of the "lesser" nations that have put us to shame, by not only pointing out that the emperor is naked, but by refusing to kiss his bare behind. It is time to follow their lead, and dismantle this massive theft masquerading as "trade". It is time to have the courage to proudly pull out the "P" word once again - as a useful strategy for ALL nations. It is time to refuse to allow the free traders to insist that protectionism is a Siamese twin of isolationism. We can be protectionist AND fully and actively engaged in the world by assisting other countries to be the same: indeed, that, I think, would be the one thing the rest of the world might appreciate from us. Peoples that are truly secure, within all meanings of that term, within their own borders have no need to invade or to migrate.
Check out Bill Moyers interview with Fritz Hollings from Bill Moyers' Journal 7/25/08. Don't know all that much about Hollings, but he's not afraid to defend protectionism. This is another concept that, like single payer healthcare, progressives have been frightened away from championing for too long. It's time to disengage from protecting corporations and engage with protecting everything else.
This is sweet!
Sierra: You're right, any nation's food supply should be sacrosanct. But the globalists (corporatists, elitists, fascists - whatever name you like) really could care less if a large percentage of the world's population died off.
H2O: And, you, too, are right. It is time to disengage from protecting corporations. Problem is, all of the people who should be in charge of doing that disengaging are paid-off not to. This is what is commonly known as fascism - the corporations dictate the rules to the government which rubberstamps them and enforces with force, if necessary.
Fat chance we have in the US, short of another citizen revolt, to get our "duly elected" criminals in Congress and in the White House to change the way they do business. We really need to implement term limits - for everyone - but what incumbents are going to vote themselves off of the gravy Train?? none.
At the very least, we need to get rid of the electoral college and find a way to ensure uncompromised election results. As the corporations now make the voting machines and program the software - that's not looking too promising either.
I hate to be a pessimist - but I think the people of America as well as the people of the world are on the brink of a nasty period of "readjustment."
What baffles me is how the negotiators for the developed world could be so apathetic to the plight billions of the poor in the rest of the world would be condemned to if their proposals are accepted. How arrogant can they get to believe that their monstrous terms would be accepted by the under-developed world ! How do they dare to propose what they very well know - to believe otherwise would be extreme naïveté - would be catastrophic to billions of human beings, nevermind they belong to 'other' nations. Can there be an uglier face of unregulated capitalism ?
Hurrah and good riddance to an organization of cockroaches. IMF next and on to the abolishiment of NAFTA and CAFTA and the Northern Alliance.
I wish everyone would read Ha-Joon Chang's (Kicking Away the Ladder, Bad Samaritans) and Erik Reinert's ( How Rich Countries Got Rick...and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor) books. This is the second Common Dreams article I've seen recently that referenced Chang's books (the other one mentioned KATL). All three books make basically the same argument, but it's worth making over and over, as it pretty much cuts to the heart of what's wrong with "free trade".
Another good book on free trade is The Global Class War--can't remember the author just now.
antispp: good post, can you recommend some books?
zaz: "FEED YOURSELF WORLD. Don't depend on "BAD SAMARITONS". Give us the bird and walk away. Better yet don't give wto your time."
Right. What the poor countries of the global south need to do is quit interacting with the rich countries of the global north except when absolutely necessary. Most importantly, they need to organize so they can get things on their own terms rather than individually coming to the rich countries and begging for crumbs (acutally, worse than crumbs: loans which more often than not set them *back* due to the contingent free trade provisions, increasing their dependence on the first world for something as basic as their ability to feed their population, nevermind their ability to actually make things like cars and clothes for themselves).
Of course, first the people of the poor nations (and the rich ones as well) will have to make their own national governments truly democratic. Until then, elites will be at the helm of all the nations in question, and nothing will change.
This is all exactly what Ernesto Guevara said, btw. He distinguished between "imperialism" and "neocolonialism". It took me a while to understand the distinction he was trying to make. By imperialism, he meant the process of first world countries directly intervening militarily in the political affairs of third world countries in order to enforce their will. By neocolonialism, he meant the setting up of cronies as leaders in third world countries (democratically elected cronies is preferable, but military dictator cronies will do when necessary), who will guide their national economies in a way that benefits the rich countries' elites rather than meeting the needs of their own people. Guevara hated imperialism, but he said several times that he saw his true mission in life as primarily a fight against neocolonialism--removing the Batistas of the world from power, and instituting national governments who represent their own people rather than United Fruit or whatever other foreign corporation.
ezeflyer: "Doobie time."
420, celebrate the collapse of trade talks everyday :)
socialistmatt,
"The silent takeover: global capitalism and the death of democracy" - Noreena Hertz
"The shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism" - Naomi Klein
"Crude Intentions" Garry Leech - Deals with oil resource rich countries, IMF loans, and transnational oil companies profiting.
These are some I have read, that I can think of at the moment.
I've also read tons of stuff on the net. One particularly good site I like is Globalresearch.ca
I've read lots on this subject from various sources. There are various ways that the globalists force their neo-liberal ideology on the world, trying to gain control of countries wealth, resources, and people.
One that does not come to mind initially though is through NATO. Briefly, in order to join NATO, the governments have up to 10 years to bring their formerly socialist economies (as in the former soviet states) into U.S. and Western capitalist "alignment." Research NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP). Could NATO expansion be about gaining control of those countries resources via privatization? Its looks like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is more about spreading capitalism them 'defending the North Atlantic'.
