5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Globalization as seen from the bottom in Mexico, October 7, 2003
This review is from: Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico (Paperback)
A Review:
Confronting Globalization:
Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico
Wise, Timothy A., Salazar, Hilda, Carlsen, Laura eds., 248 pages (paper),
Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, CT 2003
....)
Globalization and trade policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have had disastrous effects on Mexican communities Confronting Globalization is about what some of these communities are doing at the grass-roots political level to defend themselves. The setting is contemporary Mexico. This book provokes discussion of the lessons of the social and environmental costs of the NAFTA. The editors have gathered the real stories of real communities and the community members organized to address conflicts. The book ends with thoughtful guidance for us to ponder as corporations and governments sally along with new hemispheric-wide economic agreements. This kind of guidance is very rare these days as most of us hunt for workable paradigms to guide social justice actions in the future.
The basic premise of the book is that increased trade and investment result from reduced barriers, but these should not be an end in themselves. National governments should go further than global economic integration and judiciously use the fruits of free trade as a means toward an end of improving their own society, environment, and economies. This book not only shows how communities and local democracy have been weakened by globalization, but lessons are examined and recommendations are offered as important considerations for future agreements. The promise that globalization can strengthen us all has proved hollow, and here we see how and why it has failed - and we can see what must be different in our immediate tomorrows.
The editors use nine case studies of actual communities that have been impacted by neo-liberal trade policies. The setting of this book is stories of how these communities are defending themselves from the onslaught of corporate power and stories of how laws have weakened the national ability to protect the people of a country. Locally-based alternative policies can be viable alternatives but they must be protected and nurtured by national and international agreements.
With a focus on environmental, labor, and agricultural issues the book documents how the past ten years of free trade have resulted in an exclusive focus on corporate profits. This book shows how, with detailed citations, these agreements result in a weakening of democratic government, deterioration of the environment, and declining labor conditions. For example, the authors document how rural Mexico, heavily dependent on small-scale agriculture, is in crisis. Grain imports from the United States and reduced supports to small farmers have resulted in four-fifths of the rural Mexican population living in poverty, and half of those people live in extreme poverty. Small farmers just can't compete on such unequal terms. Is this free trade? Who benefits? Who loses?
These authors do an excellent job of supporting their thesis with facts that are annotated. For example, the editors of Confronting Globalization document how Mexican per capita growth was 3.4% from 1960 to 1980. Since 1985 Mexican per capita real growth has been just 1%. Job creation in Mexico does not nearly keep up with the increase of the population. New workers are entering the economy faster than jobs are being created. Manufacturing has seen a net loss of jobs since NAFTA took effect. NAFTA critics predicted American jobs would migrate to Mexico. Some did. But the jobs created in Mexico are not good jobs - manufacturing wages are down 12% under NAFTA, and about 60% of the Mexican workers do not receive any of the benefits legally mandated by their government.
How can this increasing impoverishment of our neighbor be good for the United States? Who gains from international trade agreements and who are the real losers? Read this book and you will come away with a solid grounding in the basic lessons of free trade. Talk of globalization usually means talk of economic conditions, but costs to the environment, agriculture, and worker well-being are ignored. States must include these sectors when considering future agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
The student of global trade agreements will be familiar with challenges of national pressures as the regions struggle to integrate. There are many articles and books about trade agreements of the 20th and 21st Centuries but documentation of how these changes have impacted contemporary Mexican civil society, and in turn our society, are not common. Confronting Globalization is important because these stories detail how communities have responded at the grassroots level with a wide diversity of social responses. It should be required reading for the university-level scholar, the politicians who create trade policy, and social activists who seek to ameliorate the harm caused by globalization. The clearly delineated recommendations are essential considerations for future action.
2003-08-15
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pondering labor, agricultural, & environmental issues, September 18, 2003
This review is from: Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico (Paperback)
Collaboratively compiled and edited by Timothy A. Wise, Hilda Salazar and Laura Carlsen, Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration And Popular Resistance In Mexico presents informed and informative essays from a variety of expert contributors pondering diverse labor, agricultural, and environmental issues within the context of contemporary globalization. Looking at the social and environmental costs that globalization extracts upon Mexico's land and people; exploring grassroots searches for alternate paths; and ranging from sweatshop workers' struggles for basic labor rights to the efforts of corn farmers to keep the influx imported grain from forcing them off their land, Confronting Globalization is very highly recommended reading for students of international economics, social activists, and governmental trade policy makers.
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