Ralph Nader

Globalization means control of world economies by giant corporations that don’t have an allegiance to a community or don’t have any allegiance to a particular country -- even the one they’re domiciled in -- as long as they can make more profit elsewhere. The essence of globalization is a subordination of human rights, labor rights, consumer environmental rights, [and] democracy rights to the imperatives of global trade and investment. And the decisions are made behind closed doors at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs), the World Trade Organization, etc. There is very little disclosure and they’re even undermining the democratic processes of the member countries.

The global economy really means that the rules of trade and investment subordinate non-mercantile human standards for workers consumers, citizens, to the imperatives of international trade and investment. And they do so in a non-democratic often authoritarian closed way. The mandate of globalization is basically to pull down the standards of living and the standards of justice of other countries to the level of other countries that happen to be authoritarian or dictatorial. That is why for example, globalization does not ban trade produced by child labor. That’s why it does not ban trade produced by brutalized working conditions. The imperative of everything is global multinational trade above everything else.

The best way for an economy to prosper is from the ground up. It’s from the community, the neighborhood, the farms [and] the industry. Globalization is just the reverse. Globalization basically says, "Alright you Third World countries…"

The history of the United States in the last century is [that] as our markets grew they didn’t deal with the rights of adequately paid workers, health and safety for workers [or] child labor and the rule of law had to come in and basically say, "It may be more profitable corporations, for you to hire eight- and nine-year-olds in your factories, but it’s not just. And therefore we’re going to prohibit you from doing so." So even in our country, where there has been constant growth in the economy, there’s been a great deal of suffering, a great deal of displacement, a great deal of slums, a great deal of inadequate wages and we have never said, "Oh, let the market take care of health insurance without medicare, let the market take care of retirement without social security, let the market take care of jobs without the GI bill of rights."

Who are we -- through our giant corporations -- to unleash the forces of commercialism over all other human rights, over other peoples who don’t happen to have power -- like workers, consumers, ordinary citizens [and] children -- when we didn’t do it in our country? Progress in our country was that the market had to kneel beneath the just rule of law. GATT, the International Monetary Fund, and other international systems of global government reversed that. They say that consumers, and workers, and citizens have to kneel beneath the power of international trade and investment.

The International Monetary Fund in effect lends money to dictatorial regimes who misuse their power and engage in all sorts of looting and speculation and environmental destruction and worker exploitation. And the International Monetary Fund basically says to these countries, okay, we will loan you money if you emphasize export trade that means they gotta cut down more trees. They [have] got to deplete their natural resources. They got to neglect their domestic market. The International Monetary Fund says to these regimes, you [have] got to deregulate. So whatever fair laws they might have -- after being shoved aside or weakened -- any kind of subsidies to desperately poor consumers are prohibited by the conditions of the International Monetary Fund loan. And what’s worse [is] that the new law in our country, the Sanders-Frank law, prohibits the United States from contributing taxpayer dollars to the International Monetary Fund unless the International Monetary Fund requires countries who want loans to recognize international standards for worker rights. And that’s being violated today in the International Monetary Fund relations with some East Asian countries.

The Asian crisis is among other things: too many dictatorships, too many oligarchies ripping off the masses of the people, too much short-term debt to US and other European banks. And in order to bail out the big banks who have overextended their loans to these countries -- the same banks who won’t loan to small businesses in our country we have to [give] more taxpayer money. This further tightens the screws on the masses of the people in these countries and bail out not only our banks, but [also] the oligarchies and the dictatorial governments who are responsible for this wave of profiteering and speculation.

Globalism is masqueraded by this phrase "free trade." And global trade and investment systems of governments like WTO, NAFTA, and the International Monetary Fund, have nothing to do with free trade. This is corporate-managed trade. This is world government of the Exxons by the General Motors for the Duponts. This is subordinating the rights of children to go to school instead of working in dungeon factories to the profits of global exporters and importers and fancy department stores in the United States. This is global trade without global law, without global democracy. And if you had global trade and investment dominated by a few giant corporations who pit one country against another without a rule of law then you’re going to have increasing pressure both in the first world and the third world standards of living and standards of justice.

