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talkpolitics2011-07-18 12:15 pm
mintogrubb.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2011-07-18 12:15 pm
Entry tags:
Western NGOs - The' New Imperialism'?
It has been said that the people in the Western World should just keep out of developing nations, that
the era of ' the White Man's Burden' is over, and we can never correct the mistakes of the past ourselves.
So, what are we to do about the situation that we see on our TV screens, I ask?
I know there are some that say 'Just accept the fact that you are privileged - there is nothing you can do for the poor in developing countries'.
Oh , yeah? How about ...
Amnesty International. do you realise that Amnesty is over 50 yrs old, and has freed many people from detention around the world? It has supported the peaceful struggle for democratic representation and is currently still fighting the corner for Aung San Su Ky and for Democracy in Burma.
The Fair Fair Trade Foundation.
By setting up workers co operatives with people in the developing world, it enables people in those countries to grow food and earn more money than they would by working on a plantation run by Nestle or any other traditional corporation.
The Grameen Bank.
By supplying micro credit to people in the third world, mostly women , they enable people to start businesses and make income of their own .
Trade Justice.
The world's poor take their goods to market. but the tariffs, quotas, commodity prices and such are all set out by the World Trade Organisation, that meets in New York. The UK can afford to send many delegates to the USA to argue their case and speak up for them and their industries. Sadly, the people of Ghana cannot afford to send anyone. like many developing nations, their voice is never heard at the trade conferences were decisions involving them get made.
So, I think that we ought to be supporting these causes and organisations as individuals and as national communities.
the Mises Institute has said that the Fair trade movement is 'distorting the market', yet I don't hear Mises complain when the US government subsidises the American Cotton growing corporations and allows them to dump subsidised cotton on the world market that kills local competition in developing countries stone dead.
The Mises Institute doesn't mind an easy ride for the rich it seems , but wants to discourage us from helping the poor.
But anyway - how can anyone complain about the activities of these organisations in the developing world?
What do local people say about them? What alternatives are there that right wingers and other critics would put up ?
The free market, did someone say?
the free market gave us Nestle - which prompted the Nestle Boycott.
the Free Market led to the backlash that prompted the rise of Socialism in Britain .
lets remember that the people of the Soviet bloc who risked their lives to cross the Berlin Wall were not heading for a free market, but rather the regulated markets and mixed economies of democratic Western Europe.
in the last 50 years, the NGOs like Amnesty International and the Fair Trade Foundation have done a great deal to develop a higher standard of living in the poorer nations of the world. free trade , by contrast, has gone in and marketed tobacco in Africa in order to make easier profits - marketing and advertising regulations have lower standards than the UK and USA, and tobacco corporations are quick to take advantage and go for easy profits here. I feel it's the corporations that represent the new Imperialism , and not the NGOs like Amnesty International.
the era of ' the White Man's Burden' is over, and we can never correct the mistakes of the past ourselves.
So, what are we to do about the situation that we see on our TV screens, I ask?
I know there are some that say 'Just accept the fact that you are privileged - there is nothing you can do for the poor in developing countries'.
Oh , yeah? How about ...
Amnesty International. do you realise that Amnesty is over 50 yrs old, and has freed many people from detention around the world? It has supported the peaceful struggle for democratic representation and is currently still fighting the corner for Aung San Su Ky and for Democracy in Burma.
The Fair Fair Trade Foundation.
By setting up workers co operatives with people in the developing world, it enables people in those countries to grow food and earn more money than they would by working on a plantation run by Nestle or any other traditional corporation.
The Grameen Bank.
By supplying micro credit to people in the third world, mostly women , they enable people to start businesses and make income of their own .
Trade Justice.
The world's poor take their goods to market. but the tariffs, quotas, commodity prices and such are all set out by the World Trade Organisation, that meets in New York. The UK can afford to send many delegates to the USA to argue their case and speak up for them and their industries. Sadly, the people of Ghana cannot afford to send anyone. like many developing nations, their voice is never heard at the trade conferences were decisions involving them get made.
So, I think that we ought to be supporting these causes and organisations as individuals and as national communities.
the Mises Institute has said that the Fair trade movement is 'distorting the market', yet I don't hear Mises complain when the US government subsidises the American Cotton growing corporations and allows them to dump subsidised cotton on the world market that kills local competition in developing countries stone dead.
