| Globalization and Equity: A Brief Critical Analysis
Dr. José Luis
Rodríquez García, Minister of Economy and Planning, Vice-President of the
Council of Ministers of Cuba
This panel has the responsibility to deal
with the theme of globalization and equity, certainly one of the most transcendent and
defining issues at present for the future of our peoples. Unfortunately we find ourselves
facing terminology that reflects profound contradictions, since it is not precisely equity
that characterizes the present globalization with its neo-liberal features, the
contemporary expression of the internationalization of production associated with highly
developed capitalism.
Certainly globalization in what has been
called its third stage is sustained by significant advances in communications and
information technology, which potentially offer broad possibilities for development.
However, the benefits of this process
supposes an equitable participation in the scientific_technical advances that make it
possible, equity being understood as access at equal conditions to which all are entitled
in accordance with universal norms of social justice.
Such premises are not present today and we
would say that historically the modern concept of equity has not developed in that
direction.
Starting from the liberal theses of Adam
Smith, who conceived of the free play of market forces as the ideal that made the pursuit
of individual interest compatible with the greater good of society, we have witnessed the
raising of self-interest to a social virtue, making equity as conceived within the
framework of the market the dubious equivalent of equality.
It was the utopian socialists first, and
later the Marxists, who criticized this conception of equity, arriving at the conclusion
that it is necessary to achieve a new form of social organization if a truly equitable
world is to be created.
One hundred and fifty years later, the
principles of equity and social justice put forward by socialist thought have been
steadily advancing in the consciousness of humanity, and are being impelled by the
globalization of solidarity in opposition to neo-liberal globalization.
This debate has not been confined to the
national aspect.
The debate about equity internationally has
a more recent history, but is no less discordant.
After the colonial division of the world
and the two world wars, the interests of capitalist development itself presented the
necessity to replace the use of force as the means of domination. The liberation of the
former colonies and the new mechanisms of neo-colonial subjugation that followed made more
obvious than ever before the inequality in the exercise of the right to development, and
the inequality of the existing international economic order.
The experience of the post-war period
showed that while capitalism may be able to provide economic growth, it did not guarantee
equitable access to the product of this economic growth and much less adequate social
development.
The international debate on these themes
advanced in all earnest with the accelerated trade of the 1960's and 1970's that
highlighted the now little mentioned phenomenon of the unequal terms of trade and the
necessity to promote a new and more just economic order.
The expansion of the international
financial flows and their contradictory development in the 1980's were strongly manifested
in the external debt crisis and the debates that accompanied it, today buried under
speculative finance capital's apparently infinite capacity for movement, with its short
term solutions that have done nothing but exacerbated the problem of the Third World's
growing indebtedness, a subject that they have tried to ignore even in the most recent
financial conferences.
A marked regression left the debate on
these themes unfinished, as a strong neo-liberal counteroffensive accompanied the growing
globalization of economic activity.
This counteroffensive was reinforced at the
beginning of the 1990's when the disappearance of the socialist camp radically changed the
ratio of forces in the world, weakening the negotiating capacity of the South in the face
of the North, as well as the measures aimed at limiting the negative tendencies of the
world economy operating against the countries of the Third World.
These measures are now reduced to an
international collaboration with the countries with a lower relative development, in line
with the neo-liberal notion of only redistributing resources to the most extremely
impoverished sectors at the national level.
Trade liberalization does not include the
products in which the underdeveloped countries have comparative advantages, but does open
those previously protected in some way from the unequal competition of the transnational
enterprises and their highly competitive production. As a result, massive resources are
presently being lost in the Third World.
The liberalization of finance favours great
flights of capital from the developing countries, and enormous fortunes, often the product
of speculation and governmental negligence, are transferred with impunity to the banking
entities of the central countries, which use them to their benefit.
In this context there is a marked tendency
toward ever decreasing official support for development as countries attempt to replace it
with yet non-existent benefits of liberalized trade.
The economic role of the nation-states is
being dismantled on the basis of neo-liberal policies. This has great consequences in at
least two main directions.
On the one hand, it eliminates the capacity
to promote development in the national framework, abandoning this development to the free
play of market forces.
For this purpose, the de-nationalization of
all state properties of interest to the transnationals is being promoted via a
privatization process that is estimated to have attracted more than 50% of the direct
state investment in Latin America during the 1990's.
