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I've been involved in the debates the
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global debates over globalization now
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for a decade and a half uh an important
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interesting question is how those
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debates have changed in that span of
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time the beginning of the
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90s there was enormous support for
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globalization belief that everybody both
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in the developed and less developed
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countries would benefit uh the poorest
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would benefit and the richest would
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benefit then globalization has United
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the world but against
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it uh in fact one of the most important
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Global movements has been the global
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movement against
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globalization uh a global so Civil
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Society movement involving hundreds of
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thousands of people all over the
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world question of those who believe that
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globalization would work is why why has
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globalization generated such
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antipathy from both the developed and
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the less developed countries when both
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were supposed to
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benefit some people think it's a problem
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of
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Psychiatry the problem is that people
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are better off but they just don't know
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it and you then have to send a
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psychiatrist to make them realize that
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they are
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happier but in fact as we did economic
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studies at the World Bank and elsewhere
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after the end of the last round of trade
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negotiations the Orr round that was
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completed in
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1994 we
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realized
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that many of the poorest countries of
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the world were actually made worse off
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it wasn't just that they got a smaller
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share of the gangs everybody expected
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the United States and the Europe to get
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the largest share of the gains but what
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actually happened is that the poorest
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countries in the world were worse off
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and that was because of the asymmetric
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way in which globalization had
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proceeded the advanced industrial
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countries demanded that the poorest
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countries open up their Mars eliminate
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their subsidies but the advanced
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industrial countries did not fully
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reciprocate in particular in the area
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which is of most important to developing
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countries agriculture where 70% of the
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people live directly or indirectly off
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of
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Agriculture Europe the United States
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Japan kept their enormous subsidies kept
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their markets closed and the result of
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this was to lower the income of the
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poorest people in the
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world the question then is where is the
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globalization debate going today we
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actually do know that the way it has
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been managed in the past has left the
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poorest worse
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off and I think that constitutes the
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biggest change in the debate over
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globalization
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we now realize that not everybody will
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automatically
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benefit that globalization is a powerful
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force it can lift the well-being improve
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the living standards of those in both
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the advanced developed industrial
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countries and the poorest countries but
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it hasn't been doing that and so the
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challenge today is to make globalization
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work how do we make it work
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but to understand that we have to
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understand some of the reasons and some
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of the ways in which
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globalization has not lived up to its
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promise well if I were asked what are
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the major failures of globalization what
