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[Aramas]

The USA and globalisation, actually. War and terrorism came in third. An interesting poll. It's only a poll of 1500 BBC viewers but it coincides with other European and world polls I've seen recently.

Here's the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3613217.stm

I do feel a certain amount of pressure to see the world before it's covered in malls and saturation marketed franchise stores. I wonder how many generations it will be before there's not a single person left that knows how to really live?

[struelle]

Good article, thanks for posting.

[gugelhupf]

My opinion is that US foreign policy is the No.1 threat to the world, but that's a sour subject for the Easter holiday...

As regards "westernisation" I feel this is often a double edged sword. Yes I DO get fed up with McD's golden arches and Marlboro cigarette billboards springing up all over the world. I resent and deplore the likes of the tobacco companies making rich profits from the misery of the third world.

However, when I am ill in a far-flung corner of the globe it is very reassuring to have access to a "western" hospital. I would also prefer to stick with air-con rather than enjoy the "authentic" sleeping experience in the tropics - the latter is fine for an adventure break but a bit tiring long term.

Would it not be selfish of me to deny the benefits of western technology to
people in the developing world simply because I wanted to enjoy looking at pristine natural habitat on the odd occasion that I visited their homelands?

I think there is a very fine balance to be struck and I don't profess any particular expertise on the subject. What I do hope is that the mistakes made in the western world during the past century of industrialisation won't be repeated en masse elsewhere.

[Aramas]

Globalisation certainly improves the standard of living for a lot of people, and the health issues are important, but we seem to be transiting a difficult phase in which quality of life suffers. There are a lot of countries (including my own) in which indiginous cultures have become little more than contrived entertainment for tourists. Mainstream 'culture' has become an oxymoron. We work, buy things and play with our shiny toys.

It worries me that when I was a child a 30% mark-up on goods was considered a reasonable profit, whereas now 300% seems to be a minimum, with many products returning 1000%+ to retailers. The costs of doing business have gone right off the scale, and government regulation and legislation has made sweeping changes to industry that further increase costs. My father employs around 50 people and the government administered workers compensation insurance costs him several hundred thousand dollars a year. Apparently he pays the money and also pays all claims. He can't figure out what the fees are for. They're to fund a massive self-perpetuating bureacracy - a shiny new hamster wheel that doesn't actually do anything.

I do temp work through an agency, and several employers have told me that they won't be hiring employees any more, and will instead use agencies. The costs, bureaucracy and legal liabilities of employing people directly are too much for medium sized businesses to bear. It's already past the stage where every person that actually does something requires a second person just to shuffle papers. Corporations have already voted with their feet and even high-tech stuff is made in developing countries in their subsidised factories with cheap labour. Most people would assume that PC's are an American product, but while the corporations involved might be American, in 10 years of PC upgrades I've never once encountered a component that was made in the US.

Hardly anything is actually made in developed countries these days, with most staples and manufactured goods being sourced from low-income developing countries. But how can that continue as those countries develop and wages and standards of living increase? How can we in the west continue to make money by profiting from the work of developing countries and shuffling mountains of paper? What does continue to be produced in developed countries tends to be massively subsidised and protected by governments, which amounts to nothing more than welfare for industry and agriculture. Consumerism seems much like the economic counterpart of perpetual motion, which is of course impossible.

Dubya and his ship of fools (our PM would be the 'cabin boy') have continued the tradition of creating new industries under the guise of war. The War on Crime, War on Drugs and War on Terror have all spawned massive bureaucracies and industries to service them. In every case they have overseen an escalation of 'hostilities' and a further expansion of bureaucracy and the erosion of civil rights. Still, it does offer us the Holy Grail of creating employment and economic growth.

Democracy has become a joke. Politicians are just another consumer product and the one that spends the most on marketing 'sells'. We have the best 'justice' systems money can buy. Imo every courthouse should be required to display a disclaimer stating that 'Any justice that occurs as the result of the application of law is coincidental and does not reflect the intention of the judiciary or the government'.

I find hope in the idea that eventually we'll transcend the pettiness and greed of capitalism, and while I'm no 'trekkie', there may come a time when people are free to live in traditional societies with access to the benefits of technology. I have no idea what it will be called, but it won't be capitalism or communism. Let's hope that when that time comes someone is old enough to remember what it was like to have a life.

Meanwhile, I want to see what's left of the real world. See you there

[Teacher in Rome]

Well put Aramas!

