Under the flag of charity many type of loads go overseas.
Is the prime goal of globalization and sweatshops bringing a higher quality of life?
Has corporate responsibility anything to do with it?
We can use statistics to prove what we want to prove.
Maybe we feel more comfortable when people become numbers, and inequality is shown in indexes and maps.
Looking to the numbers and the maps, makes us being involved and concerned (!), giving a better feeling?
But the map is not the territory, and the numbers are just prints on paper or pixels on a screen.
There - on the field - hunger and starvation is still the shameful beating reality.
1 comment:
There is no doubt that globalisation in terms of international trade is a good thing. The economic concept of the gains of trade through comparative advantage demonstrates this.
However, at one of my presentations at Macquarie University, I outlined two particular problems with globalisation.
(i) The inherit disadvantage of the bargaining power of under-developed country when establishing bilateral and particularly multilateral agreements. This means that 'western' values are typically used as the basis for establishing international trade relationships (similar to how English became the de-facto business language simply because of historic reasons, not because it was necessarily the best choice).
and (ii) The greater power of transnational corporations and their influence over communities. This is similar to the question of corporate social responsibility. To enable this responsibility, it would make sense to require greater disclosure and transparency of these corporations on an international basis and internalising the externality of the welfare of the communities the company relies on for production.
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