Volume CXXXIII, Number 17 February 22, 2002 f

Panel addresses globalization
SAMUEL C. DOWNING
STAFF WRITER

The world may not have convened on the Kresge Auditorium for the faculty discussion on globalization last Monday, but the students and community members who dropped by enjoyed a lively debate on the good and bad of the expanding world economy.

Faculty members (l-r) Michael Jones, Kerry Pannell, John Rensenbrink, Jonathan Weiler, and Nathaniel Wheelwright. (Karsten Moran, Bowdoin Orient)

Two economics professors, Michael Jones and Kerry Pannell, shared the dais with government professors Jonathan Weiler and Professor Emeritus John Rensenbrink, and Professor Nathaniel Wheelwright of biology.

The debate, introduced by Molly Farneth of Bowdoin Students for Democratic Socialism, the sponsor of the talk, highlighted many of the most frequently cited environmental, labor and jurisdictional concerns, as well as some intriguing new arguments and a surprising defense of globalization.

Jones offered a dictionary definition of globalization, "becoming a part of the world." He contrasted it with isolationism and noted that it can be measured by the percent of a country's transactions that are international, rather than domestic.

He suggested "there is nothing bad about globalization, per se." In fact, he said, opening up free trade between countries means a bigger economic pie with potentially larger slices for everyone. However, "without adequate national and international safeguards," he added, it can pose significant problems.

Jones concluded that we should be careful not to see globalization as either "a whipping boy [or] a magic elixir."

Pannell, the other Economics professor, highlighted the importance of comparative advantage in terms of international trade. She noted the conflict between strengthening international environmental standards and the comparative advantage developing countries have in luring international corporations with cheaper production costs.

Pannell said that immigration policies around the world could be liberalized to allow people to move where capital is. She also suggested that the negative influence of corporate activities in developing countries has been exaggerated. "External corporate influence can be a good thing in countries that are poor world citizens," such as Indonesia.

Just when everyone seemed to agree, Rensenbrink, the government professor emeritus and a leader in the Green Party, spiced up the debate by pointing out some dangerous forces as well as two positives in the debate over globalization.

Rensenbrink argued that the power of international corporations means non-governmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization and 24,000 others, work mostly for the economic benefit of major companies, when they could be "fighting for workers' rights, environmental protection and peace."

He said the WTO meeting doors need to open up so people know how their important decisions are made. We should create a World Environmental Organization, he said, as a counterpart to the WTO.

He argued that direct action and the growth of green parties (currently 81 worldwide) are shaping up as major forces to oppose the negative byproducts of globalization, but he said their power is "no match for the multi-national corporations."

The debt of developing nations is a major problem, Resenbrink said. With a 34 percent increase in 10 years, the developing world now owes 2.5 trillion to the developed countries. He said taxing international trade more heavily could help stop "the net transfer of wealth from poor to rich countries" that is crippling the less developed nations.

"We need a more engaging human vision," Resenbrink said, "that puts people first . . . and moves toward an ecological economics." He said the cultural and spiritual sides of the issue should not be ignored.

Weiler, the other Government professor, urged the audience to think of globalization in political terms. "It's a mistake," he said, to understand non-governmental organizations and agreements such as the WTO and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as "economics divorced from politics." In addition, "corporations," he said, "are themselves political entities."

He also raised concerns about the operation of these organizations. "A characteristic problem of NGOs," said Weiler, "is their level of secrecy. This makes it extremely difficult to determine the motives behind their decisions."
He also stressed that the powerful multi-national corporations have gained concessions in the structure of NAFTA and other international agreements. These concessions heavily favor corporate interests, Weiler said, at the expense of labor and the environment. He pointed to Chapter 11 of NAFTA. The chapter makes great pains to give corporations many rights to sue to protect their bottom line, "while labor union rights to organize are regularly violated."

Finally, Wheelwright, the Biology professor, raised concerns about the tremendous decrease in the world's biodiversity. He urged a third perspective-beyond politics and economics-from which to consider globalization: ecology.

In Acadia, Wheelwright said, 25 percent of the species are non-native weeds. "We are losing a tremendous amount of biodiversity," he warned, "and the process is accelerating."

The loss, said Wheelwright, is having a disproportionate impact on small countries. In Costa Rica alone, he added, "Deforestation has accelerated in the last couple decades" so that the country is now 75 percent deforested.
Globalization has encouraged people in developing countries to harvest natural resources in an unsustainable way, he said.

In a lengthy question and answer session after the debate, Jones, the Economics professor, added that he agreed with Rensenbrink that the idea for a new "World Environmental Organization," or WEO, could be an important addition to the WTO.

A student asked whether the U.S. and international organizations the U.S. supports, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), should forgive the debt of developing nations.

Both Pannell and Jones raised concerns about forgiving debt. Pannell worried that money meant to support the economic development of a country could instead be seized by powerful economic elites. However, she did say she supported forgiving debt of the poorest nations in the world, which are highly unlikely to be able to repay what they owe.

One question brought the debate from abstraction to reality. In the wake of production transfers at Dexter, the Maine shoe manufacturer, from New England to China, the questioner asked how the loss of five hundred Maine jobs could be a positive benefit of globalization.

Jones cautioned against thinking about the issue "as one country gains, another loses." In fact, he replied, both gain from trading with one another in the long run. He suggested more significant compensation and job re-training mechanisms could help address the local cuts.

Rensenbrink, on the other hand, said the layoffs were an example of when "comparative advantage doesn't work." He said that "economics have taken over as if abstract concerns are more important than family, culture and community. Five hundred people who just lost their jobs is a real, real issue," he said.

The Students for Democratic Socialism, the debate sponsors, are planning two more events in the globalization series.

Next Wednesday, the group is showing "Deadly Embrace," a film about Nicaragua, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The event, including a discussion after the film, will take place Wednesday, February 27, at 7:30 P.M. in the West Hubbard Conference Room.

Sally Pachulski, a representative of Jubilee USA, an organization advocating foreign debt relief, will give a lecture at a date and time to be determined.