``globalization'' and poverty

["Alan G. Isaac" <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I figure too many on pkt would never forgive
themselves for missing this NYT editorial . . .
Alan Isaac

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   NYT
   April 24, 2001

   Protesting for Whom?

   By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

   CCRA, Ghana --- I thought about going to the Quebec
   Summit of the Americas, but I lost my gas mask so
   I decided to go to Africa instead. It's
   interesting listening to Africans talk about
   globalization. While the protesters in Quebec were
   busy denouncing globalization in the name of
   Africans and the world's poor, Africans themselves
   will tell you that their problem with
   globalization is not that they are getting too
   much of it, but too little.

   That's not surprising, because if you actually
   look around Africa you see that the countries
   that are the most democratic, where the people
   have the most freedom to choose --- South Africa,
   Nigeria, Ghana --- are the most pro-trade, the most
   integrated in the world economy and the most
   globalized. The countries that are led by
   dictators, are the least open and where the
   people have the least freedom to choose --- Sudan,
   Zimbabwe, Liberia, Libya etc. --- are those most
   hostile to globalization, openness and trade in
   goods and services.

   So if you were wondering why you saw so few
   Africans joining the anti- globalization
   "festival" in Quebec, it's because they
   understand that --- with the exception of the
   environmentalists --- this anti-globalization
   movement is largely the well intentioned but ill
   informed being led around by the ill intentioned
   and well informed (protectionist unions and
   anarchists), who do not serve Africa's interests.

   Last year this same anti-globalization gang, in
   its most shameful hour, tried to block
   Congressional passage of the African Growth and
   Opportunity Act --- a bill enabling Africa's
   poorest countries to export textiles to the U.S.
   with little or no tariffs, which is critical for
   creating lots of low-skilled jobs. Eventually the
   bill squeaked through. The early result?
   Madagascar's textile exports to the U.S. are up
   120 percent, Malawi's are up 1,000 percent,
   Nigeria's are up 1,000 percent and South Africa's
   are up 47 percent. Real jobs for real people.

   Ghana, like so many African countries, has
   largely lived off aid and the export of raw
   materials. But for the first time it is
   developing an information sector to do data
   processing for American Express and Aetna, which
   is providing jobs that pay much higher than
   average Ghanaian salaries. "People here want into
   the global marketplace; they know it's the only
   way out of poverty," says George Apenteng,
   director of Ghana's Institute for Economic
   Affairs. "But people here are also worried they
   won't be able to compete and that [Western]
   markets aren't as open to what we can sell, like
   agriculture, as ours are to what they sell."

   Which is why Jagdish Bhagwati, the Indian-born
   Columbia University trade economist, insists
   that: "The civil society groups who are concerned
   about the poor should actually be working to
   extend the benefits of globalization and freer
   trade to the truly poor in Africa, not denying
   them these opportunities. Simultaneously, they
   should be working for adjustment assistance and
   retraining for our workers, so they are not
   abandoned to the unregulated forces of
   international competition."

   Face it, says Jeff Sachs, the Harvard development
   economist. Africans today are literally dying of
   poverty --- not simply AIDS, but diseases that
   could easily be eradicated but aren't because
   there is so little economic growth Africans don't
   have the resources. Mr. Sachs notes that one of
   the main reasons Africa has fallen so far behind
   East Asia, Mexico or Brazil is because it has
   been stuck just exporting raw materials, and has
   failed to create the legal and tax incentives to
   attract the global investment and factories that
   would create sustainable, diversified jobs.
   Africa's only hope is that through globalization
   its coastal cities might one day become the sort
   of export platforms, tourism and service centers
   that China's are today. "There is not a single
   example in modern history of a country
   successfully developing without trading and
   integrating with the global economy," says Mr.
   Sachs.

   The fact is, virtually all the leaders who met in
   Quebec to expand trade were democratically
   elected, while "the people" in the streets
   clamoring for "justice" were self-appointed or
   paid union activists. There is nothing romantic
   about them. By inhibiting global trade expansion
   they are choking the only route out of poverty
   for the world's poor. Which is why these
   "protesters" should be called by their real name:
   The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor.