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March 23, 2002
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Ahmadi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
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CounterPunch
Wire
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Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
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Footprints
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Madarasz
Max
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March 23, 2002
A New International Division
of Labor: a satire
By M. Shahid Alam
" it is exactly at one year old
that I propose to provide for them [Irish children] in such a
manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the
parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives,
they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly
to the clothing, of many thousands."
Jonathan Swift, A Modest
Proposal (1729)
The world has never shown a greater, more deeply
felt solicitude for the wretched of the earth-the hundreds of
millions who die miserable deaths on less than a dollar a day-as
it has in the six months since September 11, 2001. These concerns
are being showcased at the Conference on Financing Development
that is even now underway in Monterrey, Mexico, where the heads
of the richest, most powerful nations will pen their signatures
to a Consensus on how to eradicate global poverty in our
lifetime.
It is indeed gratifying that the Core
countries, so soon after the dastardly attacks of September 11,
have recovered their sense of the great civilizing mission inau-gurated
by Christopher  Columbus, and are once again fully seized
of the few remaining tasks that still demand their attention.
In the first aftermath of the September 11 attacks, it had appeared
that the righteous anger of the American public-which never fails
to produce great consequences when it is unjustly provoked-would
incinerate any country even remotely connected to the hijack-ers.
Thankfully, President Bush was fully apprised of the need to
placate this great Moloch. Having accomplished this task quickly
and brilliantly-by scat-tering the Al-Qaida and their Taliban
hosts to the four winds-he has now joined his war against terrorism
with a war on poverty.
In case my reference to America's anger
is misconstrued, I wish to make it clear that I consider this
response justified in the fullest measure. This anger was justi-fied
because of all the burdens United States has carried in the past:
most im-portantly, advancing the West's universal project of
civilizing the rest of the world. We have intervened repeatedly,
by force of arms as well as stealth, to make the world safe for
capitalism. No great power in the recorded history of mankind
has dedicated itself so selflessly-and may I add, ceaselessly-to
propagating freedom; but unlike romantics, anarchists, and other
muddle-heads, we have never pursued these goals in reckless disregard
of the native conditions which sustain free institutions. American
presidents have never lost sight of the fundamental principle
that the lesser breeds will never be ready for freedom until
they can first embrace free markets, free trade, and free mobility
of capital across national frontiers.
In the pursuit of these great goals,
United states has waged a relentless campaign since the start
of the twentieth century to rid the world of its chief scourges:
in succession, these have included fascism, communism, and a
hundred insidious chauvinisms. Having engineered the collapse
of Soviet Union in 1990, and having finally established the firm
foundations on which the world could build a millenium of prosperity,
the least United States could expect from the rest of the world
was gratitude. A vote of thanks for establishing an epoch of
unprece-dented prosperity based on irreversible globalization.
So when the terrorists struck on September
11, bringing down the twin symbols of the world's financial capital
and the military headquarters that make the world safe for capitalism,
Americans were understandably in deep shock. They were dismayed,
discomfited and disoriented. Those who understand the deep discomfiture
of United States, and her inconsolable sorrow, could scarcely
blame Americans if they responded with a sense of outrage, or
if their demand for justice occasionally sounded like a call
for vengeance.
After this clarification, I wish to return
to the subject of the Monterrey Consen-sus. On my first
reading of this historic document, I was moved to tears by the
grand vision of its framers; and every one of its eleven printed
pages carries stains to prove the depth of my gratitude. Each
one of the goals of this Consen-sus-"to eradicate
poverty, achieve sustained growth and promote sustainable development
as we advance to a fully inclusive and equitable economic sys-tem"-deserves
to be inscribed permanently in laser lights on the night sky
so that they may be read in all quarters of the world.
More incredibly, each one of these goals
is faithfully translated into a stunning array of policy recommendations.
Space prevents me from listing all; but each one of them deserves
our attention. The Monterrey Consensus calls for "collabo-ration
among all stakeholders," and "national and global economic
systems based on the principles of justice, equity, democracy,
participation, transpar-ency, accountability, and inclusion."
It urges corporations "to take into account not only the
economic and financial but also the developmental, social, gender
and environmental implications of their undertakings." It
welcomes the "WTO's decisions to place the needs and interests
of developing countries at the heart of the WTO Work Programme."
It calls on developed countries "to provide duty-free and
quota-free access for all LDC's exports." It demands that
"immediate attention should go to strengthening and ensuring
the meaningful and full par-ticipation of developing countries,
especially the LDCs, in multilateral negotia-tions." Finally,
amongst many other equally weighty recommendations, the Consensus
urges "developed countries to make concrete efforts toward
the target of 0.7 % of GNP as ODA [aid] to developing countries."