We wrote a letter to Secretary of Treasury Rubin complaining about his desire to use the U.S. taxpayer to bail out his friendly bankers in New York involving the so-called Asian Crisis. We asked him to disclose more to show what his authority is to do this without congressional legislation. And we pointed out that he was tying the U.S. taxpayer dollars from Peoria and Dallas to Washington to a set of conditions that are going to turn the screws on poor consumers and workers in these third world countries. Not turn the screws on the dictators. Not turn the screws on the oligarchs. Not turn the screws on the speculating U.S. banks who caused the problems in the first place.

Secretary Rubin has declined to respond. After all, he is a power unto himself -- very secretive -- [who] makes decisions without congressional authority.

I think there is a growing movement around the world, to understand that globalization is not free trade, [not a] win-win situation for importing countries and exporting countries and workers and companies. That it is basically a new design to get rid of the oppositional factors that we call democracy -- to have an international system of autocratic governance that undermines open judicial courts and replaces them with secret tribunals. [It is] an international system of governance that has harmonized health and safety standards subordinated to the imperatives of corporate profit trade and investment. And the more that is seen for what it really is, the more people will mobilize against it.

Human rights advances when democracy advances. And democracy advances when the economic royalists as FDR called it are subordinated to the rule of democratic law -- that means the law for workers, for consumers, [for the] environment, for elections, for access to justice, etc. And what’s important to recognize, is that we are entering into a globalization process that says trade über alles, corporate investment über alles, is reversing the past subordination of some of the raw edges of the market powers to the broader rights of humanity reflecting democratic values. So this is a major reversal here. And there aren’t many dictators in the world who are quaking before the International Monetary Fund as long as they kneel. There’s no dictator in the world who’s quaking before the WTO. They have one vote just like the United States has one vote. No matter how small their country is. As long as the dictators pay tribute to the giant corporations, their power will be supported by the globalization system of autocratic governments.

One of the criteria for democratic participation is that decisions are made close to home. Or if they’re made in Washington instead of Hartford or Austin, they’re made in a more open and accountable way. Now look at the WTO. If we thought we had problems dealing with Sacramento, Tallahassee, or Washington, can you imagine how much more difficult it is when the decisions are made in secret behind closed-door tribunals and harmonization committees in Geneva, Switzerland? When if we are taken to these courts by another country, because another country is saying your food standards are too safe, your pollution standards are too strong, they’re keeping out our exports to your country, [the] United States. We’re going to take you to these tribunals. If we lose, as we are very likely to lose because the WTO’s mandate is trade über alles, if we lose we’ll either have to repeal our laws -- local, state, or national -- or pay economic fines in perpetuity to the victorious country. So, the subversion of democracy makes it very difficult for local citizen groups, labor groups, and children’s defense groups to participate and have a chance for making policy that’s the greatest good for the greatest number.

The conservatives are getting very worried about global autocracy, [the] WTO; some progressives have been very concerned about it. But remember, a lot of conservatives are really corporatists, and a lot of people calling themselves progressives are really corporate liberals. So it is true there is an increasing collaboration of what are called right and left groups in the United States, but the corporations have the White House. They have the national media. They have the center of the Republican and Democratic Parties who are very indentured to their campaign money and all other influences they can project.

Fast-track [legislation], which was supported by the White House, by the mass media, [and] by global lobbyists in Washington lost. And they had all the money, they had the media and they had the federal government. Why? Because more and more people who call themselves conservatives or liberal progressives are saying we may disagree but we want decisions to be made in this country at the local state and national levels with the Freedom of Information Act with the chance to have a chance -- not in some international institutions like the WTO that are secretive and contrary in almost every way to our democratic processes. And are very much under the control of giant corporations.

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