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are the major ways in which it has not
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lived up to its
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promise there is actually a long
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list one could begin as I say by talking
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about where it is not lived up to its
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promise it was was supposed to bring
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increased living standards everywhere in
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the world in fact some of the poorest
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people in the poorest countries have
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been made worse
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off at one time Advocates of
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globalization believe that economic
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integration Financial Market
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integration would lead to Greater
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stability greater economic global
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economic
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stability the IMF
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almost forced many of the countries of
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the world to take away their
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restrictions on short-term capital flows
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opening up markets to destabilizing
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Capital flows arguing that it would lead
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to Greater global economic
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stability or they were
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wrong
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and the global markets global economy
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has experienced enormous instability in
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in recent years
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and part of the
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reason is that the policies like Capital
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Market
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liberalization have been pushed too
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far in ways without the appropriate
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safeguards that have actually
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contributed to instability so this is an
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example where the promise was greater
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stability the consequences have been
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greater
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instability the same thing as I said
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before it was true about trade
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liberalization it was supposed to
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promote the well-being of all the
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countries but in fact the poorest
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countries of the world have been left
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less well
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off now globalization has many
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dimensions and not just
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economics uh economic de globalization
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is the part that we we often focus on
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and economic globalization has resulted
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in enormous benefits to a few countries
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in the world to China to India we've
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experienced enormous economic
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growth China has been growing for the
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last 30 years at over 9 and a half% a
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year India has been growing for the last
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quarter Century at over 5% of the year
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and this year it's expected to grow at
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close to
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8% and though that growth has largely
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been based on globalization on
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exports but what these countries have
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done has been they've learned how to
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manage globalization for their own
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benefit for instance they did not open
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up their Capital markets to
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destabilizing Capital flows and yet they
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they were able to get large amounts of
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foreign direct investment China has been
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the largest recipient of foreign direct
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investment of all any of the developing
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countries so they were very careful in
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the way they managed globalization so
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they were able to to take advantage of
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the benefits without paying the
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cost the region of the world which most
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succumbed to the dictates of the
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globalization as it was managed by the
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Washington International institutions
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the IMF the World Bank was Latin America
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there was a set of policies called the
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Washington consensus policies that
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involve minimizing the role of
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government privatization liberal
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ization focusing on inflation not
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worrying about growth not worrying about
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unemployment and in fact the result of
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this is has been that the growth has
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been very disappointing growth in the
