[CT] UN, EU and WTO
Daniel Moran
dkm at QueenOfAngels.com
Fri Jul 5 15:49:46 PDT 2002
I'm reluctant to comment on this, given some of the threads politics have
engendered on this list -- but I will anyway and we'll see how it goes. I
do think some form of world government is inevitable -- the multinational
corporations that run the world want one and will get their way on this
one, IMO. As the net grows more and more important (and we're at the dawn
of the internet -- this is 1915 in automobile industry terms) the
multinationals will find it increasingly intolerable that there will be
anywhere on Earth that a website can situate itself to escape regulation.
Kiddy porn is what's going to do it (or at least be the mask for it) -- not
that any governmental organization particularly cares about kiddy porn.
Sorry for my overwhelming cynicism here, but if they don't care about child
prostitution, and they plainly don't in any global sense, why on Earth
would they care about kiddy porn? Anyway, countries that permit copyright
infringement -- at least on movies & music -- will undergo what we're now
politely calling "regime change." This will effectively be a world
government -- you can murder your own citizens, execute men for being
homosexuals, women for dressing immodestly or engaging in sex, you can
prositute your children -- and the world will stand back and say "private
business." But by God, don't fuck with corporate profit, or else....
OTOH -- I believe in "regulated free trade." Too often free trade is a race
to the bottom -- globalization has produced children working in Nike
factories for dollars a day. But free trade on a level playing field is a
great thing and, next to science, has done more good for the human race
than any other activity in human history. (Damn straight I include
religion.) So we can't go backward in that regard -- the problem with the
political left is that they don't want even managed free trade, since they
have a psychotic belief that native peoples are better off without
"interference" (like running water) from more developed cultures; the
problem with the political right is they don't want regulation, since they
have a psychotic belief that unregulated free markets will produce good
results. (Or they're just bloody selfish. The unregulated free market's
been tried over and over again down the millennia. It produces pirates and
robber barons.)
Here's two sets of interesting statistics -- the 3 columns below are State,
per capita GDP in 2000, and who the state voted for in 2000:
Mississippi 20993 Bush
West Virginia 21915 Bush
New Mexico 22203 Gore
Arkansas 22257 Bush
Montana 22569 Bush
Louisiana 23334 Bush
Alabama 23471 Bush
Oklahoma 23517 Bush
Utah 23907 Bush
Idaho 24180 Bush
Kentucky 24294 Bush
South Carolina 24321 Bush
North Dakota 25068 Bush
Arizona 25578 Bush
Maine 25623 Gore
South Dakota 26115 Bush
Tennessee 26239 Bush
Iowa 26723 Gore
Vermont 26901 Gore
Indiana 27011 Bush
North Carolina 27194 Bush
Wyoming 27230 Bush
Missouri 27445 Bush
Kansas 27816 Bush
Nebraska 27829 Bush
Texas 27871 Bush
Georgia 27940 Bush
Florida 28145 Gore
Hawaii 28221 Gore
Wisconsin 28232 Gore
Oregon 28350 Gore
Ohio 28400 Bush
Pennsylvania 29539 Gore
Michigan 29612 Gore
Rhode Island 29685 Gore
Alaska 30064 Bush
Nevada 30529 Bush
Virginia 31162 Bush
Delaware 31255 Gore
Washington 31528 Gore
Minnesota 32101 Gore
Illinois 32259 Gore
California 32275 Gore
Colorado 32949 Bush
New Hampshire 33332 Bush
Maryland 33872 Gore
New York 34547 Gore
New Jersey 36983 Gore
D.C. 37383 Gore
Massacheussets 37992 Gore
Connecticut 40640 Gore
13 of the 14 poorest states in the country (and 23 of 27) voted
conservative. 10 of the 12 wealthiest states, including Washington DC,
voted liberal -- something about highly regulated environments appears to
produce wealth, wouldn't you say?
The same appears to be true in the world at large. Here's the per capita
GDP by country for 2000:
Luxembourg $33,609
United States $33,586
Monaco $27,451
Switzerland $27,126
Cayman Islands $26,753
Norway $24,837
Jersey $24,743
Denmark $23,930
Belgium $23,766
Singapore $23,607
Austria $23,441
Japan $23,311
Iceland $23,230
France $23,142
Canada $23,091
Aruba $23,009
Netherlands $22,973
Kuwait $22,700
Liechtenstein $22,666
Germany $22,513
Hong Kong $22,231
Australia $21,712
United Kingdom $21,676
Italy $21,029
Finland $21,016
Sweden $20,737
What do these countries have in common? With a couple exceptions (Cayman
Islands, Aruba, Kuwait) -- all are highly regulated places to do business.
If low taxes and low regulations were the conditions that would create
wealth, you'd expect to see most of South America on this list -- and it's
not there, plainly.
I'd be interested in comparing the members of the EU on this list when GDP
for 2002 becomes available. If low trade barriers in a regulated
environment are the path to wealth (or one of the better paths to wealth,
anyway) you'd expect to see the members of the EU climbing this list as the
years go on.
And finally, just on raw dollars, 2000 GDP, not per capita:
Total GDP 2000
(millions of US dollars)
1 United States 9,882,842
2 Japan 4,677,099
3 Germany 1,870,136
4 United Kingdom 1,414,557
(5) California 1,330
5 France 1,286,252
6 China 1,079,954
7 Italy 1,068,518
8 Canada 689,549
9 Brazil 587,553
10 Mexico 574,512
China, Brazil, and Mexico are all getting it done on strength of population
-- the other 7 members of that list (8, counting California) are high-tax,
high-regulation environments. Now, I won't argue that high taxes cause
wealth -- but I will argue that transparency in business causes wealth, and
that providing transparency is expensive. Lack of transparency -- cooked
books -- gave us Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, and a thousand smaller
examples. It's not an accident that the wealthiest countries on the planet
are also the most regulated -- businesses hate regulation and will do
whatever they can to get away from it -- but the raw evidence is that it's
good for them.
So to directly answer your question (and to paraphrase Trent from a novel
written in the late 80s) -- the WTO, or something like it, is a necessity.
The political left should stop lobbying against it on premise and start
working to regulate and tame it. The UN, or something like it, is a
necessity -- otherwise the United States will become an empire in fact and
not just in rhetoric; I'd rather our country be a member of some cautiously
developed body of world governance than an empire, and I don't honestly see
much room for any in-between positions.
At 02:07 PM 7/5/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Hey DKM,
>I heard a vaguely paranoid article on the local NPR affiliate today that has
>added several new, low grade worries to my already over burdened Paxil.
>Anyway, I wont get into specifics but will say that it touched on some
>aspects of the United States involvement as a mere "team member" in these
>bigger orgs and some of the darker, more conspiratorial things that happen
>and that US military personnel are not to keen on. Stuff like incompetent
>foreign commanders sending troops into 'peace keeping' forays with empty
>weapons, etc...
>
>So I got to wondering if you had specific feelings of your own on this
>topic, considering the role that the UN plays in your masterpieces. Was the
>UN just a plot vehicle for you, or does the direction the planet has taken
>with the WTO, UN and EU trouble you?
>-dnix
>____________________________
>continuing-time mailing list
>continuing-time at ralf.org
>http://www.ralf.org/mailman/listinfo/continuing-time
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