Hamjatta when on earth will you grow up to understand the issues, rather
than be so dogmatic about the Left, Right, Centre as if it were a game of
football. The so called Left which you so much despise for you immaturity is
an ideological posture which if you do not take time to sudy you will never
appreciate. The concepts an ideals inherent in in its philosohy was inspired
by the greatest ideals with finest of motives and minds. The LEFT is just
composed of ordinary people who refuse to elevate or mystify material
wealth, and they did endeavour to study and decodify how modern theft and
robbery is now justified in the name of globalisation.

Your failure to grasp the basic principle that capitalism equals to greed,
that helps to maximise profit for individuals at the expense of the majority
beggars believe; for a self proclaimed knowledgeable intellectual. The
testimony to this indictement, is embeded in the fact that poverty and lack
of facilities be it jobs, educational or health is the reason why their is
so much exodus from the southern hemisphere, to the Nortern hemisphere. The
acts of killing resulting from this nefarious social system is been
acknowledege even in the West, so what is the problem for  a dude like you
who comes from Africa who have actually experienced at first hand, the
policies imposed on us by The World Bank IMF, Paris Club London Club; etc.in
the name of liberalisation.

As an African if you cannot thank or appreciate those who are willing to
fight and raise the issues affecting the African Continent at best you
should shut up but to bluff saying that you want to organise a demonstration
agaist such people si really very ignorant on your part. I think you have
become too big headed because your think your are in a big forum and you are
actually deluding yourself feeling that you are changing events.  I can tell
you the G-L IS A SMALL FORUM IN TNE MOVEMENT OF EVENTS SO DO NOT DELUDE
YOURSELF. What I would advice you to do is to go back and try to rediscover
the truth for what they are yeaching you in the West will never liberate you
and you need to decolonise your mind, but at the moment you may not
appreciate what am telling you but I can assure you that critical
conciousness which will help remove the fog in your eyes is never acquired
in Univesities you have to search for them then you can understand the
essence of the Capitalist mode of exploitation, but until the you would just
assume a dogmatic posture which is harmfull to your intellectual growth.

SAUL


>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Compassion Without Wisdom
>Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 14:50:19 EDT
>
>It was in anticipation of more free time in my hands that i earlier hinted
>that i would be later protesting against the protesters of Genoa. Time i
>regret to announce i don't have as it is. Since my position on free trade
>liberalism [i prefer using 'free trade liberalism' instead of the
>misleading
>and rhetorical 'globalisation' - now given a demonic anti- corporate bent
>by
>the Left] is well known, i shan't waste time on the virtues of free trade
>liberalism. Rather, what is essential here is to re-state why the "pampered
>westerners" engaging in violent and hedonist rampage in the streets of
>Genoa
>are doing more damage to the world's poor than good. This is not to say
>that
>those who shadow international financial gatherings do not raise genuine
>issues. They raise very genuine issues that should be of major concern to
>any
>right thinking individual with a social conscience. The problem of these
>protesters is best summed by Samuel Brittan: their inability to combine the
>compassion - that has compelled many of them to go out in the streets to
>protest against poverty and deprivation - with the wisdom that is needed to
>ultimately help the world's poor. Without such wisdom, all their efforts
>would amount to nothing more than the reckless street upheavals the world
>witnessed in some European capitals - specifically Rome and Paris - in the
>late 60s. We know how those movements, because of their fanatical
>opposition
>to moderation and without aclear agenda, later fizzled out into obscurity
>without any practical achievements to their name. The current cadre of
>street
>protesters run the risk of sharing a similar fate if they don't inject some
>wisdom into the infantile populism that serves as their raison d'etre. It
>is
>not enough to complain about the conditions of world's poor and go in the
>streets in violent and hedonist rampage. What policies and programmes are
>going to help the world's poorest?
