wide eyed wonderings of the undecided
Mandelson’s trading development for economics
2 Comments
Earlier this week I had the ‘honour’ of sitting alongside Peter Mandelson in an EU Commission meeting about the (so called) Doha ‘Development’ round of WTO Trade negotiations. The meeting with representatives from ‘civil society’ was supposed to enlighten us all on the current ’state of play’ in the negotiations. Having written, read and ranted about development for so many years from an outside perspective, I was genuinely excited to see how things worked in a ‘closed meeting’.
Civil Society has always been a rather opaque term. Lying between business and government it tends to be made up of unelected groups representing various parts of the ‘general public’. NGOs, trade unions, community groups -in short, the good guys. Clearly what passes for civil society outside of my textbooks was rather different. As I mumbled and bumbled myself into the meeting I was faced with a room made up almost entirely of suited white men from all walks of… the business lobby. From Biscuit Advocacy to Chemical Manufactures, this was a wide landscape of diversity.
I cowered myself into a corner, desperately trying to avoid the perpetual one-minute networking that passes for conversation. When ‘Commissioner Mandelson’ strode (late) into the room the hubbub immediately subsided. The supremeo had entered.
Clearly dear Pete had better things to do with his time than sit around with us lot. He, word for word, stumbled through a speech clearly prepared by his assistants. In it he warned of the ‘negative popularism of protectionist measures’. He cooed lovingly about the prospects of genuine market opportunities in ravished developing countries, and the need to ensure that ‘world economic growth, above all else’ is pursued. It was in answering questions from the floor that he showed why he is such a successful politician. Carrying a library of information in his head he deftly reassured each concern raised by business about each particular article of legislation.
When an issue about worker rights raised by the church group, who like me had slipped through the net into ‘civil society’, they were skilfully and powerfully shot down. After some well placed mocking, Petey (as he is to me these days) patted us on the collective head with the invisible hand. ‘The rising tide of world economic growth will raise all ships’. Exactly, why place safegaurds about worker rights? Why place safeguards over environmental standards? We’ve got high living standards in the west, and it’s not like we had to fight for unions, democratic rights, safety standards etc during our industrialisation…. oh no wait.
It continues to amaze me, under the guise of rationality we place enormous faith in whatever ‘the market’ actually means. Trading, over not trading can lead to greater economic welfare and growth for all parties concerned. The research yields very mixed results – the direction of causality is always a problem, as is trying to control for other factors such as geographical conditions. Dani Rodrik at Harvard writes lucidly about the need for strong institutions required for trade to have a positive effect. Where strong education, health and actual civil society institutions exist, we all benefit. This entails demanding strong standards over workers rights – to toilet breaks, safety at work and enough of a wage to send kids to school, to name just a few.
Development though, will always be a power issue. When a group of white men can carve out ‘economic opportunities’ without voice from the very people who live the economic realities, you will never have development. Economics will never escape the political, and that’s why the facts of the market will never reveal the truth about the world.
climate change has no class
7 Comments
(This article appears in Insight Magazine April 2008 )
When a social movement is championed by a prince, a Cambridge graduate on the roof of parliament and Waitrose shoppers across the land, you know you have a problem. Yet to say that climate change is of interest only to the middle class of the West is to miss the point entirely.
Much of the response to last months Plane Stupid demo illustrated a growing group of critics who claim that the green movement are little more than “fear-mongering, snobbish, isolationist puritans.” They suggest that the solutions offered to climate change are riddled with class prejudice. By attacking cheap flights and mass consumption they feel the green activists are instead conveying a “shrill middle-class disgust with the greedy masses and their bad habits.”
While the growing ideological debate over how to tackle climate change threatens to obscure action, the doubts over the existence of human-made climate change have, at last given way to reason. Those who still dismiss it as the ‘new millennium bug’ would do well look at the facts.
Between 1950 and 2005 average global temperatures increased by 0.7oC. Over the same period emissions of human-made green house gasses have mushroomed by over 70%. It takes a peculiar bloody mindedness (or funding from Exxon Mobile) to ignore the link. If global temperatures increase by 2oC over pre-industrial levels, we enter the realm of runaway climate change. It is just as dramatic as it sounds. 4 billion people could suffer water shortages, sea levels could rise by 7 metres and the permafrost of the west Siberian peat bogs begins to melt, unleashing 70 billion tonnes of stored methane, the Napalm of greenhouse gases. The cautious but rather aptly titled Stern Report calculated that failing to act would cost us at least 5% but possibly 20% of global GDP.