One reason I'm not making swathes of money in a large corporation is that I don't understand why corporations always have to "grow" profits. Aren't shareholders just happy to know that they're stable and not losing money??

I'm also astounded at how companies with a history in one sector - say food retailing - aren't happy with simply being food retailers. No, they have to go and sell books, or white goods, or petrol, or insurance and banking services, for god's sake. And then they create huge out of town warehouses that you need a car to get to - that is, after they've destroyed inner-city one-sector shops.

Not content with this, they put the squeeze on suppliers to grant even bigger discounts - which is one reason why farming is on welfare. It can't afford to supply greedy supermarkets. Of course, consumers have grown to expect cheap meat and so on. So consumers are just as guilty.

But I think there is a choice. Buy what you need "ethically". Frequent your local market or farmers' markets. Consume less. Avoid using your car if possible. I know this sounds preachy, but there has to be a stop to all this greed and consumerism. Otherwise, we will all become victims in the end, and lack of buying choice is the smallest of the "evils".

[Atlas]

*
I can't seem to access that article, maybe something lost in translation with Chinese servers. Does anyone have an alternative site?

There are some critical points this issue raises, and in fact represent a lot of the platform of America's (and other countries) agitation movements, at least that was my impression when I was on a state university campus 2 years ago (Green party stuff, sweatshops, foreign policy....). It seems that corporate "Aristocracy?" and the resistance it engenders has replaced the political idealogism and public debate of the past. Or at least has taken prominence in the public view. These concerns carry a lot of weight to young Americans, so I'd like to take a second to make that point--and ask people not to confuse an American citizen with his or her government, and proceed to tell them everything that's wrong with their country. We all share responsibility for the state of the world, and many Americans recognize the same problems everyone else does. (And many other countries would take that power if they could! Don't deny it!)

Which brings me to another point: if you study the colonialism of the past--for example, British culture as described through the eyes of a young African girl Katie Makanya--one has to acknowledge the fact that these colonies would never have taken root without at least some support of the local populations, who understood the value of modernization to their survival (medical care, for example). It is a mutual problem.

I am not advocating any sides on this issue, but I just want to point out that there is something more than blind corporate imperialism going on here. We as a species have to find a way to integrate progress with balance in nature. I commute to work in Shanghai and I am forced to breathe the noxious clouds of western industries who are here avoiding the environmental laws of home. (Did you ever see a person with two thumbs--one growing out of the other?) It's not good to take advantage of developing countries in this manner. Yes, the industry gives otherwise indigent people more resources, more chance at survival (through a more mundane industrial lifestyle); and everywhere I see the nouveau riche displaying their fortunes the way it was done in the West--for example, housewives staying home and shopping, and being disallowed to work by their husbands. It reminds me of D.i.c.k.e.n.s' Bourgeoise, as in Hard Times. (It was considered a sign of status not to work--and you saw it revealed in the restrictive women's fashions of the time).

Corporations are organizations of people, and they live and die by the decisions of individuals. They are not blind monsters, they are the manifestations of our own imaginations (Did you see The Forbidden Planet?)

I'd like to make one more point: even educated, modernized people, in this climate of globalization still harbor those same old antiquated, ethnocentric agendas and perceptions of cultural superiority. And they're not shy about sharing it. Some things are better left in the past. Can we get over that please?

[johnslat]

Dear Atlas,
You could try this one:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/04/285464.shtml

Good luck,
John

[Aramas]

Cut and paste from BBC website:

'US is bigger threat than terror'

Globalisation and the US pose a more serious threat to the world than war and terrorism, according to a BBC poll.

52% said the US and globalisation was the most serious threat. Corruption came second on a list of the biggest problems facing the world, the survey of BBC viewers worldwide found.

Conflicts - war and terrorism - ranked third, with 50%, followed by hunger, 49%, and climate change with 44%.

BBC World asked 1,500 viewers of its news and international channel for the biggest problems in the world with 52% saying the US and globalisation.

Respondents from Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia, ranked the power of the US and large corporations as the biggest worry (52.3%).

BBC World's head of research and planning Jeremy Nye said: "We were a little surprised that global superpowers and corruption were ranked top but we will track whether they are gaining from topical interest or are of greater long-term significance."

Wars and terrorism were ranked as the top concerns in Europe and the Middle East despite ranking third overall.

Illiteracy was ranked sixth overall with 38% followed by nuclear proliferation, also 38%, and the persecution of minorities with 36%.

Lack of drinking water and basic sanitation was ranked 12th, with 20%, while 16% rated migration as the most important problem.