International competitiveness has become a god to which world leaders genuflect, an attitude that has to be challenged at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
This view was expressed at a commission on alternative economic models and development strategies at the Global People’s Forum at Nasrec this week.
Colin Heinz of the Group for Environmental Monitoring (GEM) said that rather than just oppose, groups have to propose alternatives. “With the global economy doing so badly, the time is right to replace corporate globalisation.”
He called for globalisation to be replaced by “localisation” — the protection of local economies in the nation state.
Heinz predicted that at the heads of state process at the Sandton Convention Centre a mantra of “trade, trade, trade” would be preached because a “workshop of international competitiveness is taking place”.
“It’s now a global religion, the god of today.”
Heinz’s view, however, is that the anticipated trickle-down effect from world trade is not taking place and is not going to take place.
He says rich nations are preaching the reduction of protective barriers to grab markets and this is causing widespread joblessness. Wages go down and companies are making profits on the back of the new slogan of the world — international competitiveness.
“The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation can hardly get three or four sentences out without genuflecting to the new god — international competitiveness. They all say you have to privatise to be internationally competitive. Today we are seeing the results of this,” says Heinz.
He proposes a new model that will take into account the basic needs of people while protecting the environment. It is based on the following:
- Reintroduction of tariff trade barriers;
- Control over the movements of corporations or multinationals;
- Penalties for multinationals that don’t play the game;
- Stopping the haemorrhaging of money. If money stays in one country, localisation can take place. This way the environment can be saved too;
- Greater cooperation between rich and poor countries under localisation;
- Maximisation of local production. Long-distance trade should be about the search for products that your own country does not have;
- A guaranteed link between countries — where there is a guaranteed market and little competitiveness.