Globalisation

Behind the world trade deal

The trade deal struck by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week is "a blueprint for deeper trade liberalisation that will not deliver poverty reduction to the poorest countries," according to the World Development Movement (WDM). Reports in the press hailed the deal as breathing life back into the Doha "development" round following the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, Mexico last September. But while some concessions to poorer countries were made, the overall agreement strengthens the world neo-liberal economic order, and it will not tackle the pressing issues facing workers around the...

The Marxist policy on trade

A revolutionary alternative to both free trade and fair trade is the perspective held by the Alliance for Workers' Liberty. It is based on the core ideas of Marxists a century ago, applied to the circumstances we live in today. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels first wrote about world trade in the 1840s, when British capitalism was the dominant industrial force in the world economy and free trade had just become the commercial policy of the British government. In England the Corn Laws that had kept the price of food high (and the landowners rich) were repealed in 1846, sparking a great...

World poverty: Can fair trade beat capitalism?

Paul Hampton continues his series about world trade Many of the young people, NGOs and unions who mobilised for the big demonstrations in Seattle in 1999, or in Cancun and Miami last year, argue that the alternative to the neo-liberal, free trade agenda of the multinationals, the big powers and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is 'fair trade'. Three million people have signed Oxfam's petition to 'make trade fair'. According to the US-based Fair Trade Federation, 'fair trade' means that trading partnerships are based on reciprocal benefits and mutual respect. Prices paid to producers reflect...

Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap... and flog the workers

The Oxfam report Trading away our rights: women working in global supply chains was published to coincide with 'Fair Trade Fortnight'. Matt Cooper gives his view. Walk into any supermarket in Britain and look at the fruit and veg - it's grown in Kenya, South Africa or Honduras. The jeans in the clothes shops and the supermarkets are made in Romania, Taiwan or Cambodia. The cut-throat nature of modern retail means that the clothes are constantly discounted in a culture of the year-round sale, the fruit in two-for-one promotions. Now consider the case of Rokeya in Bangladesh, who worked sewing...

Free trade, fair trade? The inequalities of nations

Paul Hampton begins a series about world trade. What has happened to world trade since World War 2? Can, as some charities and campaigners argue, capitalist trade be made more 'fair'? Whether you live in Mexico or Morocco, South Korea or Spain, you can buy food produced on the other side of the world. Toys made in China, jeans in Guatemala, trainers in Indonesia and cars made in Brazil are sold thousands of miles away. This is the golden age of world trade, if nothing else. Since World War 2, world trade has grown 16-fold - far outstripping the growth in world output (GDP), which has grown...

Break the rule of profit!

In the mid 14th century, about 30 or 40 million people died in Europe in the Black Death. That was when most people lived constantly on the edge of hunger; low technology and productivity made it impossible to escape that; and no-one understood how to prevent or cure such diseases. In the 21st century, 28 million people have died so far from AIDS, about 20 million of them in Africa. Over 40 million are living with AIDS, 29 million of them in Africa. Most of those will die of it. This is in a world which produces much more food than it needs (and could easily produce more). Technology and...

A workers' manifesto - Global solidarity against capital!

A world of rich and poor "Capital," wrote Marx, comes into the world "dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." Global capital is bloody still-but on a grander scale than ever before. In the all-new globalised society the rich are massively richer. Yet 30 million people die each year from lack of food. In Africa, only 15% of people live in "an environment considered minimally adequate for sustainable growth and development", according to the World Bank. At least 45% of Africans live in what the World Bank calls "poverty". And millions of people in Africa have been...

Change the World Without Taking Power - The Meaning of Revolution Today

This is a provocative book that has been widely read in the global justice movement. But I think it is deeply flawed, tossing aside valuable ideas that can help orientate today's activists. Holloway argues that people start out in politics because we hate the oppression and exploitation in the world around us. Holloway calls this "the scream". He describes us as "flies caught in a web of social relations". He also says that past projects to change the world have failed. Both social democratic attempts to reform away the evils of capitalism (by winning elections to government), and...

Notes on the "Tobin Tax"

By Martin Thomas The 'Tobin tax', now a widespread demand in the campaigns world-wide against neo-liberalism, was proposed nearly 30 years ago by the liberal US economist James Tobin. The tax would be to be a small percentage levy on all foreign-exchange transactions. A tax of just 0.1%, on all deals swapping dollars for pounds, yen for deutschmarks, or any other currencies, would probably yield about $150 billion to $200 billion a year worldwide. One third of all the world's foreign-exchange business is done in London, so if the tax went to national governments the UK would get $50 billion -...

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