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90s the first decade of the Washington
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consensus policies in Latin
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America was just over half of what had
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been in earlier Decades of the 50s 60s
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and
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70s poverty has remained at a high
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level in contrast to China where they
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manage globalization correctly and
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poverty has been reduced by hundreds of
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millions of people uh probably in
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history no no there's been no period in
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which so many people have been moved out
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of poverty so so rapidly uh more than
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300 million people uh in the span of 20
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years more people that live in the
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United States uh uh have moved out of
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poverty uh in that short expand of
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time
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so Latin America in some sense
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represents the failure of globalization
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when it's not well-managed East Asia
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represents the success of globalization
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when it is well-managed
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so first China and the other East Asian
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countries took a very comprehensive
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approach to development secondly they
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are very balanced approach making sure
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the jobs got created as Jobs got
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destroyed and understanding the many
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dimensions to these strategies the third
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thing they did was they were very picky
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about what aspects of
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globalization were important and how to
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sequence it so for instance they opened
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up China opened up itself for foreign
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direct
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investment but did not open itself up to
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short-term spective capital flows
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because they said we're not ready for it
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those flows are
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destabilizing and they were right so
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they got the foreign direct investment
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which helped their economy grow but they
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didn't have to pay the price of the
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destabilizing short-term capital
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flows so they managed International
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globalization in a way to shape it for
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their own Advantage but as I said
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there's more to globalization than just
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economic
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globalization globalization inv involves
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the
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movement well as well of ideas knowledge
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across borders ideas about democracy
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human rights those have spread around
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the world knowledge about how to extend
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life expectancy greater improved Health
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has also led to an increase in life
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living uh life expectancy uh in both
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Advanced industrial countries and the uh
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developing world
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the sad point is that too often economic
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globalization has interfered with the
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benefits of the kinds of globalization
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all these other benefits for
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instance one of the things that happened
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in the last round of the trade
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negotiations was that there was
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strengthening intellectual property
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intellectual property or C patents
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copyrights important to provide
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incentives for innovators writers
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creative people to to engage in their
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creative activity everybody recognizes
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the importance of intellectual
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property but one has to get a balanced
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intellectual property regime that
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recognizes the rights the
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benefits and the costs the rights and
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benefits to users to
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researchers um the cost that a that can
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result from Monopoly that is often
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associated with excessively strong
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intellectual property
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rights one of the consequences of the
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intellectual property provision of the
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or gray real which is called