Slowing the climate’s growing fever is the essential challenge of our age, yet the limp response so far, which is defined by both the moralistic ‘green consumerism’ and their conservative critics, is ineffective and snooty.
When legitimate concerns over emissions are voiced, they are easily perceived as killjoy rantings from a privileged minority. The thick smug that emerges from the hybrid cars of a spoilt few betrays a judgement about how the rest of society should live. And often, their case, though legitimate appears overstated: cheap short-hall flights are seen as disgusting, cheap imported meat is sick, over-boiling the kettle is genocide, and so on. Implicit in their entire effort is the wrong assumption that by changing consumer habits they have tackled climate change. Changing your light bulb is not changing the world – energy efficiency is essential but not enough.
However, the lambasting that the green movement receives from the likes of Brendan O’Neill in The Guardian and his magazine Spiked Online fails to offer any solutions to what is an accepted problem. These self-titled (and usually middle-class) libertarians moan that the entire issue is merely an elitist vehicle to meddle in the lives of ‘the masses’. Yet if this were a genuine ideological concern, they would do well to remember that liberty ends where the one person’s actions limit the freedom of another person’s actions. Unrestricted emissions from some will hinder the lives of many others. Failing to counter that argument these same critics then suggest that climate change is just an anti-progress conspiracy wrapped up in superstition. This sort of drivel fails to contend the science and ignores the fact that social and economic progress demands a stable climate. These so-called “defenders of the masses” end up protecting the interests of the wealthiest corporations instead. It’s difficult to think of many more patronising things then well-paid journalists claiming the voice of millions of working-class voices, especially when, as Green Party MEP Dr Caroline Lucas notes, “if you look at the impacts of climate change, it’s the poorest that are hit first and hardest.”
Until government takes action to draw in the whole of society – business included – the mass effort against climate change will forever be undermined by precious minorities on either side. Rather than relying on the good will of British Petroleum, or hoping that people will give up weekly flights to their holiday homes in Monaco, the government should stand up to the challenge and set an equal limit on how much carbon we can all emit.
Dr Lucas added “the science demands action. We are told we have between 8-10 years in which to put in place a rigorous policy framework to ensure serious emission reductions. It is as much a social justice issue as an environmental one.”
Through setting limits on national emissions, government can sanction one proportion for businesses and then divide the rest equally amongst citizens. Rather than attack the poor – as the much vouched-for carbon taxes do – this would progressively redistribute wealth. Those who expend less than their entitlement can sell off their excess to others who demand it. Remember that despite what they may think, the self-congratulating rich actually consume more carbon than the poor.
With similar incentives placed on businesses effective action would be demanded. It would no longer be profitable for a BP to emit a 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to produce crude oil from tar sands; instead they could employ part of their enormous annual profit to genuinely invest in sustainable alternatives.
That we should all be taking action to tackle climate change is unquestionable. But when in 1940 we were faced with a global threat to our livelihoods, the government wasn’t afraid to lead a mass campaign. Food rations were an immense sacrifice, but rather than having an elitist few telling the poor not to eat, everyone was in the same boat. The scale of this threat may not be entirely predictable as yet, but unless we move beyond are limp response, we may have to face the horror of finding out.
Tags: BP, Brendan O'Neill, Carbon ration, Caroline Lucas, class, climate change, Corporate power, economics, Green consumerism, Insight Magazine, Plane Stupid, politics, spiked online, Stern Report, tar-sands, The Guardian
The political frontline?
2 Comments
I have recently had the dubious fortune of becoming a research assistant with an MEP in the European Parliament. As I was thrust into this new skin I was told that I was entering the ‘frontline of politics’.
It has been fascinating to lend my eyes a perspective I had never come across and in doing so I have tried to distill the essence of the political. It seems to me that the role of a government basically boils down passing a law, or not passing a law. All the familiar debates spiral out from this point.