For hours upon reading the Consensus
I was ecstatic, overwhelmed by visions of the new global economy
it would help to create. But being a realist, I had to pull myself
together. While the Consensus will always be remembered
as a testament to the vision of its signatories, I knew that
this vision would unfold only slowly, and this not because there
are forces that will obstruct the progress of the poor countries.
I have to acknowledge that this progress, as in the past, will
be hindered by the refractory cultures-still struggling to cope
with modernity-that continue to clog the wheels of progress in
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
This retreat from euphoria, however,
does not lead to pessimism. On the con-trary, I rest confident
in the thought that the new wave of globalization that be-gan
in the 1990s is more inclusive and more durable than any we have
seen in the past. It is more durable because it is managed by
multilateral institu-tions-the IMF, the World Bank, and WTO-rather
than a gaggle of great pow-ers. In turn, these institutions derive
their legitimacy from United States, as be-nign a hegemon as
there ever existed in the annals of human history.
It is this global economy that has created
the prospect for a new international division of labor: one that
I hope to demonstrate will reverse the marginalization of the
Periphery. At this point, the orthodox economist is likely to
yawn since this is what his theory of international trade has
always predicted. That is not a prediction that anyone would
contest lightly, since orthodox economics always takes great
care to choose assumptions which guarantee its results. My concern
at the moment, however, is with the real world. And though this
concern is not valid in the eyes of orthodox economists-and rightly
so, since their function is to provide impenetrable arguments
for the world as it is-this writer feels that we may be
allowed occasional glimpses of the real world, especially when
it is thrust upon us violently, as it was by the suicidal hijackers
on September 11.
Now while the arguments favoring free
trade remain unassailable-and I cannot emphasize this enough-there
are some countries at the Periphery that have per-versely failed
to benefit from the global economy. There are two reasons for
this, quite unrelated to any asymmetries in the workings of the
global system. Rather, driven by irrational fears, their xenophobic
leaders have chosen to shut off their people from energizing
contacts with foreign capital. But even when free trade was thrust
upon them by European powers-motivated only by a Christian altruism-their
response has at best been sluggish. As Sir Arthur Lewis has so
brilliantly explained, they could derive no benefits from their
pri-mary exports because they failed to raise their productivity
in food.
The countries at the Periphery have paid
dearly for their failures. Starting from positions of near parity
in 1800, they have been falling behind the Core coun-tries ever
since, so that in 1999 the gap between the high income and low
in-come countries stood at 63 to one. It is a testimony to the
power of global capi-talism to generate unremitting growth-a
power that Karl Marx had glimpsed quite early on-that the owners
of dogs and cats in the Core countries spend considerably more
on their pets than most parents in the Periphery can spend on
their children. These disparities offer a sobering measure of
the opportunities for growth squandered by the Periphery.
But all is not lost for the Periphery.
Global capitalism does not consign the sin-ners to eternal perdition:
it is continuously creating new opportunities and in-viting past
sinners to make a fresh start. When the Core countries first
prospered in the eighteenth century, this created demand for
the Periphery's sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa and tobacco. Later,
when the industrial revolution got underway, this translated
into a massive demand for wheat, cotton, jute, sisal, and vegetable
oils. Even some Core countries organized to meet this demand.
This created a huge demand for workers in the Periphery; most
notably, millions of underemployed Africans found themselves
permanently employed in the plantations of United States and
the Caribbean. Finally, as the Core countries accelerated their
growth in the 1950s, they generously let go of their most labor-using
industries. Those countries that embraced this opportunity with
laissez faire policies are now the miracle economies of
East Asia. Thus, growth in the Core countries has never failed
to transmit its dynamic impulse to the Periphery.
And now a variety of developments in
the Core have converged to create vast new opportunities for
a new international division of labor. First I will draw your
attention to advances in the medical field that have made organ
transplants safe, and that are generating drugs and cosmetic
products derived from fetal tissues and body wastes. This has
created a growing demand for a variety of body parts and body
wastes (BPWs). At present, the body parts in greatest de-mand
include heart valves, livers, kidneys, corneas, skin, ovum, sperm,
bone marrow, and muscle tissue. A variety of body wastes are
also in growing de-mand, including fetuses, brain cells, umbilical
cords, foreskins, placenta and infected cells. As the Core countries
get richer, as their incomes become more skewed, and as their
population ages, we can safely predict a sustained growth in
the global demand for BPWs.
This growing demand for BPWs carries
an enormous-and I would hasten to add, unprecedented-opportunity
for growth in the poorest of the poor coun-tries. A simple application
of the standard theory of international trade would suggest that
the production of BPWs will occur in the poorest countries of
the Periphery. The logic is quite transparent. The production
of BPWs, since these are harvested from the bodies of
workers, is a very strongly labor-using activity; and since labor
is cheapest in the poorest countries, the global markets will
en-sure that their production is concentrated in the these countries.
