World Trade and Global Migration
by Bobby Gilmore SSC
WORLD TRADE-GLOBAL MIGRATION
As the World Trade Organization prepares to hold its conference to ponder how more equal world trading procedures could be achieved in relation to the developing world it would be worth its while to read and reflect on the essential characteristics stated by the Chamber of Commerce of Nantes in the middle of the eighteenth century.
They were: the sale of metropolitan products is the first object of commerce; the colonies, today ‘s developing world, have been established for the metropolis, to consume its products, to give employment to its citizens. This philosophy gave rise to a colonial system in which the fundamental details were as follows: the colonies, today ~ developing world, must import only metropolitan goods; the colonies must send their exports only to the metropolitan country; colonial trade was a rigid monopoly of the metropolitan ships and seamen; finally, the colonies must produce raw materials and not manufactured goods.
The core philosophy of the Chamber of Commerce of Nantes was that the value of the colonies, the present developing world, was based purely on the extent to which they enhance the wealth, economic and social development of the metropolitan countries, today ‘s developed/list world, NAFTA, EU AND the Asian Basin. It is representatives of the latter trading blocks that will make decisions regarding trade, tariffs, capital flows, migration and what protective policies should me maintained and established to protect the powerful trading and mercantile cartels in the present global marketplace.
In the light of the European mercantile mindset developed over centuries is it possible for the heirs of that mindset who now control the World Trade Organisation to develop humane economic, social and migration policies that are globally beneficial?
Evidence of a possibility of a change in the mercantile mindset now controlled by global corporations and conniving governments will have to emerge on equality of access to markets in the three main trading blocks and ethical migration policies that benefit both the developed and underdeveloped economies. Will it be possible to bring some semblance of equality to a world in which the 500 wealthiest people own more than the entire gross domestic product of Africa, or the combined annual incomes of the poorest half of humanity?
The World Trade Organisation wants foreign capital to be able to go anywhere in the world and once there to have the same rights as domestic capital. Can this right be granted to capital while ignoring the right of people to go anywhere in the world and have the same right as the indigenous people?
Also, can the developing countries have an economy or economic development plans if the architects of those plans in the form of skilled people are pirated by government-registered recruiting agencies to staff depleted services in the wealthy trading blocks?
Regularly, one hears the advice of the IMF/WB to the developing nations in regard to economic and social policies. But it would seem that the fruits of their advice is high unemployment, debt, foreign corporate control of national markets, underdevelopment generally, and populations made feel half exiles at home striving to leave legally and illegally.
Do governments who complain about illegal migration ever ask IMF/WB officials why trafficking in people has become the biggest illegal global business at present?
Like it or not, the present global trading culture has to free itself from the plantation house mercantilism of the past where it ignored the relationship between the product and the people who produced it. Other structures that need to be examined and addressed are subsidies in the agricultural sectors of the EU, NAFTA and the Asian Basin. The EU subsidy per cow, $803, is more than double the gross national income of a citizen of Bangladesh and eight times that of an Ethiopian citizen. The subsidy per cow in Japan is $2,555, and in the United States $1,057. A ton of sugar beet produced in the EU costs $750. The same ton of sugar can be produced in Senegal, Mozambique or Honduras for $200.
Most of today's production and manufacturing is carried out in zones adjacent to major cities. People are better able today because of television and modern communications to make comparisons between the quality of life of those who produce goods and consume them. ‘The producers of goods see from television that the consumers of their products live in luxury while they, poorly paid, live in squalor.
The manufacturing workers realise that industry has reached them because their labour is cheaper than elsewhere. Also, they know that they are important in the scheme of things globally, consumer needs producer, and the global arrangements being set out by the WTO and other regulating agencies would better heed their voices, particularly following the increase in terrorism.
If the WTO excludes those who do not have access to have their complaints listened to through the democratic process history should inform it that there are other means available that makes life intolerable to all.
Hopefully. the upcoming WTO meeting will be inspired by a desire to put in place polices that enhance the quality of life for all. Trading policies and migration systems that protect human dignity would at least minimise if not prevent a world in which the many are reduced to scavenging at the mercy of a predatorial class who are not subject to international control.
The emergence of a new global apartheid is an appalling vista.