[nukkad] Global parasites

["A.Shrivastava" <justforkix25@yahoo.com>]

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" Global parasites" - Can u guess who this title
alludes to. Forwarding excerpts from the book by Winin
Periera and Jeremy Seabrook. 
Comments views are welcome.
A.Shrivastava 


"For a society to command universal assent, it should
itself be socially just capable of providing all its
claimed benefits to the global population, equitably
and for an indefinite period of time"

" The basic question is  'Can all the people of the
earth attain levels of consumption similar to those
prevailing in the west, without swiftly exhausting
non-renewable resources or polluting the environment
beyond its capacity to absorb water'. Even the most
vigourous defenders of the existing order would agree
that such a happy state is not attainable".

" A new industrial culture emerged referred to as the
consumer society, as though consuming were the highest
activity to which human beings can aspire to. This
process cannot be replicated even if it were desirable
is plain for all to see."

" Insistence on their non negotiable standard of
living can only translate into continuing and
increasing injustice elsewhere "

Myth of free trade
" The implementation of free market ideology has been
always at odds with its high theoretical principles.
The colonists destroyed existing patterns of answering
needs in traditional cultures, installed a brutal
caricature of their free market dogmas and called it a
civilising mission. "

Slavery
" Cheap exploited, labour was another pillar on which
the west built its affluence"

"With the decimation of the native americans a new
labour force needed to be created ... The people from
the west coast of africa satisfied the requirements of
being dark force living outside the "norms of
civilisation". Slave labour was one essential factor
in the success of the industrial revolution"

".. justification that Europeans still use for their
invasions and occupation is that America was a vast
and empty land waiting for some one to colonise..."

" The indigenous people who inhabited the americas
around 1490 are estimated to have numbered anywhere
from 75 to 100 million. 90% of them were wiped out in
a century and half"

" The largest genocide in the history of the planet
was the result of the greatest expansion of the
white."

The use of extracted capital
"The increased availability of capital for investment
in Europe resulted in a lowering of interests rates
from 10% before Columbus to as low as 3% after.
Significant amounts were invested in any venture, no
matter how risky, which promised high yields. "

" As money breeds money technology breeds technology"

"By the 1840s, the annual surplus for investment
reached around 60 million pounds, which was almost
double the estimated total capital value of the cotton
industry in the mid-1830s. This massive accumulated
capital financed the second phase of industrial
revolution .... which was dominated by industries such
as steel and railways"

" If labour in the two-thirds world is paid what
labour in the west is paid, the advantage vanishes.
There will only be justice when a tea-picker in assam
is paid as much as the tea-drinker in  london. This
can never happen because then few in London would be
able to afford to drink tea.... Globalisation forces
all countries to allow free import of the West's
consumptive society but does not apply to the
globalisation of wages. The workers in export-oriented
industry and agriculture are all effectively slaving
to increase the affluence of the west by their forced
acceptance of low wages."

" The Uruguay Round of GATT discussions was launched
when Western economies were suffering from the
recession of 1980-81, with no sign of recovery. A
recession in a closed economy should normally spiral
down to a depression as lower sales lead to less
production and unemployment, resulting in still lower
purchasing power.
This trend can be reversed by pumping government funds
into the economy which, however produces inflation.
The preferred method of escaping recession is by
increasing sales to others outside the system, usually
tranferring the recession to them. In practise, it
means forcing the two-thirds world to increase its
imports of the west's products and services, in
preference to manufacturing its own."





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