Racism In Anti-Globalism?

27 Aug, 2002 by John Hawkins

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Racism In Anti-Globalism?: After reading some moronic quotes from environmentalist whacko Gar Smith who thinks electricity is a bad thing while poverty isn’t, one of our readers had this to say in our comment section…

“As an citizen of a poor country (India), I am appalled by this joker’s statements. I’m surprised that this guy can get anyone to listen to his racist rantings. Yes, racist. I’m not a big fan of the “racist” argument, but what else am I supposed to call this – “all those poor brown and black people – we know what’s best for them – look at the nobility of their poverty – now, if only we could get them to stop breeding so much”. Using a foot-pedal sewing machine to mend clothing is not culture, it’s poverty. Now, listen up you pinko morons – we’re going to the mall to buy the latest earth-destroying, electricity-hogging do-hickey – and God help those who get in our way.

Posted by Girish Maiya at August 27, 2002 05:17 PM”

You know I’ve often wondered how big of a factor racism plays in the anti-globalism movement. They claim to want to help poor people in third world countries and indeed they do support giving them more money and forgiving loans.

However, it’s obvious that the world’s most prosperous nations can’t/won’t be able to give the world’s poorest nations enough money to pull themselves out of poverty. That means these nations desperately need to attract foreign businesses and investment if they’re ever going to escape destitution. But the anti-globalism crowd opposes this and says it’s exploitation. Well obviously that doesn’t wash if you know anything about economics. There are no economically successful nations that don’t import and export large amounts of goods and that don’t encourage foreign investment. So if it’s good enough for nations like the US, Japan, and Britain, why don’t these anti-globalist protestors thinks it’s good enough for Nigeria, Malawi, and Mozambique?

Then there are two other false beliefs that many anti-globalists seem to share. That the world’s economy is a zero-sum game (i.e there is only so much money in the world and if one person gets richer another must get poorer) and that the level of growth of the planet currently is “unsustainable” (Gar Smith mentioned this one for example).

Well if you’re a Westerner and you believe both of those things to be the case doesn’t it follow that you wouldn’t want the Third World to become industrialized and prosperous? That’s because if Africa becomes prosperous, you would probably believe that YOUR nation would have get poorer. Also, if the Third World industrialized you would belive that we’d run out of resources much, much, faster. In fact, a lot of anti-globalists probably believe an Africa that was as developed and prosperous as the US would poison the global environment and would lead to a speedy demise for the planet.

So I ask you, do the anti-globalists really want to see a prosperous Africa or do they want a perpetually poor Africa that barely makes it year to year on the Western dole? Sadly, I suspect that the real answer is the latter…