>
>  This is what has always been the fundamental defect of the protesters:
>they
>know what are opposed to but are clueless about how to change things. If
>they
>even get close to saying what it is they would want to see replace free
>trade
>liberalism, it is invariably simple-minded or crack-pot. At best, all they
>ever come up with is a pathetic and fiery rehearsal of repudiated
>alternatives like Marxism. A pity the energy that is being expended in the
>streets is not being spent brainstorming on credible alternatives to free
>trade liberalism. The truth is there is no credible alternative to free
>trade
>liberalism.
>
>Since the Seattle upheaval gave global audience to the protesters, two
>books
>have appeared which have acted as the new "Das Kapital" of the protesters.
>They are "No Logo" by Noami Klein, a Canadian writer and "The Silent
>Takeover" by Dr Noreena Hertz, an academic at Cambridge University's Judge
>Istitute of Management. Becuase of time constraints, i'm letting Martin
>Wolf's review of Dr Noreena Hertz's book in the July issue of Prospect
>Magazine [not the American one; but the British monthly magazine] do the
>talking for me. The piece is a bit long; subscribers interested in the
>debate
>might want to shelve it and add it to their weekend reading list.
>
>All the best,
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
>****************
>A new critique of the corporate state has been the focus of extensive media
>attention. It is intellectually vacuous, says Martin Wolf
>
> >here, on the cover of The Silent Takeover, sits a young woman. She
>sprawls in
>an armchair, with a booted leg draped nonchalantly over one arm. The chair
>is
>placed, incongruously, on muddy ground by a small river. Our prophetess
>looks
>at the reader, mouth slightly parted. Thus do we meet the pundit as
>poseuse.
>Infantile leftism takes on a new and attractive form. What is Noreena
>Hertz--an academic at the Judge Institute, Cambridge University--trying to
>tell us? The "silent takeover" began, she writes, with Margaret Thatcher in
>1979. Global corporations were apparently, invisible and uninfluential
>before
>then. But capitalism has now taken over the world. In the process it has
>destroyed democratic politics. "Governments' hands are tied and we are
>increasingly dependent on corporations." The result is an eroding tax base
>and crumbling public services, as "our elected representatives kowtow to
>business." Hertz says she is not anti-capitalist, since "capitalism is
>clearly the best system for generating wealth." She is "unashamedly
>pro-people, pro-democracy and pro-justice." This, naturally, differentiates
>her from opponents who are unashamedly anti-people, anti-democracy and
>anti-justice. Her core worry is this: "as business has extended its role,
>it
>has come to define the public realm... Governments, by not even
>acknowledging
>the takeover, risk shattering the implicit contract between state and
>citizen
>that lies at the heart of a democratic society, making the rejection of the
>ballot box and support for non-traditional forms of political expression
>increasingly attractive."  The new capitalist economy has, she claims,
>undermined the prosperity of the unskilled in advanced countries and
>increased job insecurity. It has failed to benefit the poor, as inequality
>has risen. By threatening to move abroad, companies have driven down taxes
>and regulatory standards. "The levying of taxes... the most fundamental
>right
>of the nation state and a potential means of redressing inequality, is
>squeezed by corporate pressure... The mindset is one of 'beggar thy
>neighbour.'" Corporate interests dictate to government, which makes it
>impossible to pursue an ethical foreign policy. The WTO puts our health at
>risk. Our politics are sold to the highest bidder. Our media are
>monopolised.
>"Many people have simply lost their faith in politics." Then, quite
>suddenly,
>we are told that the all-powerful corporation is not all-powerful, after
>all.
>Monsanto's campaign for GM food is crushed by media-fed hysteria. Shell
>abandons its plans to sink the Brent Spar platform in the Atlantic.
