Baku Pipline

[xane]

Originally posted by Will.
[BAnti-globalisation, in simple terms, is protesting at the way developed countries take advantage of developing countries, via organisations such as the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, and G8.[/B]

Fair comment, but how about you suggest a way we sort out this "problem" ?

Do we take control of the despotic and undemocratic governments in the world - or is that too much like colonialism ?

Do we hand out aid, which goes straight into the pockets of the afore mentioned despotic governments.

Do we try and establish "fair trade", which, lets face it, means subsidizing the developing countries economy, and we all know who is going to benefit from any subsidy, the ones who control the industries (see above).

Does "taking advantage" also mean supplying the best medical services to combat the human problems of the developing world, one that so many despotic governments seem to ignore, preferring to spend their money on luxuries and weaponry ?

Would you consider the non-government organisations also take advantage of despotic leaders to promote their own political agenda at the expense of human lives, like in the GM food debacle ?

 

[Will]

Funnily enough, the people I would target with solutions would be the large corporations and the developed countries governments.

I'm not even going to pretend to have some of the answers, let alone some of them. But I suppose there are two distinct ways of trying to solve it, which are either increased regulation of cororations, coupled with greater transparency and accountability for the NGOs, or, on the flip side, making people aware enough of the abuses that go on that they are prepared to make it hurt the company.

So to take that out of the abstract, if you aren't happy that Nike is making trainers in sweatshops, you could either bring it to the publics attention and have them boycott Nike products, or you could pass a law which forces Nike to treat its overseas employees (yes, I know they aren't direct employees, but you get the idea) better.

There have been limited sucesses with the latter approach. Nike now have a code of practice for its overseas workers, though its more PR-style flannel than anything else, and doesn't go anywhere near far enough. I will no longer apply for an opt-out on any countries minimum wage, but unfortunately, they still refuse to pay a living wage (lovely made-up number which is the amount people need to have a life worth living), and are moving their labour out of the Phillipines, and into China, where the minimum wage is a pittance.

You could attempt to bring about change through the shareholder system, but the board of directors have much more effective control than any shareholder block, so I can't see that working any time soon.

So I've got ideas, but I've really not fixed on any one solution. Maybe with some healthy discussion, I'll get there in the end.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Will.
you could pass a law which forces Nike to treat its overseas employees (yes, I know they aren't direct employees, but you get the idea) better.

but isn't old Nike (in this example) going to bump it's pricing to compensate for having to pay their hordes of legless indian child labor shoemakers a fair wage?
isn't that going to drive kids everywhere insane because the shoes they crave are now financially out of reach for a majority of the masses? won't this lead to a shoe related explosion of crime? sorry, it's a tad early for me, I tend to run on a bit

 

[Will]

Are they not finacially out of reach of most kids already? The mark-up on the trainers is obscene.

Funnily enough, the most effective anti-Nike protest ever was when a group of black and hispanic kids in the US took all their old Nikes to a flagship Nike store and dropped them off, demanding some money backbecause Nike had ripped them off. Someone told these kids how bad the conditions of the shoe-makers were, and the kids didn't care. Then they were told the difference between the cost to make them (a few dollars) and the RRP (over $100). The cutest letter I ever read was a little kid who said "Dear Nike, you ripped me off. Those trainers were only worth about $40. Please send me back a cheque for $60".

The market will support a trainer price of X. The cost of production is in no way related to X. So anything the increases Nikes production costs should eat into the obscene profit margin.

Thats the plan at least.

 

[Testin da Cable]

naturally so, but I get the feeling that nike thinks their margin is "just fine thanks". bit sad tbh. my repressed sense of justice twitches at the thought

 

[Will]

That is the problem. If profit is the only thing that matters though, why not miss out trainers and start selling crack? If only the two were equally undesirable.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Will.
Funnily enough, the people I would target with solutions would be the large corporations and the developed countries governments.

The solution lies solely with the governments, once you have solved that issue then the rest falls naturally.

How long do you think fully unionized workers with western-style employment paractises are going to last under a despotic corrupt government ?

NGOs don't like to protest against governments, I don't blame them, they'll probably end up dead.

The rights workers take for granted in the western world took hundreds of years to attain, even so we have only had the current set of employee legislation for a few generations. My grandmother worked in a sweatshop, my grandfather laboured in the docks, this is the situation in developing countries today, it wont change overnight or perhaps even in your lifetime.

Change is slow, and although I hate the idea of rich corporations exploiting the sweatshop industries in developing countries, they are in fact investing and so slowly bringing the country up to first world standards. Most workers in developing countries have had little or no education, this is being given to them now (to enable them to work), this is an important step to attaining a free society.