The Mises Institute doesn't mind an easy ride for the rich it seems , but wants to discourage us from helping the poor.
But anyway - how can anyone complain about the activities of these organisations in the developing world?
What do local people say about them? What alternatives are there that right wingers and other critics would put up ?
The free market, did someone say?
the free market gave us Nestle - which prompted the Nestle Boycott.
the Free Market led to the backlash that prompted the rise of Socialism in Britain .
lets remember that the people of the Soviet bloc who risked their lives to cross the Berlin Wall were not heading for a free market, but rather the regulated markets and mixed economies of democratic Western Europe.
in the last 50 years, the NGOs like Amnesty International and the Fair Trade Foundation have done a great deal to develop a higher standard of living in the poorer nations of the world. free trade , by contrast, has gone in and marketed tobacco in Africa in order to make easier profits - marketing and advertising regulations have lower standards than the UK and USA, and tobacco corporations are quick to take advantage and go for easy profits here. I feel it's the corporations that represent the new Imperialism , and not the NGOs like Amnesty International.
no subject
but the whole wording is loaded - the grower is actually a co operative? Why should this be a problem? I don't mind workers owning the land they use to grow crops, OK?
"The fools who buy this coffee" - again , its is not written to me, I feel, it is written to make Mises readers feel smug in rejecting my values. This would be called ' trolling ' if it appeared on LJ.
If a company started selling a few lines in a few countries, and was able to go from a small operation to becoming a mainstream supplier of several more lines of merchandise over a period odf time, Mises would no dobt call it a success story. Why he is so bitter and cynical about the whole FT movement propts me to ask why? is it the fact that i'm hurting his market share, i wonder? You tell me.
no subject
I'm pretty sure he was expressing surprise that the fact that this Co-op was not embraced by the Fair Trade Movement. I don't believe he personally has any issue with Co-ops.
""The fools who buy this coffee" - again , its is not written to me, I feel, it is written to make Mises readers feel smug in rejecting my values. This would be called ' trolling ' if it appeared on LJ."
I'm sure it is a bit of trolling, but he was not writing a news article, he was writing an opinion piece and the thought that went behind calling you a "fool" is that he is equating Fair Trade with Charity Theater, something that soothes your conscious but is really more of a marketing gimmick than anything else and doesn't really help the poor in any meaningful way
"If a company started selling a few lines in a few countries, and was able to go from a small operation to becoming a mainstream supplier of several more lines of merchandise over a period odf time, Mises would no dobt call it a success story. Why he is so bitter and cynical about the whole FT movement propts me to ask why? is it the fact that i'm hurting his market share, i wonder? You tell me."
He told you straight in that article, in fact he even asks a variation on that very question itself.
He opposes it because he sees it as form of newspeak. To the overwhelming majority of economists, not even just those from the Austrian School all trade is by definition fair, as long as no force or fraud is present. Basically his view, true or false, is that this is little more than a marketing gimmick designed to get you to pay a higher price, most of which ends up in the pockets of the Supermarket chain and the pockets of the fair trade organizations and not in the hands of the farmers by appealing to your guilt at being rich (or at living in a rich country) and your sense of "fairness".
no subject
The price in the supermarket question -
the fact is that there was a time in England when you cld only get Fair trade coffee in your local church or the Oxfam shop. And I did, of course. but then we had the idea that if we all wrote to the supermarkets and said " we shop here, we will shop elsewhere if we don't see Trade craft on the shelves", we suddenly found all the big retailers were selling Traidcraft. OK, they took a cut, but they could shift more boxes on a Monday morning than we could in a whole month in our local church. You now get Traidcraft in Starbucks! I don't think it started as a gimmick , and it does seem to have grass roots support in the 3rd world.
The real test is - do the co ops put up schools and clinics? has anyone ran a story to show that there is dissent at local level. Even the Grameen Bank has run into trouble over this, and now AI.
It seems that the good guys have to be good or get found out - and nobody has rumbled Traidcraft - as yet. the price of entry question has been addressed and registration fees for smaller growers has been reduced.
But, I guess we have to be vigilant.