This process even includes basic social
services, which turn into commodities, marginalized from the social necessities they
should fulfil.
On the other hand, the states' loss of
capacity impedes them from developing the necessary governability to control the elements
of the international economy to which the national economic spaces are increasingly tying
themselves.
Tendencies are evident toward the
substitution of third-worldist patterns of economic integration with hegemonic projects of
obvious annexationist inspiration like the FTAA, and utterly undemocratic multilateral
accords like those that have been debated in the context of the World Trade Organization
concerning foreign investment and services.
The neo-liberal globalization we are
witnessing brings with it an enormous concentration of property which, by its very nature,
impedes equitable access to the benefits of economic growth.
The consequences are in sight.
First of all, the gap between the rich and
poor is growing within the national space and between nations.
According to CEPAL, the index of poverty in
Latin America rose from 41% in 1990 to 45% in 2000, while in the world 1.2 billion people
live in conditions of extreme poverty. In addition, the index of inequality of per capita
income in Latin America went from .51 in 1950 to .70 in 1998, and according to the Human
Development Report 2000, the richest 20% of the population has an income almost 19 times
that of the poorest 20%.
Furthermore, the difference in income
between the poor countries and the richest ones rose from 37 times in 1960 to 74 times at
present.
Above all, these inequalities arise from
the precariousness of employment with which to earn the means of subsistence. Thus, in
Latin America 47% of workers are part of the informal sector and the urban unemployment
level rose from 6.2% in 1980 to 8.4% in 2001.
The quality of life has deteriorated
significantly as a result of these inequalities.
Thus, there are 854 million illiterate
adults in the world, a figure that includes 11.7% of the population in Latin America. As
well, the infant mortality rate for children under one year old per thousand live births
was 55 world wide and 32 in Latin America.
No less serious are the consequences of the
unequal terms of trade, which annually translates into losses of $100 billion for the
developing countries.
The external debt has had very negative
repercussions, especially in our region.
It climbed from $461 billion in 1991 to
about $725 billion in 2001. About $913 billion were paid to service it just between 1992
and 1999. Debt servicing now consumes 54% of the region's income from exports.
On the other hand, if now developed
countries could apply an inverse program to make way for development, more entrenched
property rights and the increasing technological gap would mean that, for underdeveloped
countries, expenditures for are out of all proportion to their economic capacity,
affecting even matters so sensitive as access to life-saving medicines.
Likewise, the great effort countries of the
Third World make to prepare hundreds of thousands of professionals and scientists are lost
when they emigrate to developed countries on the basis of the discriminatory migration
policies being applied by the latter. All this represents a loss of no less than $50
billion a year.
As a result of growing concern by
international public opinion about these problems, international commitments to benefit
some of the most urgent issues have been promoted in meetings like the Summit on Childhood
(1990), the Earth Summit (1992), the World Summit on Social Development (1995), the World
Summit on Food (1996), and the Millennium Summit (2000).
Perhaps the goals adopted by the countries
at the United Nation's Millennium Summit constitute the most complete expression of this
renewed consciousness about the contradictions the process of globalization engenders, and
the need for a new period of international co-operation for development. In the Millennium
Declaration the commitment was made to reduce the level of poverty by 50% by 2015,
together with other goals no less just, although difficult to achieve in today's world.
For their part, the rich countries made commitments to increase official aid for
development, broaden access to their markets and ease the strangulation caused by the
foreign debt.
As such, it is not surprising that the
International Conference on Financing for Development held in Monterrey, Mexico in March
2002 would raise so many expectations. Among other questions, it should have served to
concretize the commitments of the developed countries with respect to the agreed upon
goals. However, the commitments made were disappointing with respect to aid, and other
themes were absent since there were very few effective statements, while conditions
harmful to the countries' national sovereignty were placed on aid.
To sum up, as occurred with previous
forums, the promised funds do not cover minimum expectations and threaten to eliminate the
possibilities of achieving the goals agreed upon in the Millennium Declaration.
In the face of the lack of effective
proposals to alleviate the permanent crisis provoked by the mechanisms of external
indebtedness in the Third World, and the humiliating conditions attached, the position of
Cuba was clearly expressed in the words of its President when he said, "...The
consensus project that the masters of this world are imposing upon us at this conference
is that we resign ourselves to a humiliating, conditional and interventionist
handout."