>Campaigns
>by shoppers force companies to change their ways. Evangelical
>entrepreneurs,
>such as George Soros, and the movement for corporate social responsibility
>emerge. Yet corporate social responsibility is not enough, since "business
>will never place customer service, ethical trading and social investment
>above moneymaking whenever the two come into conflict." And protest, for
>all
>its attractions, "does not provide a long-term solution to the silent
>takeover," since the "majority risks being disempowered by the vocal
>minority." Protest must be seen, instead, as a catalyst for change. The
>proper aim is to "re-establish government as a democratic forum within
>which
>differing social needs are weighed, and all is not reducible to the
>corporation or the individual." Hertz concludes that "to avoid permanent
>marginalisation in the decisions that shape our lives, now is time for
>action." To do what? "As citizens we must make it clear to government that
>unless politics focuses on people as well as business... we will continue
>to
>scorn representative democracy, and choose to shop and protest rather than
>vote. Until the state reclaims us, we will not reclaim the state." This,
>such
>as it is, is the argument. The question is not what is wrong with it, but
>what is right. Since space is limited, I will address just four aspects:
>the
>argument that corporations dominate the world; the thesis that taxes and
>regulations are in a race to the bottom; the notion that inward investment
>impoverishes the people of recipient countries; and, last, the idea that
>all
>we need is a revitalisation of democracy. This leaves out other issues:
>Hertz's superficial treatment of the impact of globalisation on inequality,
>her confusion between liberalism and mercantilism, and her misunderstanding
>of how the WTO works to name a few. Do corporations dominate the world? To
>support this claim, Hertz cites an analysis which concludes that "51 of the
>100 biggest economies of the world are now corporations. The sales of GM
>and
>Ford are greater than the GDP of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa." This is
>gross abuse of statistics. The study measures the size of companies by
>sales.
>But national economies are measured by GDP. Since GDP is a measure of value
>added, one must compare it with the value added of companies, which is the
>difference between the value of their sales and the cost of the inputs they
>purchase from suppliers. Last year the sales of GM were $185bn, the same as
>Denmark's GDP. But the value added of GM was only a fifth of its sales. So,
>this company's "economy" is not the world's 23rd largest but 55th, after
>Ukraine. But the comparison between corporate and national economies is
>intrinsically absurd. They are as different as apples and artichokes. A
>corporation has to attract the labour and capital it employs from
>competitive
>markets. Its ability to survive depends on the returns it offers to those
>free to go elsewhere. Countries are governed by a coercive territorial
>power.
>States tax and regulate, companies buy and sell. Moreover, the corporate
>sector has never been an omnipotent force for economic liberalism. It is
>divided, weak and intellectually lazy. Those desiring environmental or
>labour
>regulations have often overcome business resistance. Hertz gives several
>examples. Have taxes been collapsing? No. Between 1980 and 1999, the
>average
>ratio of tax revenue to GDP in OECD countries rose by five percentage
>points.
>Between 1965 (the heyday of the Keynesianism Hertz admires) and 1999, that
>ratio rose from 26 to 37 per cent. The notion that the state is withering
>away is ludicrous.  Hertz refers to the difficulty Germany has had in
>sustaining its corporate taxes. What she does not state is that Germany has
>long had an exceptionally inefficient corporation tax. As a percentage of
>total taxation, corporate taxes in OECD countries rose, from 7.6 per cent
>in
>1980 to 8.9 per cent in 1999. But Germany's fell from 5.5 per cent to 4.4
>per
>cent. Contrast this with Britain, which is far more open to foreign direct
>investment, and so more vulnerable to the pressure Hertz decries. In 1980,
>corporate taxes made up 8.4 per cent of British tax revenue rising to 11
>per
>cent in 1998. There is also huge variation in overall tax ratios. In 1999
>it
>varied from less than 30 per cent of GDP in Australia, Japan and the US to
>52
>per cent in Sweden. Similarly, the share of corporate taxes in total
>revenue
>in 1998 varied from Germany's 4.4 per cent to Australia's 15 per cent.