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trips was that it made it more difficult
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for those in developing countries to
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have access to generic
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medicines and the result of that was
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that the price of medicines Rose
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enormously in effect when they signed
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the agreement on the orra round in
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maresh in
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1994 they were signing the death
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warrants for hundreds of thousands of
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people in subsaharan Africa and the rest
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of the developing countries because at
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the higher prices that resulted from
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those provision the fact that generic
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medicines would not be available most of
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the people in those countries would not
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be able to afford life-saving medicines
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for instance for a
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just to to give you a a picture of the
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magnitude of what we're talking
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about a
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years worth of prescriptions for eggs
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medicines in the United States cost
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around
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$10,000 it cost under $300 to produce
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these medicines generic producers can
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make them available for under
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$300 and yet under the intellectual
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property provisions
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where producers in South Africa and
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Brazil could not make them available at
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these costs at $110,000 people living on
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$500 a year cannot cannot afford those
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prices that's an example of where
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globalization has failed it has put
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economic values the profits of
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multinational pharmaceutical compan
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companies above the
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interest of the other values including
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the value of life itself and that's just
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one example of values which which have
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been given short shrift in the
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globalization debate the environment has
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often been
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destroyed I believe that if we shape we
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make globalization work in the right way
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we can actually make it a force for
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preserving the environment
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but the way it's often been managed in
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the past it has led to the destruction
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of the
00:14:06
environment so these are some of the
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examples some of the ways some of the
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reasons that there is is discontent such
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discontent with
00:14:16
globalization yes it has the power to
00:14:19
produce enormous benefits to raise
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living standards to provide
00:14:25
medicines but too often it has not lived
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up to to those to those promises it's
00:14:30
not produced growth it's not produced
00:14:32
stability it's not reduced poverty in
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many countries of the world uh and it
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has put in Jeopardy other
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values that are of enormous
00:14:44
consequence now that leads to the
00:14:45
Natural
00:14:48
question why is globalization
00:14:52
failed it is enormous po potential
00:14:56
benefit but so often it's not lived up
00:14:58
to that
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potential and in my mind there is a
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single reason and that is that economic
00:15:08
globalization has outpaced political
00:15:11
globalization
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globalization means the closer
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integration of the countries of the
00:15:17
world there's been a lowering of
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Transportation cost of of communication
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costs elimination of many of the
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man-made barriers to movements of goods
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and services capital
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even labor in some cases across
00:15:32
boundaries but the that closer
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integration means that we're more
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interdependent when we're more
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interdependent we need to act together
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we need to act
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cooperatively 150 years
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ago a similar process was in play the
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formation of the nation state
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Transportation costs coming down
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communication costs were coming down uh
00:16:02
and National units were being
00:16:06
created but then we have the the nation
00:16:10
state that could regulate that could
00:16:13
make nation building work to make sure
00:16:16
that these enormous economic forces work
00:16:19
to the benefit of all the citizens of
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the
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country today we don't have that kind of