Quite apart from its tremendous economic
advantages, this international division of labor, once established,
will create a hitherto inconceivable organic bonding between
the Center and Periphery. When the populations at the Center-the
men, women and children-realize that some of their body parts
are imported from the Periphery, one hopes that this will finally
erode the age-old racisms that have poisoned relations between
the world's peoples.
I am aware that there is some work to
be done before this new division of labor can be implemented.
We will have to work out a legal framework, including property
rights, to foster this trade in BPWs. I will not trouble you
with the de-tails of these legal questions, since I am confident
that the WTO can be trusted to work out both the legal framework
and the standards that will govern and guide this trade. I have
been warned of the inevitable objections that some hu-manitarians
and other busybodies will raise concerning the morality of a
trade in BPWs. Such objections will be quickly laid to rest by
economists. Clearly, the economic benefits to humanity from these
exchanges exceed by a wide margin their moral costs to a few
finicky humanitarians.
If the assorted humanitarians, ethicists
and anarchists in the Core countries should succeed in erecting
barriers to this trade, I am confident that they will be quickly
circumvented. Instead of importing the BPWs, the consumers
will sim-ply move to the Periphery. The Core country patients
will now travel to the Pe-riphery, creating a new transplant
tourism; and the pharmaceuticals will sub-contract their
research to the Periphery. All this may not be such a bad thing.
The Periphery can now add tourist dollars to the revenues from
the sale of BPWs.
I should have ended this essay at this
point-since I have already made a most capital suggestion for
improving human welfare in the Periphery. But once I had started
upon this exciting train of thought, I was ineluctably drawn
to several related proposals. And since I am convinced of the
great advantages they will confer on the poor and the meek, I
think it would be criminal if I held them close to my chest for
too long. But I promise to be brief, since I know that the reader
might be better employed examining a variety of perceptive proposals
for extending the war on terrorism.
In recent years, the pharmaceuticals
in the Core countries have encountered growing problems in finding
human subjects for testing their drugs; it is those ethicists
again. Needless to say, the delays this causes in marketing new
drugs have cost lives, lowered people's beauty coefficients,
and, most importantly, cost billions of dollars in lost profits.
These losses can now be remedied by testing the new drugs in
the Periphery. Once again, the moralists-if there are any-will
be quickly answered by the economists. Since markets value life
much more highly in the Core than in the Periphery, it is efficient
to allocate the human costs of developing drugs where life is
cheapest.
The disposal of toxic wastes too has
become a serious problem in the Core countries: they are now
producing 300-500 million tons of toxic wastes annu-ally. As
the environmentalists gain strength, a growing number of districts
in the Core countries have prohibited the dumping of toxic wastes.
Providentially, this is opening up a vast new trade opportunity
for the Periphery: a few island economies are already specializing
as dumping sites for toxic sites. I do not have an accurate figures
for the price which the markets will fix for such dumping, but
assuming a price of $100 for each ton of waste, this has the
potential of generating a revenue of $30-50 billion dollars annually
for the Periphery. That would be a bonanza for many.
I must admit, though, that the potential
for this trade in toxic wastes was bril-liantly anticipated by
Lawrence H. Summers in December 1991 when he was Chief Economist
for the World Bank. As he explained, the water and air quality
especially in Africa are at levels that are "vastly inefficiently"
high. Clearly, this is an unconscionable waste. The high water
and air quality of the Periphery should be reduced by encouraging
the dumping of toxic wastes.
I have one final proposal in my bag;
and though some might consider this out-landish, I believe it
can stand on its economic merits. There also exists now a modest
opportunity for promoting sex tourism for pedophiliacs. It appears
from the growing incidence of child abuse cases that sexual tastes
in the Core coun-tries are now slowly shifting towards pedophilia.
Given their superabundance in children, I should think that the
poorest countries could promote themselves as a paradise for
pedophiles-the alliteration sounds inviting. Those who would
shrink from such a degradation of children only need to be reminded
that this may be the only alternative that some children in the
Periphery have to certain death. Let them choose between
abuse and death.
I launch these proposals for a new international
division of labor in the firm conviction that this is not some
utopian project. Five centuries of global capital-ism have produced
a superabundance of bodies in the Periphery, but now,
at last, the same forces promise to process these bodies for
the enrichment of the Periphery. This is the latest, most cunning
twist in the dialectics of capitalist development.
M. Shahid Alam
is a professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston.
His recent book, Poverty
from the Wealth of Nations was published by Palgrave
(2000). Copyright: M. Shahid Alam
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