Regarding boycotting products; there are many obvious targets, a lot of music genres promote the "style" fashions of many leading brands who employ sweatshop practises, think Run DMC and Adidas, or how about the Nike/Brazil Football Team cooperation ? NGOs seem strangely reluctant to address these obvious points of boycott.

Regarding shareholder influence, I am quite sure a few of the major NGOs can accumulate enough cash to buy a significant holding in any company like Nike, if not the NGOs then certainly many of their well off beneficiaries. A lot of people think NGOs are amateur organizations run on shoestring budgets with little old ladies supplying the funds, wellactivism is a big business (yes, this is an obviously bias site but worth a look).

A good example is the National Trust, a few years back people sympathetic to the anti-hunt cause got onto the NT council and managed to get hunting with dogs banned from all NT properties (they are one of the UKs biggest landowners), they achieved way more than all those silly hunt sabateurs have ever done.

Don't get me wrong, I think exploitation of developing countries is a bad thing, but the problem is the despotic and tyrannical nature of their governments and an uneducated and underprivileged society that cant do anything about it, the issues of poor people will exist regardless of western companies, in fact any form of investment is good, regardless of the morals, because it encourages social change.

I think many NGOs exploit their membership by not addressing the real issues and keeping themselves politically active. A good example is PETA who spend a tiny proportion of their multi-million budget on animal welfare projects.

 

[Will]

All very good points, and I see exactly where you are coming from. Raised some things I hadn't really thought about (I think that was your plan heh).

You are right about the governments and about rights. However, the corporations aren't actually raising the standards of living in the countries they are exploiting. While the tiger economies did manage to kick-start themselves with sweatshops (Taiwan is the best example), the current generation of sweatshops are based in Export Processing Zones, and receive tax perks, exemptions from minimum wage, and are not even owned by any residents of the countries affected. Most likely they are Taiwan-owned.

 

[Will]

AS for the NGOs, a lot of them dwell on issues that they shouldn't.

For example, Greenpeace and GMO. I cancelled my support pretty much on the spot.

And attacking brands is far easier than attacking governments.

 

[mr.Blacky]

Originally posted by Will.
You are right about the governments and about rights. However, the corporations aren't actually raising the standards of living in the countries they are exploiting. While the tiger economies did manage to kick-start themselves with sweatshops (Taiwan is the best example), the current generation of sweatshops are based in Export Processing Zones, and receive tax perks, exemptions from minimum wage, and are not even owned by any residents of the countries affected. Most likely they are Taiwan-owned.

The main what will make a change is a larger middle class. The EPZ's are creating some, not the jobs of the investors (maybe) but the jobs that are being created besides it (the pub owners, movers etc).
Governments of democratic nations should be more involved but only to remove the crappiest dictators, those that dont want any change/growth in their country. Others that do accept it will die out after the population will reach a certain level of awarenes. This will take a long time tho, but then again I am an optimist.

 

[Will]

Way too much information about EPZ, and not entirely biased...

 

[xane]

I read about EPZs in Naomi Klein's No Logo.

The problem is many activists fail to see the real benefit in a foreign investment. A lot of "exploited" workers are getting benefits that cannot be quantified in simple terms, namely education and exposure to cooperative working practises.

Governments remain despotic because they oppress people, and people who are uneducated and unable to band together are the easiest to oppress, read "divide and rule". The aspects of education and cooperation are not going to come from such governments.

The arguments about labour laws being circumvented have a lot more weight if the workers outside the Zones actually benefitted from them, do you honestly think a lot of these countries actually have labour laws covering wages and health, child labour, etc, and if they did do you think they are being enforced in what is essentially a corrupt and lawless (by western standards) society ?

Comparisons with modern 21st century working practises in the western world is pointless, many developing countries suffer from social oppression through tribalistic and traditional religious attitudes, you need to break those up before you can get employment privileges, this can only happen in a generational time span.

Take the role of women for example, in the western style EPZ they are treated as equal, outside they are often second class citizens due to social pressures, it took a long time for western nations to alleviate the problems of gender discrimination, many would argue we are not even finished, do you expect societies steeped in millennia old traditions to change overnight ?

Ideas put forward by most activists are fanciful and dream like, change is happening now and it's happening at a rapid pace, that's good enough for me.

 

[Will]

I think the point about the EPZ's is not that the conditions are much worse than the rest of the country, but that the companies are taking advantage more than they should from an ethical standpoint.

That, and a bit of bitterness from activists about the migration of certain kinds of jobs away from the developed world.

I do get more worked up myself about more techie politics, like RIAA, the way companies lobby Congress to get what they want, as well as the explosion of temping (a.k.a modern labour market) and the fantastic deals CEOs seem to get. Its within the same ballpark, but the other end.

 

[moomin]

When I looked at the post first time I thought it said


"bukakke pipeline"


Thought I'd mention that