Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
American biotech giant Monsanto...which now has the legal right to charge
rural Hondurans for using their own traditional remedies.
Trade levies, which increase with processing, make it easy for a poor
country to export raw peanuts. But the prohibitively higher tarif for
processed
peanuts makes it nearly impossible to produce peanut butter competitively
outside of the already developed world. (While the most widely used term for
poor countries is “developing world,” I i nd that label ironic—since economic
policies like this one systematically keep these places
under
developed.)
Many participants like to think of globalization as “tough love,” as the
rich world tries to pull up the poor world. h e scorecard tells a dif erent
story. In the last 40 years, the average annual income in the world's 20 poorest
countries—places where people make on average less than $1,000 a year—
has barely changed. In that same period, the average per capita income in the
richest 20 nations has nearly tripled to over $30,000. h e bottom 50 percent
of humanity lives on roughly 5 percent of the planet's resources. h e top 20
percent lives on over 80 percent. h e greatest concentration of wealth among
economic elites in the history of the human race is happening at the same
time our world is becoming a global village.
So what am I? Anti-globalization? No. I'm just anti-
bad
globalization.
I do my best not to fall into a knee-jerk “
campesinos
good, corporations bad”
school of thinking. I believe that the rich don't necessarily get rich at the
expense of the poor. (As conservatives like to say, “It's not a zero-sum game.”)
If implemented thoughtfully and compassionately, globalization could be the
salvation of the developing world. Progress can include or exclude the poor.
And, as wealthy people who reap the benei ts of globalization, we have an
obligation to be responsible.
As a businessman who manufactures some of my travel bags in South
Asia, I'm keenly aware that globalization can be either a force for good or a
force for harm. I have struggled with and understand the inevitability and
moral challenge of it—there's simply no way to produce a bag that will sell
without i nding the least expensive combination of quality, labor, and materi-
als. I contribute to globalization only because I'm coni dent that the people
who stitch and sew my bags are treated well and paid appropriately. h ey
work for a fraction of the cost of an American, they appreciate the employ-
ment, and American consumers want the cheap prices. If I believed that the
factory conditions were bad for that community or for its workers, I'd take
my business elsewhere. To ensure this, I l y one of my staf to the factory for