From Neo-liberal Globalization to
the Globalization of Solidarity
Neo-liberal globalization has tried to
transform social services into property subject to market transactions, convert citizens
into consumers and treat inalienable necessities as demand.
For Cuba, health, education, employment,
housing, social security and assistance, and access to basic food, are fundamental rights
of all citizens, who exercise them by means of a system that provides them free and
universal access. The Cuban experience demonstrates that a system like that is possible
even with relatively modest economic resources and that alternatives do exist to the
inequity neo-liberal globalization engenders.
In the last three years, Cuba has continued
to improve its social model in the midst of significant economic difficulties.
Education and culture are being developed
as essential elements for the formation of the human capital that will make it possible to
join the knowledge based economy.
Audio-visual instruction is being developed
with extensive use of television and videos in all the schools and daycare centres, with
electrification guaranteed in all cases; through the training of new teachers, the
teacher/students ratio is primary schools has been reduced to 1/20; computer education is
becoming wide-spread with computers being introduced at all levels, together with the
creation of computer clubs for youths; an educational television channel is being created
and university disciplines are carried through this medium; artistic education is
expanding with schools for art and plastic arts instructors; sports education is being
developed from secondary level to university; university courses through remote
communications are developed in every municipality, mobilizing those most qualified from
the workforce as instructors.
The education indicators are notable, with
.2% adult illiteracy; primary schooling at 100% and secondary at 99.7%; the
teacher/population ratio is only 1/43; and the quality of education has reached the
highest indices for the region in language and mathematics in third and fourth grade.
Neo-liberal globalization is trying to turn
ever more of the labour force into a variable cost for capital, throwing thousands of
workers onto the street during the periods of economic downturn. In these conditions,
formal employment is reduced and informal employment is offered as the alternative.
A decent job has become an urgent demand in
the conditions created by the so-called economic reforms in Latin America.
When Cuba had to confront the contraction
of employment in the 1990's, the first measures taken were to guarantee adequate
protection of the workers, and not so-called flexibility of the workforce.
The necessary restructuring that took place
was brought about gradually and in an orderly manner, ensuring the reemployment of the
workers as the economy recovered and demand for labour increased.
With respect to labour policy, concepts
were applied that started from the fact it is possible to find useful employment for every
citizen, and that it is reasonable and socially desirable to involve in study the youth
not linked to school or work, as an alternative form of employment.
More than 80,000 youths in Cuba take such
general upgrading courses, at the same time as new jobs in urban ecological agriculture
and in basic social services are being created.
This has led to a decrease of the
unemployment rate to 4.1% in 2001, down from 8.0% in 1995.
On the other hand, a broad movement of
personalized social assistance has developed by means of young social workers, which
guarantees that no person is unprotected in our society. With this, it is guaranteed that
the circumstances of each citizen with one or various basic unfulfilled needs can be
individually known and taken care of with sensitivity, according to the urgency of their
problems.
This objective compliments other programs
that include a system of universal social security and attention to the most vulnerable
strata of the population.
To express the principles of solidarity, in
the international sphere the Comprehensive Health Program has been developed and provides
medical aid to 18 countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa via more than 2,600
specialists. Together with it, the Latin American School of Medicine, where 5,853 students
from 24 countries including the United States study free of charge, was created.
There is also the International School of
Physical Education and Sports, with students from 62 countries of the Third World.
In addition to this, some 11,400 foreign
scholarship students study in various learning institutions.
Having achieved an infant mortality rate of
6.2 per thousand live births; one medical doctor per 169 inhabitants and one internal
medicine specialist per 1,123 inhabitants; and a life expectancy of 76 years, the results
of public health in Cuba make possible the sharing of valuable experiences with the other
countries.
We see that these ideals are met with scorn
by those who try to convince us that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
These are not strange ideas divorced from
the highest aspirations and the best ethical and humanist tradition of universal thought.
They are the ideas of equity and social
justice with which our people identifies and for which they have been fighting for more
than forty years, convinced that a better world is indeed possible.
(Presented at the 29th Session of the
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), Brasilia, Brazil, May
6-10, 2002)
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September/2003 |
