The Hindu Business Line : Globalisation blues

THE International Labour Organisation (ILO) is the latest to join in the agonisation that nowadays invariably accompanies the very mention of globalisation. The credit or the opposite for this must go to the tens of thousands of demonstrators storming every meet of the IMF and the World Bank and of the G-8 (with the co-opted Russia) starting from the Battle for Seattle. The commotion they created about the inequities of globalisation made national governments, international institutions and academics sit up and have a hard look. There were doubters, but none among them dared cast the first stone.

That honour goes to the Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who quit the World Bank rather than be an accomplice to its blind support for globalisation and came out with a book on its dark side. Thereafter, the topic became fair game for everyone who had the time to spend seminaring and pontificating on the subject. It was just a matter of time before the ILO also succumbed to the itch to do some grandstanding of its own. This it did by means of a Commission which laboured hard for more than a year at considerable expense and energy which could have been better spent and produced a rather undersize mouse of a report repeating all the old chestnuts.

Here, taste a few: "Global governance is in crisis...We are at a critical juncture and we need urgently to rethink our current policies and institutions. The economy is becoming increasingly global, while social and political institutions remain largely local, national or regional...Wisely managed, (globalisation) can deliver unprecedented material progress, generate more productive and better jobs for all, and contribute significantly to reducing world poverty...Wealth is being created, but too many countries and people are not sharing its benefits."

So, what is the solution? The ILO has nothing to offer but toil, tears, sweat and blood in the form of conflict, social turbulence, political upheaval and war unless world leaders address the "ethical vacuum" at the heart of globalisation and narrow the gap between rich and poor.

And how do they do it? By summoning the non-existent political will to change the current path of globalisation, tackling the skewed rules of global trade which shut exports from some of the poorest countries out of rich countries' markets, promoting a minimum level of social protection worldwide and finding more aid money to finance the UN's ambitious millennium development aim to halve global poverty by 2015. For good measure, they should also take cudgels against gender discrimination, child labour and environmental degradation wherever they occur.

Phew!

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