00:16:27
overarching political
00:16:30
process we have in a way a
00:16:34
a forms of of political interaction that
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are very
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flawed and the result of this is that
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there is a democratic
00:16:46
deficit a democratic deficit at the
00:16:48
global
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level and that means the decisions that
00:16:52
are made at the global level do not
00:16:54
reflect the well the interest the
00:16:56
well-being of all the citizens of the
00:16:59
world tooo often this this Democratic
00:17:03
deficit results in the interest
00:17:06
well-being of corporate corporations
00:17:10
special interest dominating over those
00:17:13
of ordinary citizens all over the world
00:17:16
in fact it's not just a matter of the
00:17:20
developing countries versus the
00:17:21
developed
00:17:23
countries quite often the citizens of
00:17:25
the developed countries suffer as well
00:17:28
it is really a question of special
00:17:30
interest and corporate interest against
00:17:32
the well-being of citizens all over the
00:17:34
world I mentioned for instance before
00:17:38
the importance of of
00:17:42
uh
00:17:43
agricultural uh subsidies and the way
00:17:46
that they depressed prices uh the
00:17:49
farmers all over the world developing
00:17:52
countries
00:17:54
receive those subsidies cost taxpayers
00:17:57
and the develop countries enormous
00:17:59
amounts of money hundreds of millions of
00:18:01
dollar billions of dollars every
00:18:04
year so the citizens of these countries
00:18:08
are are paying an enormous price to
00:18:11
benefit a very small
00:18:14
number uh very small number of
00:18:17
corporations in the United States the
00:18:20
benefits of these huge
00:18:22
subsidies go to a relatively small
00:18:26
fraction of the farmers
00:18:28
only 2% of Americans actually work in
00:18:31
farming but the fraction of those who
00:18:34
get the benefits are very small very
00:18:37
small fraction of the money goes to the
00:18:40
small farmer most of the money goes to
00:18:43
huge corporate Farmers for instance in
00:18:45
the area of cotton
00:18:48
25,000 very well-off American cotton
00:18:51
Farmers divide amongst themselves three
00:18:54
to four billion dollars a year and the
00:18:57
result of this is that depress the price
00:18:59
of
00:18:59
cotton damaging the livelihood of some
00:19:03
10 million poor subsistence Farm cotton
00:19:08
farmers in subsaharan
00:19:10
Africa I should make clear that that the
00:19:13
United States is not the only guilty
00:19:15
party in in terms of agricultural
00:19:18
subsidies the subsidies from Europe are
00:19:20
actually
00:19:22
larger than those of America uh Japan
00:19:26
all the BS industrial countries of
00:19:28
have have problems with
00:19:30
subsidies uh Europe complains that the
00:19:33
United States has actually doubled his
00:19:36
subsidies after the end of the workway
00:19:38
round when it promised to reduce the
00:19:41
United States complains that European
00:19:44
subsidies are so much
00:19:46
larger Europe complains that America
00:19:50
subsidies are focused on
00:19:52
producers production America complains
00:19:55
that Europe subsidizes exports
00:19:59
they spend almost enormous amount of
00:20:02
energies blaming each other they spent
00:20:04
that same time dealing with the problem
00:20:07
the world would be a lot better
00:20:10
off take the case of European cow which
00:20:14
has got an enormous amount of notoriety
00:20:17
the average cow in Europe today receives
00:20:19
a subsidy of close to $2 a
00:20:22
day that's the number that resonates
00:20:24
because the World Bank defines poverty
00:20:28
as living under $2 a
00:20:31
day 40% of the people in the world live
00:20:35
unless than $2 a day it is better to be
00:20:39
a c in Europe than to be than to be a
00:20:42
average person in the developing
00:20:46
world one of the reasons that NAFTA the
00:20:49
North American free trade agreement
00:20:50
between the United States and Mexico was
00:20:52
such a
00:20:53
failure did not live up to the
00:20:57
expectation
00:20:58
was that the poorest
00:21:00
people in Mexico were actually made poor
00:21:05
because the poorest people in Mexico
00:21:07
were the corn
00:21:09
Farmers e out of bear living producing
00:21:12
corn selling a little
00:21:16
bit the result of joining NAFTA joining
00:21:21
with the united stakes was that American
00:21:24
corn highly subsidized corn was allowed
00:21:27
into Mexico
00:21:28
and the price of corn fell by
00:21:31
50% obviously some people in the city
00:21:34
were better off but those who depended
00:21:37
for their livelihood on corn producing
00:21:41
corn were made much worse off and the
00:21:43
rural poverty as a result
00:21:54
increased 20 years ago when the current
00:21:59
ERA of
00:22:00
globalization
00:22:01
began there was a certain set of
00:22:04
Doctrine certain set of
00:22:07
beliefs the belief was that liberalizing
00:22:11
trade taking away trade barriers would
00:22:14
lead to more trade more trade would lead
00:22:16
to more growth more growth would lead
00:22:18
everybody to be better off both in
00:22:20
developed and less developed
00:22:23
countries each one of those hypotheses
00:22:26
assumptions has now been
00:22:30
questioned trade liberalization has not
00:22:33
led to more trade for many of the
00:22:36
developing countries or at least not
00:22:38
substantially more trade and the reason
00:22:41
is that there are a host of other
00:22:44
barriers and some of these
00:22:46
barriers are really so large that the
00:22:50
reduction of the
00:22:52
tariffs is
00:22:54
insignificant if you don't have porks
00:22:58
eliminating a tariff
00:23:01
doesn't doesn't allow you to
00:23:03
export if you don't have the roads to
00:23:06
bring your products to the market
00:23:08
eliminating tariffs doesn't allow you to
00:23:14
export if you don't have anything to
00:23:17
sell what are sometimes called Supply
00:23:20
constraints then
00:23:22
eliminating tariffs doesn't
00:23:26
help
00:23:28
moreover too often the Advan industrial
00:23:31
countries have been very
00:23:33
clever as they've reduced tariff
00:23:35
barriers they've increased non-tariff
00:23:39
barriers so for instance they have what
00:23:43
are a whole set of restrictions called
00:23:45
phytosanitary conditions a big word that
00:23:48
means restrictions that say you can't
00:23:52
sell certain foods certain uh plants uh
00:23:56
because they aren't aren't
00:24:00
safe if they were really designed if
00:24:03
they were really of course no if they
00:24:05
were really doing what they were
00:24:06
supposed to do that wouldn't be a source
00:24:08
of complaint but too often they are used
00:24:11
but as little other than a protectionist
00:24:15
device as an example
00:24:18
Brazil is not allowed to sell beef to
00:24:22
the United States because of fear of HOA
00:24:26
mouth disease now there are large areas
00:24:29
of Brazil that are certified free of the
00:24:32
disease and there is absolutely no
00:24:35
problem of there should be no problem of
00:24:37
taking beef from that area and exporting
00:24:39
it you can constantly monitor you can
00:24:42
see whether the beef has has been
00:24:44
exposed we have very strong safeguards
00:24:47
and yet the United States will not
00:24:50
allow the export of that if the one part
00:24:54
