WTO agreement: Will it boost the world economy?

I was reading an old post on the BBC with the same title : LINK

 

Here is an excerpt where I believe I have a personal connection:

"It is ironic that the "multi-nationals" have provided the kind of world whereby Zafar Almas, from Pakistan, can express himself to me here in the US ... the telephone, the computer (with all its technical components), the internet, the video screen ... the list goes on and on. Like all his kind, they want the best of what we have invented and made available, but do not wish to participate in, encourage or take responsibility for promoting the very culture that encourages such innovations! I'd wager that there is much latent talent and brilliance in Pakistan just bursting to get out, if only the Luddites and the primitive thinking of the cultural institutions in developing countries let freedom rip! In the end, you'll understand ... in the meantime, just keep buying our stuff!
Mark M. Newdick, US/UK

As usual, we have extraordinarily comments about global trade, this time from Mark M Newdick. Leaving aside the problems of the Western view of development being necessarily 'good', the thesis that 'innovation' produces profit is extremely flawed. In the West, we see that much low-paid, physically demanding (and frequently dangerous) manual work in production has given way to work in management and service sectors. But the production work is still done - usually in poor countries for offensively low wages as corporations seek to reduce production costs. The WTO and IMF help to stifle competition from poor nations by forcing them to adhere to free trade agreements (no subsidies or trade barriers, goods produced solely for export), while the West frequently ignores these rules. Nobody subsidises rice more heavily than the US, and each economic downturn is met by embargos on imports to help domestic products. So Mark M Newdick, the wealth that you enjoy relies more on the US breaking free trade agreements and exploiting workers in poor countries than all of those high-minded notions about cultural freedom and good-ol' US innovation.
Paul R, Wales "

I wish I could respond (post my own comments) on the now closed article... I cannot, but I can respond here!

 

I suspect that I personally know this particular Mark Newdick and if he is the man I know,  he is a man with a particular history that likely provides him with more accurate and meaningful insight than Paul.

The Mark I know is from England and now lives in the USA; he volunteered (or was hired) as a accountant related to the international efforts to build desalinization plants in Africa. The world is full of wealthy countries and compassionate people who seek to help developing countries. The USA's contribution efforts are unmatched anywhere in the world. The idea that Western nations are the major corrupting influence is ridiculous. Consider who paid (funded) the building of the desalinization plants. The reasoning can be conveyed simply with this proverb:

"You can give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, or you teach him to fish and he can eat for life."

Paul seems to think that the poverty suffered by the people living in developing countries around the world is due to the gluttony of the United States and/or to other Western Civilization Nations and their respective citizens along with some scheming plot to dump menial,  low-wage jobs into poor nations. That's how it works isn't it? Another nation has a positive environment for building the overall standard of living for all its citizens and then Evil Western nations con them into unfair trade agreements, block each country's respective production, and forces them to do our menial, low-wage jobs. does that make sense to you?

 

Paul should know that Mark is one of those idealistic persons that imagined helping setup desalinization plants to bring self-sufficiency and prosperity to these nations; he imagined water irrigating dry soil, new farming jobs, and large-scale agricultural production being established to,  "teach the people to fish and eat for life." He arrived in Africa where local politicians smiled and greeted these ostensibly "Evil Westerners". He watched their public handshaking as cameras flashed for the media. Billions of dollars were poured into poor nations via the graciousness of Western nations, Western businesses, and Western citizens. There has never been and there is not likely ever going to be an expectation from Western nations that they receive a profit on the overall support they have given. Any "paybacks" that have been received are a fraction of what has been given. It is not corruption to give with rules under these circumstances. Oh... but why are there these rules?

 

Mark continued to watch as the media and foreign politicians left their photo-op. He watched as local warlords (thugs with guns) drove up in various vehicles armed with AK47s and small armies of troops. He watched as the politicians publicly claiming to help their people greeted these thugs, and, over-time, discovered how the funds for aid were used to fund diamond and drug trafficking. He watched as the shipments of food and medicine (supplied by various international - mostly Western - aid organizations)  arrived for the poor. The food and medicine - most often - did not get delivered to the poor and suffering, it was carted off to the warlords who used it to influence, oppress and control the local citizens.

 

Handling all the logistics necessary for desalinization is no small task. Mark watched as huge rubber tanks holding thousands of gallons of water were air-dropped into remote areas. These rubber tanks are expensive. He watched as warlords drove up to intercept the airdrop, were they punched holes into the tanks to fill a few 55 gallon drums. The tanks were ruined, the water wasted, and the people dependent on it: in trouble.

 

This venture occurred during the 1980s and this article highlights that nothing has changed: Failed Water Plants; although, one should take note that the article points fingers in the wrong direction. No wonder Paul doesn't understand: too many media sources are not interested in truth anymore. My sister travels to Africa often. She just climbed Mount Kilamanjaro a few months ago. If you read the article, then you know that foreign aid amounts to a whopping 1/3 of the income in Tanzania. The failed plant was not due to Western corruption, its due to local corruption. This local corruption been going on so long that many nations are demanding rules or they will cutoff support.

 

Mark knows there is a consistency in the world where the higher the corruption, the more impoverished its people. Corruption exists everywhere, but its highest in poor nations - and that is why they are poor. When Warlords storm the supply depots for the desalinization plants and take critical supplies, when they take food and medicine, when they murder their own citizens, when they divert funds intended for aid to diamond and drug traffickers and to purchase weapons, when they do these things, they are killing their people and they are making their country poor, and they make the dreamy, idealistic notion of helping them seem far beyond reach.

 

Western nations do have their own corruption, but it is not the gluttony of Western nations nor the result of international trade agreements that is making poor nations poor. It is the local corruption and the local policies of the respective nations that is the root cause, not the subsidies of US rice farmers.