Today bashing big business is increasingly appealing. Specifically, the mismanagement of government is blamed on multinational corporate takeovers. A case in point is the privatization of the water supply in Banzer Suàrez's authoritarian Bolivia presented as evidence of this argument in 2004's The Corporation, where Noam Chomsky compared the entity of the modern multinational corporation to the slaving enterprise of a former age.
That Banzer's rule led to such a dire financial situation where, in order to appease foreign creditors and continue receiving World Bank loans, he was forced to concede and privatize Bolivia's national water supply in La Paz/El Alto in 1997, and then Cochabamba in 1999, is not mentioned. We are to interpret the 'water wars' that then took place in 2000 and 2005, respectively, as solely the result of Suez, and Biwater/Bechtel's inherent greed.
In this documentary the much-maligned Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are also the subject of inflammatory rhetoric. Naomi Klein emphatically points to these largely tax-free areas in low-cost, labour-abundant cities around the globe in which large multinational corporations are enticed to operate, where "the workers rarely make enough to buy three meals a day let alone feed their local economy".
If we consider basic economic trade theory, we know that, in the real world, national wage rates do, in fact, reflect differences in productivity. In 1975 South Korea was a low-wage-rate low-productivity country, where workers earned 5% of what they did in the US; by 2007 its productivity was around 50% that of the US and its wages had, accordingly, risen.
Where, then, does the blame for the appalling living conditions of labourers in certain Central American and Southeast Asian countries lie? In the corruption of their governments, the weakness of their financial sectors, capital markets, judiciary – in short: the inefficiency of their institutions. That poor people in rich countries should be subsidizing rich people in corrupt poor countries, to paraphrase the late Sir James Goldsmith, is not the result of the liberalization of trade. Rather, it is the fruit of systemic problems in less-developed societies.
I would advise anyone who wishes to watch this documentary to do so with an open mind (i.e. remember that it is very skewed to a particular viewpoint). Because of that, and the fact that it doesn't really offer an objective analysis, I give it 5.
That Banzer's rule led to such a dire financial situation where, in order to appease foreign creditors and continue receiving World Bank loans, he was forced to concede and privatize Bolivia's national water supply in La Paz/El Alto in 1997, and then Cochabamba in 1999, is not mentioned. We are to interpret the 'water wars' that then took place in 2000 and 2005, respectively, as solely the result of Suez, and Biwater/Bechtel's inherent greed.
In this documentary the much-maligned Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are also the subject of inflammatory rhetoric. Naomi Klein emphatically points to these largely tax-free areas in low-cost, labour-abundant cities around the globe in which large multinational corporations are enticed to operate, where "the workers rarely make enough to buy three meals a day let alone feed their local economy".
If we consider basic economic trade theory, we know that, in the real world, national wage rates do, in fact, reflect differences in productivity. In 1975 South Korea was a low-wage-rate low-productivity country, where workers earned 5% of what they did in the US; by 2007 its productivity was around 50% that of the US and its wages had, accordingly, risen.
Where, then, does the blame for the appalling living conditions of labourers in certain Central American and Southeast Asian countries lie? In the corruption of their governments, the weakness of their financial sectors, capital markets, judiciary – in short: the inefficiency of their institutions. That poor people in rich countries should be subsidizing rich people in corrupt poor countries, to paraphrase the late Sir James Goldsmith, is not the result of the liberalization of trade. Rather, it is the fruit of systemic problems in less-developed societies.
I would advise anyone who wishes to watch this documentary to do so with an open mind (i.e. remember that it is very skewed to a particular viewpoint). Because of that, and the fact that it doesn't really offer an objective analysis, I give it 5.
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