of Brazil were a separate country
00:24:55
there'd be no problem but you take take
00:24:57
a big country and it's a problem one one
00:25:00
part you can use that as an excuse to
00:25:01
say nothing from the whole country can
00:25:03
be
00:25:05
exported the United States tried to stop
00:25:08
the export of avocados from Mexico
00:25:13
saying that there were fruit
00:25:15
flies very very small fruit
00:25:18
flies Mexicans said you can't see them
00:25:21
he said that's the point that's why
00:25:22
they're so dangerous they're invisible
00:25:24
fruit
00:25:26
flies and then they said well you send
00:25:28
your inspectors down to Mexico we'll
00:25:30
allow your inspectors to go see if you
00:25:32
can find them on on the on the on the
00:25:35
plant they sent them down they couldn't
00:25:37
find them they said yes that's because
00:25:39
they're so
00:25:40
invisible finally they
00:25:44
proposed we only allow the Mexican said
00:25:48
just allow us to bring them into to to
00:25:51
to Boston in the middle of winter the
00:25:55
theory was that you would have a them in
00:25:57
the car of a plane you open up the cargo
00:26:00
door the cold New England air would
00:26:03
freeze any invisible fruit fly instantly
00:26:06
killing it no danger to the California
00:26:09
avocado producers again the United
00:26:11
States said
00:26:14
no I wondered why and then I figured out
00:26:17
the
00:26:18
reason there is one day in January when
00:26:22
Americans eat more avocados than in all
00:26:24
the rest of year put together on Super
00:26:26
Bowl Sunday when for four hours
00:26:29
Americans eat guac kamale the most
00:26:31
important ingredient of which is avocado
00:26:33
non-stop for four hours as they watch
00:26:35
this football game so that was why it
00:26:39
was so important to the California
00:26:41
avocado
00:26:43
Growers eventually there was talk of
00:26:46
maybe there were invisible fruit flies
00:26:48
in American corn and maybe Mexico might
00:26:51
stop the allowing American corn to go in
00:26:55
the United States into Mexico because of
00:26:57
these fruit flies and eventually an
00:26:58
agreement was reached but this
00:27:00
illustrates
00:27:02
how these phytosanitary conditions can
00:27:05
be used as a trade
00:27:08
barrier and a very effective one at that
00:27:12
billions of dollars of exports from the
00:27:14
developing countries are are kept out of
00:27:18
the advanced industrial countries
00:27:19
because of this the stories like this
00:27:22
can be told over and over again so in
00:27:24
many respects it's not a conflict
00:27:26
between the Advanced Industrial
00:27:27
countries and the developing countries
00:27:29
it's a conflict between corporate
00:27:31
interest special interest and the
00:27:33
well-being of people all over the
00:27:35
world well we can see this Democratic
00:27:39
deficit in a number of
00:27:42
ways one aspect of it is that the voting
00:27:47
rights in these International
00:27:49
institutions do not Accord in any way
00:27:51
with our commonly accepted principles of
00:27:55
of democracy
00:27:59
I know of no democracy where rich people
00:28:02
say like George Soros can get billions
00:28:05
of dollars or Bill Gates can get
00:28:07
billions of votes simply because they
00:28:09
have billions of
00:28:10
dollars uh we believe in the principle
00:28:12
of one person one vote and yet in the
00:28:16
IMF and the World Bank voting is impr
00:28:20
proportional to the wealth of the
00:28:21
country and not even the income of the
00:28:24
country as of today the income of the
00:28:26
country to a large extent at the end of
00:28:28
19 the World War II when these
00:28:30
institutions were created with some
00:28:32
adjustment since then so countries like
00:28:34
China which have been growing for 25 30
00:28:37
years are vastly underrepresented in the
00:28:40
voting rights that they
00:28:43
have that's only one of the problems
00:28:46
another problem is that
00:28:50
the those who represent the
00:28:53
country tend to come from particular
00:28:56
interest groups so for instance the IMF
00:28:59
makes decisions that affect every aspect
00:29:02
of society in the developing countries
00:29:04
they don't have a very big effect on on
00:29:07
the advanced industrial countries in the
00:29:08
United States and France and Britain but
00:29:10
in the developing countries they tend to
00:29:13
to Really shape every aspect every
00:29:15
aspect of economic
00:29:17
policy and
00:29:19
yet those the people who shape those
00:29:22
policies the governance the decision
00:29:25
makers are the finance ministers and the
00:29:28
Central Bank
00:29:30
Governors they quite naturally reflect
00:29:33
the interest and perspectives of
00:29:35
financial
00:29:36
markets they don't worry about jobs they
00:29:39
don't worry about a growth uh they worry
00:29:42
about inflation they worry about
00:29:45
inflation because when inflation goes up
00:29:47
the value of bonds goes down and so Bond
00:29:50
holders lose and so they reflect the
00:29:53
interest of bond holders more than of
00:29:56
society in general
00:29:59
they may think of themselves as doing
00:30:01
what is best for the
00:30:03
country but their mindset is very much
00:30:08
what is best for Wall Street is best for
00:30:10
the
00:30:11
country it's not it's not actually true
00:30:15
and and the result of that is the
00:30:17
policies that they have pushed have not
00:30:19
been in general best either for the
00:30:23
developing countries or for the
00:30:24
developed countries I mentioned a few
00:30:26
minutes ago
00:30:28
the fact that the IMF had pushed Capital
00:30:31
Market liberalization opening up markets
00:30:33
to the flow of speculative hot
00:30:36
speculative
00:30:37
money destabilizing countries leading to
00:30:41
Global Financial
00:30:43
instability well Wall Street made an
00:30:45
enormous amount of money they make money
00:30:47
when Capital Flows In they make money
00:30:49
when Capital flows out they make money
00:30:51
when there's restructuring when there's
00:30:53
a disaster they make money whatever it
00:30:56
comes out
00:30:59
but the rest of the
00:31:00
country rest of the developing countries
00:31:03
suffer so they mindset they focus on on
00:31:07
these policies which Wall Street thinks
00:31:10
of as
00:31:11
good for them and may be good for the
00:31:15
rest of the world but the evidence is
00:31:18
very strongly to the
00:31:20
contrary so that is an example of what
00:31:25
happens when you have special
00:31:28
interest at the critical role in
00:31:30
decision making the same thing goes in
00:31:34
the WTO the World Trade Organization
00:31:37
where the important agreements defining
00:31:40
trade occur I talked about access to
00:31:43
life-saving
00:31:45
medicines that was uh part of the Oru
00:31:49
round
00:31:50
agreement the trade ministers do not
00:31:53
understand intellectual
00:31:55
property I know that for first time
00:31:57
because I was inside the White House at
00:31:59
the time that the were gray ground was
00:32:01
being
00:32:02
negotiated both the office of Science
00:32:04
and Technology policy and the Council of
00:32:07
economic advisors thought that the
00:32:10
intellectual property provision of the
00:32:12
orig gr round was bad we thought it was
00:32:15
bad for American Science we thought it
00:32:17
was bad for Global Science we thought it
00:32:19
was bad for developing
00:32:21
countries but our views were not what
00:32:24
won the
00:32:25
day it was the interest of the
00:32:27
pharmaceutical industry and the