>There
>is therefore no economic force preventing most internationally integrated
>market economies from raising taxes. The constraint is political. It is not
>beastly capitalism that prevents countries from raising the higher taxes
>Hertz wants, but the democracy she adores. After a big expansion in state
>spending in the past 50 years, voters have called a halt. Much the same
>applies to regulation. Over the past two decades governments around the
>world
>have privatised many public enterprises. This was not done because of
>pressure from business, but because previous policies had been grossly
>inefficient. Yet environmental and safety regulations have generally
>increased. The story on labour regulation is more varied but Britain has
>just
>shown that a government wanting to increase labour market regulation finds
>it
>easy to do so. There is no convincing evidence that capitalism is leading
>to
>a regulatory race to the bottom. Hertz states baldly that "'pollution
>havens'
>are created as environmentally unfriendly policies are allowed... and human
>rights are abused... all to attract foreign investment." But this statement
>is contradicted by the evidence cited in her own footnotes. In 1999,
>three-quarters of all foreign direct investment went to high-income
>countries, not the countries with cheap labour and poor environmental
>standards. What then of the impact of inward investment on poor countries?
>Foreign investors in developing countries virtually always offer higher
>wages
>and better conditions than those offered by local employers. Compared to
>conditions for many casual workers, employment in a foreign company is
>close
>to paradise. A recent study of Indonesia by the National Bureau of Economic
>Research in the US showed that inward direct investment raised wages not
>just
>in the foreign-owned plants, but in locally-owned ones as well. Pampered
>westerners shocked by the conditions experienced by workers in poor
>countries
>fail to compare these with domestic alternatives, rather than with what
>they
>themselves expect. But if people in poor countries are to enjoy the
>opportunities of those who live in rich ones, they must either be allowed
>to
>immigrate freely--precluded by the populist democracy Hertz desires--or be
>given the capital and know-how to raise their own output to western levels.
>Given the unwillingness of western voters--democracy again--to support
>higher
>transfers of aid to poor countries, the alternatives are private capital
>and
>know-how. This, in turn, must mean large-scale inward direct investment, as
>the majority of developing countries now recognise. Finally, Hertz seems
>unaware of the vast literature on why unbridled democracy is dangerous. She
>talks of "we" the people as if that naive collectivist notion was
>unproblematic. But we know that those who are willing to give their time
>and
>money to politics do not always have the aggregate interest at heart. Many
>voters are rationally ignorant about the issues confronting them, because
>the
>return on acquiring the knowledge is so small. The interesting question is
>not why do people fail to vote, but why do they vote, given the tiny
>probability that they will affect the outcome. And more important, we have
>no
>reason to suppose that those who run the state will necessarily be selfless
>servants of the public weal. A book whose chief theme is the importance of
>subordinating the market to politics and corporations to politicians should
>have shown at least some awareness of these difficulties. It might then
>have
>offered a coherent view of the balance to be struck between the market and
>politics. Hertz provides, instead, the classic delusion of populism--the
>proposition that the interests of "the people" are self-evident and bound
>to
>be served by the state they are supposed to control. Today's world is no
>utopia. The regulation of an integrating global economy, particularly of
>the
>financial sector, is a great challenge. Another is assisting unsuccessful
>developing countries to improve their performance. Yet another is how to
>secure protection of the global commons. But resolving such difficulties
>requires more effective international institutions, which will inevitably
>raise questions about political legitimacy. This book adds about as much to
>these complex debates as do the idiots who throw stones at WTO meetings. It
>offers instead a simple-minded story of corporations that dominate
>politics,
>destroy the state's capacity to act and impoverish the poor. Against this
>it
>sets an equally naive answer: to renew democracy. It is, alas, this very
>vacuity that will account for its appeal. It will permit the intellectually
>lazy and emotionally self-indulgent to believe they have the answers. That
>someone attached to one of the world's great universities should offer such
>shoddy work is depressing beyond words. Martin Wolf is chief economics
>commentator of the Financial Times
>
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