Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts

20070608

White blogule to a globalized globalization

(answer to the question "Is globalization a good thing?")

The XXth Century is well over, but some people feel like going back to the XIXth (Adam or Carlito, pick your fave). I'm confident about the emergence of a XXIst century approach more adapted to what's at stakes.

"Thanks" to key globalization enablers (communications, information, travel...), time and space have dramatically shrunk, allowing what I call "instant players" to grab the bulk of the value worldwide. Finance grew omnipotent and blind, means becoming aims. But obviously, the party is almost over : there is far too much greedy money and players around, and disruption niches grow thinner and thinner. Our economies definitely need to adopt a sounder tempo and I guess it won't take as much time as people think. I'm sure a general consensus will soon emerge on the diagnostic, just like it did for global warming. Well beyond the financial dimension, Economy (human activity) shall regain some decency.

Most anti-globalisation protesters are purely "anti", most "altermondialism o/ altermondialization / alterglobalization" labels only recommand the end of economics (and ultimately the end of mankind as a global parasite). Only a few propose sound and pragmatical approaches.

I believe in a regulated and fair market economy. Open, but sustainable. Global, because globalization demands the switch towards a comprehensive approach of the whole ecosystem, humans and nature included. WTO is not bad in itself, it is just as necessary and fragile as the UN.

In this transitional period, protectionism is definitely back, and well beyond what is needed (because some countries, among the weakest, do need some protection), and sometimes a rather subtle way. For example, Bush pushes a multi-bilateral, US-centric globalization, refusing all international / multilateral approaches : less WTO, more FTAs (NB : same logic as "less UN, more Abu Ghraib" or "less Kyoto, more Alaska drillin'"). All these "Free Trade Agreements" have some kind of protectionist and unbalanced flavor. They may sound positive for the US economy, but only in the short term, and only for Dubya's base of "Haves and Have-mores".

Paradoxically, this strategy reflects a denial of globalization = the refusal of a global approach of globalization.
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