00:32:29
entertainment industry whose view was
00:32:32
the stronger the intellectual property
00:32:34
rights the better we knew that wasn't
00:32:37
true we knew that excessively strong
00:32:40
intellectual property rights may not
00:32:42
only lower Welfare by reducing access to
00:32:45
life-saving Medicine may not only lower
00:32:48
welfare because of
00:32:50
monopolization but actually may result
00:32:52
in a slower pace of
00:32:54
innovation because the most important
00:32:56
input put into Innovation into research
00:32:59
is access to other ideas and if you make
00:33:02
those ideas less accessible by
00:33:04
excessively strong intellectual property
00:33:06
rights you'll actually slow the pace of
00:33:11
innovation the trade ministers don't
00:33:14
didn't understand this and the result
00:33:17
was this intellectual property provision
00:33:20
that that was so
00:33:22
unbalanced well that's the general
00:33:25
problem that you have the the decisions
00:33:28
being made basically by special interest
00:33:31
and this contrasts very strongly with
00:33:33
the way we make decisions within our own
00:33:37
democracies again I saw this firstand
00:33:39
within when I was in in the white house
00:33:42
where where we were involved in making
00:33:45
large numbers of very complicated
00:33:47
important decisions and the voices of
00:33:49
large numbers of different groups were
00:33:51
all at the table and we would argue we
00:33:54
would
00:33:55
fight some voices were heard louder than
00:33:59
others but every voice was
00:34:01
heard the result is you can see the
00:34:04
contrast in the results that are that
00:34:07
emerge for
00:34:09
instance at the
00:34:11
time one of the central pillars of the
00:34:16
Clinton Administration was increasing
00:34:19
access to health and we understood how
00:34:23
high drug prices reduced access to
00:34:25
health
00:34:27
so
00:34:29
domestically we were trying to improve
00:34:32
access to
00:34:33
health and the voice of the
00:34:35
pharmaceutical companies was heard but
00:34:37
only as one part of a number of other
00:34:41
voices where the concern was most
00:34:43
importantly the well-being of American
00:34:46
citizens but when we went
00:34:49
internationally those voices weren't
00:34:51
heard Only One Voice Was Heard and that
00:34:54
was the voice of the drug companies they
00:34:56
raised the price and they denied reduced
00:34:58
access to life-saving medicines let me
00:35:01
consider another
00:35:03
issue Social
00:35:05
Security OD H
00:35:08
pensions this has been one of the major
00:35:10
advances in all the uh many of the
00:35:14
countries of the world the provision of
00:35:16
of of insurance uh for elderly people so
00:35:21
they don't live in poverty it has been
00:35:23
the most important anti-poverty program
00:35:26
all over the world it used to be that
00:35:28
large fractions of the population over
00:35:31
65 lived in poverty today in the United
00:35:34
States relatively few people live in
00:35:36
poverty and it's because of Social
00:35:38
Security it has been a successful
00:35:40
program it is actually a very
00:35:43
efficiently run program the
00:35:44
administrative costs of the US Social
00:35:47
Security program are much lower than any
00:35:50
comparable private insurance
00:35:52
company it's very consumer responsive
00:35:56
we've done studies that looked at uh
00:35:58
consumer satisfaction how quickly do
00:36:01
consumer do do do they respond to
00:36:04
telephone inquiries how accurately and
00:36:06
they are among the most uh highly rated
00:36:09
of of any institution private or public
00:36:13
uh in
00:36:15
America the Clinton Administration very
00:36:18
strongly fought against privatization of
00:36:21
Social
00:36:24
Security the Bush Administration
00:36:27
tried to engage partial privatization of
00:36:29
Social
00:36:31
Security there was a democratic debate
00:36:35
and the result of that democratic debate
00:36:36
in the United States was a vast
00:36:40
overwhelming opposition to privatization
00:36:42
of Social
00:36:44
Security people realized that
00:36:46
privatization of these olda pension
00:36:48
would increase their insecurity they
00:36:51
would realize that would increase the
00:36:52
number of people in poverty they realize
00:36:54
it would increase transaction costs
00:36:57
Wall Street would benefit because they
00:36:59
would be Minister ad ministering these
00:37:00
funds and what is to the rest of
00:37:03
societies a cost is an income to Wall
00:37:05
Street so they were obviously very
00:37:08
strongly supportive but the rest of
00:37:10
America realized the cost were enormous
00:37:12
it would result in huge deficits
00:37:14
increase in the deficit in the United
00:37:16
States uh was estimated to re in the
00:37:19
first 10 years to be between1 and two
00:37:22
trillion
00:37:23
dollar and yet in the developing
00:37:27
countries the
00:37:29
IMF the US Treasury
00:37:32
pushed privatization of Social Security
00:37:34
and old age pensions the results were
00:37:39
disastrous for instance Argentina had a
00:37:43
crisis the beginning of this
00:37:46
decade many people blamed the huge
00:37:49
government deficit in fact the
00:37:51
government deficit was only 3% smaller
00:37:54
than the US deficit is today
00:37:57
but more
00:37:58
telling almost the entire deficit was a
00:38:01
result of privatization of Social
00:38:03
Security which the IMF had caused had
00:38:06
pushed so the problem in Argentina was
00:38:11
caused was
00:38:12
pushed by Outsiders by the privatization
00:38:16
of Social Security now this is an
00:38:18
example where had there been a
00:38:20
democratic
00:38:22
debate within
00:38:25
Argentina with all all the voices
00:38:27
understood all the voices heard there
00:38:30
might have
00:38:32
been a push back very high probability
00:38:36
would not have occurred but that's not
00:38:38
the what what occurred in Argentina and
00:38:40
many other countries what happened was
00:38:42
they were given as a condition of
00:38:44
getting a loan or condition of getting
00:38:47
assistance they were told you have to
00:38:49
privatize you have to privatize Social
00:38:51
Security undermining democracy within
00:38:55
these countries
00:38:58
so the what I'm trying to illustrate is
00:39:02
that in a wide range of
00:39:05
issues within our democracy we bring
00:39:08
various voices to the table and as these
00:39:11
various voices are brought to the table
00:39:14
we understand the pros and the cons all
00:39:17
public policy public policy issues are
00:39:20
complicated but as we debate them we
00:39:23
come out with answers that are often
00:39:25
different from the ansers of the special
00:39:27
interest groups to give you a third
00:39:30
example I talked about before how
00:39:33
financial markets Bond markets focus on
00:39:36
inflation most of workers Focus much
00:39:40
more on on on jobs obviously if you have
00:39:42
hyperinflation if inflation is going up
00:39:44
at 10 20% a month Society economy can't
00:39:49
function but that's not what we're
00:39:51
talking about we're talking about cases
00:39:54
where inflation is moderate and if that
00:39:56
level of moderate
00:39:58
inflation do you wor worry also about
00:40:01
employment do you also worry about
00:40:04
growth
00:40:05
America's federal reserve our our
00:40:09
Central Bank has a mandate that looks
00:40:13
not just in inflation but on growth and
00:40:17
employment and yet the
00:40:20
IMF has pushed countries around the
00:40:23
