Centrepiece: Globalisation - the next fallacy

You can't pass by any one these days without hearing someone talk about globalisation or the WTO as though they are experts on the subject. Who knows? Maybe they are, but most likely they are not. But then tell me who is an expert on globalisation? To answer this question, we must first ask, "What is globalisation?"

Globalisation is simply the ability to expand a business model globally utilising a set structure repeated worldwide using global resources to best secure this model. Here economies of scale and allocating the best source of raw materials/labour make this possible.

OK! Now who has mastered this and why? The obvious answer is the U.S. unlike any other country, the U.S. had been fortunate in having a relatively weaker neighbours, and thus could maximise its local resources without having to worry about wars. It also made sure that its markets were well trained to accept what it made.

The advent of immigration to the U.S. helped make them it of the greatest recipients of brain power not only in the scientific sense but socially and commercially. Thus, banks, corporations and legislation together gave rise to the best and most efficient economies of scale within a continuous mass of land that not even Europe could compete with.

Europe sought to aspire to the same success by creating new sources of materials and labour through colonisation, but because these people were treated as slaves rather than a part of the empire, they fought back. This severely hindered commercial growth for the Europeans.

When the massive corporations conquered the U.S. as a market, they sought new markets for their goods and services but rather than subjugate the local population, they utilised the local governments to do the job.

To ensure that these companies grew, the U.S. government took a beautiful idea that Maynard Keynes, a liberal economist genius dreamt of, called the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its sister concern (the World Bank) - and made these two social tools into a capitalistic tool to spread the doctrine of "Free Market" economy.

What they failed to explain to the recipients of these loans was the "free" in the free market was not available for them, just for the lenders.

Thus, the seed of colonisation was set in place and the IMF did its best to ensure that it germinated properly in the host country's soil. The IMF, by its own admittance, states that a majority of its projects were failures. The question that needs to be asked is, "why?"

The answer is quite simple. If you take an idea and apply it partially, you will not get the results that you want. When the IMF was set up as an idea, the basic principal was that the borrowing nations would take the money received and infuse it into the local economy and industry to create economical benefit for the local economy.

Doing so, the country would prosper through fiscal spending and the country could then pay off its debts. This meant that the lender country would get back its money, the borrowing country could revive its economy and everyone would prosper.

But you see, the IMF set out to put down policies that borrowing nations could not meet either due to the restrictions put on them or because the local government, rife with corruption, could not fulfill.

So now ask me why does the IMF fail in most of what it does and I will simply reply with, "who says that it failed?" There is a new colonisation happening, but on a larger scale and with most people (Americans included) are not aware of it.

There is a small block of people whose benefit is to dupe the world into believing that that there are rich and poor nations and that's the way it will always be. No! There are rich and poor people.

It doesn't matter where they are or what religion they adhere to because they all adhere to one goal - greed. Proof positive that this is the case is what we saw in the last few months in the corporate playground.

These people did conspire to hurt others because they do not see others as humans. When you hear of 5,000 or 20,000 people being made redundant, it is not just in poor countries, but in rich ones as well.

This is done not because companies need to save a few dollars here and there or that other fallacy that states the CEOs care for the shareholder's interest only. They do not care and have never cared for what their investors think.

They care that they line their pockets with as much money as possible. Globalisation is the best way of doing so. By getting rid of jobs in one place and replace it with the same number of jobs but in another country, they send a strong signal to their workers that they will be replaced if they ask for anything more than the bare minimum.

Now, I don't mean to be unfair and cast the net over all CEOs as there are some who are people of substance and commitment. These people should be honored for their honesty and care.
Unfortunately as the Arabic saying goes, "Good is limited to those who do it whilst evil covers all."

Thus CEOs and lawyers and accountants and government officials who are honest, caring and committed to truth, justice and their people will always be lumped with those who do just the opposite.

This world is indeed getting smaller and people are connecting more. However, at the same time, people are cocooning themselves more either in their workspace, car or home.

We don't feel the pains that others feel and after a while we don't care. Globalisation could be the best thing that has ever happened to mankind if properly used. But for this to happen, we must start caring about one another and reach out to one another.

Economics, politics and social needs are not independent from one another. Rather, they are closely interdependent on one another. We owe it to our children to give them a better world than that we came into not worse. We owe it to our parents who struggled to give us hope.

More importantly, we owe it to children to give them a better world than that we came into not worse. We owe it to our parents who struggled to give us hope. More importantly, we owe it to ourselves.