In the last week the EU Parliament has agreed on a motion to improve energy efficiency by phasing out wasteful goods such as Patio Heaters. Whilst the frantic colluding, compromising and horse-trading was going on around the parliament it became apparent that the political frontline is far from such politicians. Ultimately politics is experienced in everyday life, it’s omnipresent and inescapable. When you sit outside a pub no longer experiencing the absurd comfort of heating up the outdoors, you are on the political frontline.
Power, as opposed to politics is more opaque. Politicians, elected solely by citizens appear in submission to a myriad of other influences. In the name of pragmatism ideals, values and morals are easily relinquished.
The battle to prevent run-away climate change, for example needs decisive political action (law making) but politicians seem unable to manage this. The minority who dismiss climate change as the new ‘millennium bug’ are thankfully giving way to reason, yet despite democratic demand for action politicians remain impotent. Instead unaccountable private groups, corporations and their lobbies appear to run the debate and corrupt democracy. With skilled lobbyists, lawyers and PR departments they create a yawning information asymmetry and stifle political action.
In terms of the media, Britain’s leading left-leaning weekly, The New Statesman, for example, obtains of much of its revenue from advertising companies such as BP and BAE systems. This compromises its ability to criticise both these companies and the wider social structure that allows information to be constrained by such companies. Information is perhaps key to an effective democracy yet it’s blatantly undermined in almost all aspects of the media.
If citizens can overcome this hurdle they face further barriers trying to negotiate the lobbyists of unaccountable interests groups. When debating over legislation or other political action, politicians will face a barrage of highly skilled, well versed people who represent the interests of a tiny minority. When these same interest groups also command the funding of political parties, what hope can the majority have of their voices being heard and getting the appropriate law being passed.
It is a crime to blockade the offices of BP but perfectly legal for BP to emitt 100 million tonnes of CO2 producing crude oil from tar sands.
It is the general public who experience politics but unaccountable minority who dictate it. In this situation where power resides is debatable. Perhaps if people realised that they are the ultimate politicians we could retrieve control over our public lives.
Tags: BP, climate change, democracy, economics, new statesman, politics, tar-sands
A corrupting agenda
Leave a Comment
This week in Berlin the World Bank will shuffle around the EU meeting with an upturned palm asking for more funding from the EU countries. Britain, like a guilt-ridden Christmas shopper will dig deep and throw its wallet into the hands of the Bank. For those concerned with International Development, the government might just be throwing in the towel as well.
The department for International Development (DfID) is set to see a budget increase by 11% to £7.9 billion a year by 2010-11. Unfortunately whilst its budget has swelled its department has shrunk. In the name of efficiency, demanded by opposition parties DfID will have to outsource large amounts of its work and taxpayers money to unaccountable international institutions like the World Bank.
The Bank is the largest single development agency in the world and funds grants and loans for things such as health, education and infrastructure building in the developing world. Its influence however stretches well beyond mere finance. Despite being an undemocratic and unaccountable institution itself, the Bank plays a primary role in shaping the political and economic agenda in the developing world. A lot of this revolves, somewhat ironically, around its Anti-Corruption Agenda.
Corruption is central in the challenge of development. The horror stories of developing country government elites waltzing off to Swiss Banks with millions of pounds of aid money has made development and corruption inseparable in people’s minds. Corruption is a major problem, one that infects all powers throughout the world. The worry is the way in which the World Bank uses anti-corruption to demand that developing countries fit into the Banks ideology of ‘good’ governance.
The Bank defines corruption as ‘the abuse of private office for pubic gain’. Interestingly the role that private individuals and corporations play in corruption sees no mention. This betrays the Banks profound antagonism towards government. It believes that if given any chance to interfere with the ‘logic’ of the market, governments and bureaucracy will cordon off vast sums for themselves and their supporters. Their neoliberal belief that international market liberalisation with a minimal role of government is the only path to development, is inescapable.