world to have central banks focused
00:40:26
only on
00:40:28
inflation the result of this of course
00:40:30
is that you wind up with maybe lower
00:40:33
inflation but much higher
00:40:36
unemployment one of the consequences in
00:40:39
Latin America which I cited before as
00:40:41
one of the examples of the failure of
00:40:43
these Washington consensus policies is
00:40:46
that unemployment has increased over the
00:40:49
last 15 years uh under the Washington
00:40:53
consensus
00:40:55
policies
00:41:01
when when the market economy
00:41:05
developed over the last 50 100 1502 200
00:41:10
years governments and the nation Stakes
00:41:14
found ways of tempering it found ways of
00:41:17
making the market work so not just
00:41:20
corporations but everybody would benefit
00:41:23
it they imposed environmental laws
00:41:26
because they recognized that without
00:41:28
those environmental laws firms had
00:41:30
incentives to
00:41:32
pollute why pay the cost of of
00:41:36
controlling your pollution if you can
00:41:37
just spew the air pollution into the air
00:41:41
or water pollution into this water the
00:41:44
result of this was that life
00:41:46
expectancies were adversely affected
00:41:49
people were worse off in fact in 19th
00:41:52
century England we have evidence that
00:41:54
overall the degradation of the
00:41:55
environment led to to uh people being
00:41:59
less healthy shorter it was really
00:42:02
terrible consequences of these earlier
00:42:04
days of the growth of the market
00:42:08
economy well since then we've learned
00:42:10
how to have government regulations that
00:42:13
control control of the environment we've
00:42:16
had government regulations that protect
00:42:19
workers provide for worker safety firms
00:42:22
on their own didn't do that we realized
00:42:25
also that government plays a very
00:42:27
important role in making the market
00:42:32
work for a market economy to work people
00:42:35
have to have confidence that when they
00:42:37
invest money in the stock market or when
00:42:40
they invest money in a put their money
00:42:42
in a bank the bank isn't going to go
00:42:45
bankrupt or the stock market money isn't
00:42:47
going to be
00:42:48
stolen and you need strong
00:42:50
regulations we've seen over and over
00:42:53
again those kinds of abuses that happen
00:42:55
without those regulations ations even
00:42:57
with the enormous number of regulations
00:42:59
that we had in the United States in the
00:43:02
1990s we had a whole raft of new forms
00:43:06
of abuses typified by Enron Arthur
00:43:10
Anderson where the accounting companies
00:43:12
were not providing the numbers the
00:43:14
information that needed to make a market
00:43:16
economy
00:43:17
work they were providing the information
00:43:20
to get the CEO pay up as much as they
00:43:23
could the result is that you had as
00:43:25
enormous increase in inequality CEO pay
00:43:28
skyrocketing getting people getting paid
00:43:30
not just Millions but in some cases
00:43:32
hundreds of millions of
00:43:35
dollars but when the company went bust
00:43:39
the rest of the shareholders were left
00:43:40
in the Lurch workers were left out
00:43:43
without jobs those who had invested in
00:43:46
in the retirement accounts were left
00:43:48
without retirement
00:43:50
accounts uh it
00:43:52
was enormous Co cost to society
00:44:00
without the confidence of strong
00:44:03
regulations people won't turn their
00:44:05
money over and capitalism can't work and
00:44:08
so we've recognized that there are many
00:44:10
roles that the government needs to play
00:44:13
to make the market economy work it needs
00:44:18
to protect the environment and protect
00:44:20
workers it needs to regulate the economy
00:44:24
to make sure that these abuses don't
00:44:26
don't
00:44:27
occur there are also important needs in
00:44:29
terms of
00:44:31
expenditures
00:44:33
airports roads most importantly basic
00:44:36
research education are all things that
00:44:40
the
00:44:41
government
00:44:43
provides that requires
00:44:46
taxes so government and markets today we
00:44:50
realize are partners and within our
00:44:53
democracies we've been exploring how to
00:44:56
to make this partnership
00:44:58
work but again internationally because
00:45:02
we don't because of this democ
00:45:05
Democratic deficit we haven't gotten the
00:45:07
balanced right we have to a too large
00:45:11
extent have the agenda set by
00:45:14
corporations by the special interest for
00:45:17
their own
00:45:18
interest I'm giving several examples let
00:45:21
me give you a couple more that highlight
00:45:24
the IM balance that has occurred between
00:45:28
the way we run democracies at home and
00:45:32
the way globalization has been managed
00:45:36
internationally I talked about the
00:45:40
environment one of the things that those
00:45:45
who anti-environmentalist have have have
00:45:49
consistently been pushing have been a
00:45:52
set
00:45:53
of provisions that would say whenever
00:45:57
you pass a
00:45:59
regulation you have to compensate firms
00:46:02
for the loss of profits so you pass a
00:46:05
regulation that says you can't plute
00:46:08
that obviously is going to lower the
00:46:09
profits of the company and you have to
00:46:12
pay the company for the loss of
00:46:14
profits the question is does the company
00:46:16
have the right to blute or do you
00:46:20
citizens of the world have the right to
00:46:22
clean air and what they were basically
00:46:25
saying
00:46:26
these anti- environmentalists is the
00:46:28
rights of Corporations predominate they
00:46:31
have the right to pollute and if you
00:46:32
take away that right you have to
00:46:34
compensate them well of course the
00:46:36
Clinton Administration most people most
00:46:39
courts have said that's
00:46:41
outrageous uh the right to clean air is
00:46:44
a right of every citizen and the
00:46:46
corporations do not own the
00:46:49
atmosphere and yet and yet when the
00:46:53
United States signed the North American
00:46:55
free trade trade
00:46:56
agreement it gave foreign investors more
00:47:01
rights than American investors did and
00:47:03
in Mexico American investors have more
00:47:07
rights than Mexican investors have in
00:47:10
Mexico the result of this been a
00:47:12
provision deliberately designed to
00:47:15
stifle environmental
00:47:16
regulation for instance in a small
00:47:19
village in
00:47:21
Mexico they decided to pass a regulation
00:47:24
saying you cannot have a toxic waste
00:47:27
dump in the middle of the
00:47:30
city any City would have a regulation
00:47:32
like that nobody wants to have a toxic
00:47:35
waste in the middle of the city
00:47:36
polluting their water
00:47:38
supply and yet under the North American
00:47:42
Free Trade
00:47:43
Agreement Mexican government was forced
00:47:46
to
00:47:47
compensate the owner of this land
00:47:49
because the land could not be used as a
00:47:51
toxic waste
00:47:53
dump and there are actually billions of
00:47:55
dollars of these suits right now under
00:47:58
file we don't know how many of them
00:48:00
would Prevail but this was the kind of
00:48:03
provision that was put in the North
00:48:04
American free trade
00:48:06
agreement if you would had a a vote on
00:48:10
this I believe that citizens in America
00:48:13
citizens in Mexico would have voted
00:48:14
against it just as if you put up the
00:48:18
issue should the poorest people in
00:48:20
Africa have Li access to life-saving
00:48:23
medicines eggs medicines if you put that
00:48:26
up to a vote