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SESSION THREE: INSTRUMENTS OF GLOBALISATION |
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Moderator’s Comments on Session Three:
Do you find that the discussions in the groups are quite well spread amongst all the participants or do some tend to do more talking than others ? It would be useful if there were some way we could get the feel of the discussions. Maybe as a facilitator you could tell us if there was a group or an individual who had particular concerns. For instance Tim from Australia (thanks for facilitating so well in Don’s absence) you say that there was a "somewhat limited knowledge of the IMF, World Bank, SAP… " Was that true in general ? What were some of the so-called "false" impressions of these institutions ? Maybe an example of someone’s ignorance can help others grappling to understand what these institutions actually are.
Now one way that globalisation and SAPs are sometimes understood is to suggest that this is something done to countries in the Third World or Developing Countries. A consequence of such a belief is that workers in the industrialised countries are then encouraged to support people struggling against SAPs in the Developing Countries almost as an act of charity. Another way is to see SAPs as part of a larger programme that TNCs and the dominant governments in the world (the USA in particular) want to impose even on other industrialised countries. It is the strength of the trade unions and sometimes even rival capitalist interests in these countries that makes it difficult to impose all the details of the standard SAP at the same time and in the same way.
Australia might be different precisely because its union movement and other traditions of democracy and struggle make the pace of imposing a kind of SAP different and slower even though the Australian people are already beginning to feel some of the effects of structural adjustment. What do you think ?
3. Again the Issue of Globalisation and National Governments
Yoon Hyowan from Korea raises an interesting issue about a debate around the chaebols and the national interest versus domination by TNCs over Korea. He raise directly a question which I attempted to draw out in my last comment. Whereas the IMF has stated that it wants to reform the Chaebols-dominated economy, which working people in Korea themselves have been opposing, does this mean that in resisting the new power demanded by the TNCs over Korea the people should now support the chaebols ?Does this not show that under globalisation even strong monopolies in a country can come under attack by larger TNCs and governments ? How can ordinary people in unions and community organisations continue to struggle against both the power of the TNCs and their instruments and their own monopolies at home who are themselves under attack ?
Once again this raises the issue of whether globalisation does away with the power of national governments and whether ordinary people should continue to struggle for democratic reforms in their own countries.
The examples given by Yoon of unions to get industry bargaining and reforms to the minimum wage legislation should be discussed together with these questions.
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