Mark Charan Newton

9 responses so far ↓

• 1 Part-time Punk // Jun 14, 2008 at 9:37 am

  I don’t think people necessarily protest against globalisation per se; they’re more concerned about what this allows global corporations to do.

  They are footloose, able to jump from one market to the other with very little tying them down. If they don’t want to pay tax, they set up shop in a tax haven. If they want to reduce their overheads, they simply play countries off against one another. That’s not even taking into account all the shady business that goes on behind-the-scenes.

  And then there’s the externalities. It’s only cheaper to ship stuff from one side of the world than it is to produce stuff locally because we don’t account for the true environmental and economic cost of that shipping. Perhaps with the ever-rising cost of oil it will one day be the case that mass-producing stuff in China won’t be the most cost-effective solution, but it’s one hell of a way to learn a lesson.

• 2 Mark C Newton // Jun 14, 2008 at 10:00 am

  I think the majority do, however, as a focal point for half-baked political angst. I’d be more inclined to listen to them if they would not drink Coca Cola, they would not wear Nike products. We are only really entering a true state of globalization anyway—now countries such as China, India and Brazil step up and say, actually, we’re going to be more powerful than you. China is already exporting work to the US because it’s cheaper…

  The oil prices have very little to do with supply, more the cheap dollar, and investors choosing to put their money in the black stuff. But I suspect it will put a dampener on global trade in the short term—if anything, a country like China can benefit more, because of Economies of Scale and also the fact that it has more resources at its fingertips.

  Of course, nothing is perfect, but the very fact that countries such as China are in a better economic state than the US indicates that markets change. Markets are not perfect. They have externalities, and that is when governments should step in. Exploitation exists, and it should be stopped by government powers instead of focussing on endless bureaucracy and shady deals. Governments are as much as the problem as the solution.

  And people also seem opposed to trade, one of the guaranteed ways of a country generating more wealth. To close trade to a country is to cripple it. We need more trade if anything, and the EU as a lot to answer for. It could be a great deal more effective if it concentrated it’s powers on opening its borders to trade with more developing nations than trying to create a federalized State.

• 3 Part-time Punk // Jun 14, 2008 at 3:17 pm

  My biggest problem with completely unfettered trade is that some forms of government are simply cheaper than others. I’ve heard some real horror stories from China; friends who went over their to teach, only to hear about one of their pupils who died in hospital as soon as the family ran out of cash to pay for treatment, how the gap between rich and poor has increased massively over the past few decades. Their government is happy to allow the very poor to be very, very poor, work hideous hours and get very little in the way of benefits from the government. How can a West European country with a (inevitably much more expensive) democratic government and welfare state compete with a country that doesn’t have to worry about minimum wage, an NHS, ecological concerns (Three Gorges Dam is an ecological disaster) and all the bureacratic checks and balances that are part of the form of government we choose to have?

  I fear that globalisation as it’s currently played will only become a race to the bottom - and that’s not a battle we can compete in, let alone win.

• 4 Mark C Newton // Jun 14, 2008 at 3:41 pm

  The question is: how bad were things under the State Socialism / Communism that preceded it? It’s not always a question of inequality, but if the poor are better off even if the rich get richer.

  In the UK, the first thing would be not voting Labour, who are a tax and spend party - and in the current climate, would just about kill this country off.

• 5 Part-time Punk // Jun 15, 2008 at 10:09 pm

  I completely fail to recognise the current party as ‘Labour’. They abandoned socialism a long time ago, and when it takes a pretty right-wing Tory MP to take a stand on the erosion of civil liberties, you know the world’s gone a bit potty.

  Still, it should make for interesting times.

• 6 Mark C Newton // Jun 16, 2008 at 5:57 am

  Not so surprising about the Tories - right of centre parties are traditionally against State power and control, and for personal and economic freedoms. Left parties are usually after State control - i.e. in USSR. The Nazis were also a socialist party. But David David is a fairly humble chap - son of a single mother on a council estate. I hope his plan works…

• 7 Part-time Punk // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:15 am

  I could get into a very long debate here about Nazis, their use of the word ’socialist’, and their actions against genuine socialist regimes such as the Spanish Republic, but… perhaps not.

• 8 Mark C Newton // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:20 am

  Well they were ‘national socialists’ - and utilized the left and the right. Either way, the point was that it’s safe to say there was a fair bit of State power and Militarism involved…

• 9 Part-time Punk // Jun 17, 2008 at 8:36 am

  I’ll get back to you when I’ve thoroughly re-read my ‘Very Short Introduction to Socialism’

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