Ted Trainer: The Way It Could Be.
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All this is sociologically appalling. Great damage is being done to social cohesion, public spirit, trust, concern for the underdog, good will and concern for the public interest. You cannot have a satisfactory society made up of competitive, self-interested individuals all trying to get as rich as possible! In a satisfactory society there must be considerable concern for the public good and the welfare of all, and there must be considerable collective social control and regulation and service provision, to make sure all are looked after, to maintain public institutions and standards, and to reinforce the sense of social solidarity whereby all are willing to contribute to the good of all.
The economic historian Polanyi stressed how misguided it is for a society to allow the market to be as dominant as it is in our society. (Dalton, 1968) No society previous to ours has done this. Polanyi insisted that unless market forces are under tight social control they will destroy society and its ecosystems. Everything will be open to sale for maximum profit.
Globalisation
We have entered a period in which all these problems are rapidly deteriorating, because of the globalisation of the economy. The big corporations and banks are now pushing through a massive restructuring of the global economy, the development of a unified and de-regulated system in which they are sweeping away the controls previously hindering their access to increased business opportunities, markets, resources and cheap labour. The supreme, sacred principle now is to "free market forces". Consequently the pressure is on governments to remove the protection, tariffs and controls which they once used to manage, regulate, stimulate and protect their economies and to guide development. Government enterprises are being sold to private corporations. Government services are being cut. Corporations are paying little tax. These changes are enabling the transnational corporations to come in and take more of the businesses, resources and markets local people once had, and to gear "development" to whatever suits them rather than to what is needed by most people.
The now heavily documented consequences are devastating the lives of millions of people, especially in the Third World. Globalisation is eliminating the arrangements which used to ensure that many little people could sell and work and trade, and that local resources such as land would produce things they need. Now the corporations are able to take over those opportunities to increase their sales. Globalisation is basically a gigantic takeover of economic wealth by the big corporations and banks. (For much evidence on the damaging effects of globalisation see Note 5.)
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