I think spreading neo-liberal ideology also includes a take over of the countries monetary systems via privatizing their central banks, to the benefit of the globalist bankers of course. Research on this is a little harder to find, (for obvious reasons) but search what countries control their own central bank and issue their own currency. Interestingly you may find the list loosely resembles the 'axis of evil' list. Looks like world economic/monetary control could be planned.
Of course as already mentioned 'free trade' spreads the neo-liberal ideology to the benefit of a few and detriment of the masses. Free trade has allowed these multi-national corp's the ability to grow and become the controlling forces they are today.
"Of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are now corporations, only 49 are nation-states."
- 'The silent takeover: global capitalism and the death of democracy' (2001)
Amitola:
I submit that this election season is a good time to actively inject these issues into the process for the corporations could not succeed in their agenda without the agency of the gov'ts, especially ours, that sign the agreements that set up the WTOs and the NAFTAs. The arguments are well set up in the posts of folks like antispp and socialistmatt and the references they include.
Perhaps the first trick is make folks in this country understand that the same policies that are destroying people in the "3rd" world are destroying people in our own "1st rapidly becoming 3rd" world. Too often progressives shy away from espousing "protectionism" because it has been successfully linked in people's minds by the free-traders with isolationism, xenophobia, racism. etc. etc. This has been a very effective strategy for keeping us quiet. But in our eagerness to prove we are NOT xenophobes, racist etc, we have been dancing around this "trade" issue for too long .Recently we have been playing around this issue of "fair trade" as a possible solution, unwilling, for the previous mentioned reason, to embrace the concept that sometimes "No Trade" may be the best way for a country to best provide for its own people.
We are all in this together - isn't that what CD means? The argument that most seems to trip progressives up is the one where they say "but these poor folks are doing better even under these less than fair factory conditions than they would be with no factory at all. Sure, they're working 16 hours a day, but at least now they can buy shoes, before they couldn't do that. If we raise our tariffs or quotas so that their goods are too expensive over here (i.e. to a point where domestic producers could actually "compete" here at home without beggaring our workers), we will be hurting all those poor folks!" Man that seems to get us every time. So we mumble about "fair trade" - "O.K. we say, for the sake of those poor folks, we'll allow our manufacturing base to disappear and retrain our folks for hi-tec work, but you we will only buy stuff that gives your people a bigger share of the pie! So there!"
This is a recipe for failure. We are finally being taught by those "3rd" worlders that they do not just want fair prices for their bananas, they want to be able to make and sell banana bread. They do not want to HAVE to grow things we can't grow here, even at Fair Trade prices, like coffee or cocoa beans to survive, they want to not only grow other things, like corn and beans, but to be able to manufacture other things to buy and sell in their own countries even if they might be "cheaper" from here, because they are more secure when they do. They don't want to be forever at the mercy of international markets and the vulnerability of monocultural economies. This is a lesson that we need to learn for ourselves as well.
As much as Henry Ford was not a very nice fellow in other ways, he did do one thing that made a great deal of sense. When excoriated by his fellow car makers for giving his workers a raise, he reportedly told them "I want my workers to be able to afford the product they are making". If we "protected" our own workers from the cheap products made off the backs of slave labor overseas, the MNCorpse would be faced with a choice - either abandon all the capital investments they have made in those countries or pay those workers enough to buy what they are making. In addition, once they needed the producers of their products to be the consumers as well, as Ford and the other manufacturer's did in the first half of the 20th Cent. in this country, they would have to deal with other demands as well. If you argue that they will just abandon there and come back here as they have abandoned here to go there, I would suggest to you that, having tasted the potential of markets of millions overseas, they will fuss and fume at having to dip into their profit margins to pay their workers but they will not walk away. And if they do, that is where a truly useful US foreign aid program could come in - to transfer technology for the sole purpose of helping those folks to feed and clothe and house and manufacture for themselves, not by having to buy from "our" corporations.
"Free Trade" was all about separating producers from consumers - keep the rich consumers and strip the poor producers. Only now that the "rich" consumers in this country aren't so rich any more... Don't you get it folks? Once we lost our manufacturing base we lost the ability to pay, not only for consumption but for service jobs and infrastructure and everything else. Building a Green Economy" is a chimera if we wind up buying all the goods we need for it from somewhere else! Where will we get the solar stuff and the wind stuff and all that other stuff we will need if we don't protect domestic industry here? From the same place we're getting our underwear from now!
Progressives need to understand that backing away from protectionism domestically while espousing it for the benefit of "developing" nations will NOT help any of us. This is one discussion we NEED to have, both for ourselves and for those we purport to champion with "Fair Trade". And think about it folks, if you really want the corporate duopoly in this country to get nervous, and you really want the support of the "little folk", THIS is the discussion to have! Come on Indys, get on board!
(Sorry about a post that's wordy even for me, but I have been dying to have this discussion, so please, let 'er rip!)
Here's the punk band Anti-Flag, with their song "The WTO Kills Farmers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3sf9MXaMDE
antispp,
Thanks. Shock Doctrine is already on my list (I feel out of the loop on half of the CommonDreams discussions for not having read it), but the others were not. The website and info about NATO were good too. Much appreciated.