Cynics would suggest that the Bank’s sudden focus on corruption and governance is to absolve itself of responsibility of its failures over the last fifty years. Perhaps if the Bank were really concerned about good governance it would spare a moment for introspection. Its president is selected solely by the US government, who are accountable more to its corporate paymasters than the US population. There is also a significant problem when the democratic right of a citizen in Zambia, for example, is trampled all over by World Bank policy. In the name of good governance and ‘fiscal discipline’ the Bank demanded that education and health no longer be paid out of general taxation. Instead unaccountable private companies and NGOs took over. Predictably life expectancy fell to 40 years old and infant mortality piled higher. This strikingly poor governance had nothing to do with Zambia or its citizens.
The rhetoric coming out of the Bank, and its anti-corruption agenda is one that presents development as merely a technical, economic problem. Get the prices right and the magic of the market takes care of everything. Whilst democratically regulated markets play an essential role in development the concern is that this sort of approach excludes considerations of power structures, class and ethnic divisions, historical trajectories and so on, all of which shape the successes of development.
British taxpayers, along with developing countries deserve better than having their policies taken out of their hands. International Development (or justice) is no distant, left-wing dream, there are clear policies that can help or hinder the process. It is a political process, not an economic one. Rather than letting further accountability slip from our hands we should demand DfID ignore the World Banks plea for more funding.
HIV and AIDS is not a health problem, it’s a social injustice.
Leave a Comment
Against a dramatic backdrop of an AIDS ribbon constructed from 6000 red flowers -one for every person that dies each day from AIDS-related illnesses, Stop AIDS campaigners from all over the country joined to demand that the UK Government keeps its 2005 promise of Universal Access to Treatment for HIV and AIDS by 2010.
In the lead up to World AIDS Day on December 1st, campaigners were keen to remind both politicians and the wider public that HIV is no longer a death sentence. “Unlike the 80s there are now medicines that can keep people living active and fulfilling lives. The devastating insult is that 71% of people who urgently need these drugs have no access to them. It is both a moral and economic imperative that the UK government takes action” remarked Rafi Rogans-Watson, BSMS student and MEDSIN activist.
For doctors and healthcare workers around the world this is particularly frustrating. Instead of battling against the disease they have to tackle the barriers placed by western governments, the world trade organisation and pharmaceutical lobbies, if they want to treat their patients.
Currently the producers of ARVs, such as Abbott Laboratories, who recorded a staggering $1.7bln profit in 2006, are awarded a 20-year patent by the WTO TRIPs law for their invention. This law prevents any other company from selling generic ‘copies’ of the drugs and therefore grants the inventor the monopoly power of charging whatever they like. Whilst rewarding inventors is essential for further research the current situation embodies the global inequalities that fracture the world. These large companies – backed by western governments and protected by a trade law that these same governments and companies shaped, are walking away with massive profits whist millions of people in the majority world die needlessly.
Where competition is allowed drug prices plummet and treatment becomes possible. Last year UK activists were instrumental in the effort of the Thai government to provide HIV treatment for its people. Thailand faced huge political and economic pressure from both Abbott Laboratories and the US government to withdraw its move of importing generic ARV drugs. Thanks to UK activists educating Hillary Benn about the situation and demanding he intervene, he spoke out directly in support of Thailand. This multilateral pressure proved sufficient to force US to reteat from its absurd position and 8000 people gained free access the HIV and AIDS treatment that will keep them alive.
In order to achieve the promise of Universal Access by 2010 the UK government needs to announce bold and ambitious measures in its new AIDS strategy due to be launched in spring 2008. Alongside promoting access to affordable medicines, the UK needs to strengthen health systems in developing countries and provide £2.5bln over the next three years to finance Universal Access. Without this bold and necessary action, student campaigners fear that the promise will be broken. “Unless the rate of scale up increases dramatically, less than 5 million people will be on treatment by 2010: a far cry from treatment for all.” Katy Athersuch, Student Stop AIDS Campaign Coordinator.
Campaigners were pleased but remained cautious with the speech made by Douglas Alexander. Though he reiterated his support for the cause he failed to commit to the funding levels required by the UK and failed to mention anything about generic drugs, care or support services.
Throughout the campaign young people have been at the forefront of progress and once again they will need to keep the pressure on the UK government to ensure that millions will not die needlessly.
You can take action and support international healthcare by demanding you’re MP raises the issue with Douglas Alexander and signs the EDM 183.
