In principle, EU differs very much from other international organizations. The EU countries have really transferred political power to the EU. Other regional organizations have mainly economic streamline activities; even though also more binding ideas have been considered. The political consequences in Europe are intended - not unintended. The limitations in the sovereignty appear now and then in public discussions in many European countries. Norway was about to enter the EU but the opposition parties could join their forces and therefore the referendum brought negative results. When Norway cannot participate in decision-making inside the EU, but has to obey most of the decisions, it naturally diminishes somewhat Norway’s self-determination. This is not very exceptional, because all international agreements more or less reduce countries’ self-determination. But they are necessary for international cooperation. I have earlier concluded that globalization had overpowered regional integration (see p. 71 in the attached book).

Book Missing a Decent Living for Everyone: Success and Failure in...

I think the political and social consequences are important also, but always behind the economic benefits for the dominant group(s), there is some evidence that globalization is part of a more broader plan that goes beyond the short or even medium run benefits and also beyond the local or regional benefits, for example: http://es.scribd.com/doc/53632573/Crisis-y-Salida-de-La-Crisis-Dumenil-y-Levy#scribd (sorry, i didn't found it in french or english for free)

Hi Veli,

I don’t know where to start in thanking you for making your book available in its entirety on RG.  Let’s just leave it at that I will be eternally grateful to you for your generosity. 

Thank you also for lending your wisdom to answering my question.  I am trying to meet a deadline for a book chapter I am contributing and I keep stumbling on problems that I haven’t thought through enough to take a strong position in my chapter (and I hate writing ‘milquetoast style’).  This is the reason I posted this question on RG.  I have this gut feeling that globalization is just an economic occurrence participated in by economic players.  Veli, I feel this generally – not just about the motivation for regional and international pacts.  (I have used the regional and international pacts just to get an operational hypothesis that can be quickly confirmed or refuted with discrete data.) 

So, I was happy to see in your book (by perusing the Table of Contents) that you treat the state and multinational corporations (MNCs) as principal players because my argument is that states and MNCs enter the international arena (venture into an unpredictable and weakly regulated badlands) is to make money; i.e., they are economic actors.  The only ‘movers and shakers’ in the global marketplace that are not economically motivated are the NGOs (which your book also mentions as being other important actors in the global marketplace).  NGOs are definitely political and social animals fueled by moral outrage – a global civil society, in my book (yet-to-be-written).

Veli, from the table of contents, it appears that you are treating Religion as a separate unrelated factor to the political motivation of the principal players.  Whereas, this is an insignificant decision with regard to  MNCs which are purely economic creatures, I think discussing state actors requires integrating religion into their political motivations – especially with regard to the ‘intended political consequences’ of the EU pact.  I say this because the only reason Turkey is being kept out of the EU is because of the preeminence of Islam in Turkey, which would make it the first member-state that is not predominantly Christian.  With regard to ‘Christian’’ being on a par with ‘democratic’ in terms of unifying COE-member states, please see Document 9399, “Religion and Change in Central and Eastern Europe” a report of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education at this link:

But, back to your very helpful response to my question.  Veli, can I interpret the statement on page 71 of your book (“In fact, the current globalisation cannot be separated from the tremendous increase in financial transactions – a process called financialization.”) to mean that you agree with me that globalization is mainly an economic ‘occurrence’ (and therefore deserves the contempt of ordinary people who are disinterested in becoming global citizens, preferring to be Swedes, Americans, Brazilians, Finnish, etc.)?  I use ‘occurrence’ rather than ‘event’ to signify that I agree with the statement in your book (and in The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engel) that globalization has been going on for a number of years.

Gwen

Gwen, I think one of the important factors to consider in this respect is the possibility of majority voting or, differently stated, the possibility that a sub-group of members of an organization imposes its will on all members. This is very much a feature of the EU, both via (qualified) majority voting in the legislative procedures at the Council, the decisions taken by the Commission, for example in anti-trust or state aid cases, and the judgments of the European Court of Justice. All of these are binding on the Member States whether or not they agree to a particular case. One term of art used to describe this feature of the EU is its "supranationality", i.e. the EU has powers ABOVE the state level.

By contrast, most other organizations either do not have such powers at all and have to take any and all decisions by unanimous vote or by consensus (for example the EFTA) or they have only very narrow powers that could bind a state against its wishes, for example via judgments of the European Court of Human Rights or in the context of decisions taken by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter.

The next question in this context is the enforceability of the decisions. Even if an international organization does have some supranational powers, it is not very "scary" for the (potential) members, if the enforcement powers are weak. As you surely know, public international law has very few options at enforcement, chiefly among them the naming and shaming of perpetrators/violators and the idea of tit-for-tat, i.e. retaliation in kind. For example, if a country is found by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body to be in violation of the rules, it has to rectify this breach (for the future only, no retroactive obligations to pay damages or the like). If it does not do so, the worst thing that can happen to it is pretty much retaliation in kind, i.e. the complaining or injured country can get permission from the WTO to suspend trade concessions roughly equal to the losses incurred because of the initial breach. This is not very scare for a country and they can make a cold calculation whether a certain breach is worthwhile maintaining. It is also not affecting countries equally because, for example, a trade embargo from the US against New Zealand will be much more damaging than the other way around.

Similarly, in the ECHR system, the worst thing that can happen to a country found in breach of the Convention by the Court is that it will be named and shamed (not very effective if it happens a lot, since public and international opinion tires easily, see Russia) and that it is convicted to pay damages. Since member states of the Council of Europe have been reluctant to pay large amounts in damages - they simply won't comply - the EuCtHR is nowadays imposing very modest amounts that countries will pay without much hesitation. For example, Italy has been convicted many many times over many years for undue length of criminal trials. Instead of fixing the problem, the country just pays a few thousand Euros to every complainant who makes it all the way to a judgment in Strasbourg.

However, the EU is a very different animal altogether. First, it administers a large budget and more than half of the Member States are net recipients and they can simply see their allocations withheld if they do not follow the rules (example Greece). This is more powerful than another tool, suspending voting rights. Second, and most important, the European Court of Justice, via the procedure of Article 267, has a tool of ensuring compliance with its judgments that no other court on the planet comes even close to. In the end, Member States of the EU have to follow EU law in very nearly every case, whether they voted for it or against, and whether they like it or not. This is unique and not comparable to other international organizations.

You may not like this proposal but I think that it would be too simplistic to look merely whether something is economic integration or not. You should also look whether it is purely international (between states) or whether it has at least some supranational elements and real enforcement powers.

Frank, thank you for your rich answer.  This gives me a lot of food for thought.  I needed to be reminded that there is a difference between so-called 'international law' which can be ignored willy-nilly by the rich and powerful nations and the binding decisions of a 'supranational' body that can (to borrow from Tocqueville) enforce 'the tyranny of the majority'.  So, do you think Turkey will ever be admitted to the EU?

Gwen

The problem with Turkey is very intricate. The country was only the third country, right after Israel and Greece, to inquire about membership in the EEC in 1959. The Association Agreement of 1962 actually sort of promises admission by 1995. During all this time, Turkey was given ever stricter conditions for economic development, respect for human rights, etc. Every time it fulfilled one set of criteria, the EU gave it another set of homework to do. At the latest from the 1990s, however, the truth was that admission of Turkey no longer faced the obstacle of economic backwardness or lack of respect for human rights: the elephant in the room is the fact the Turkey is a Muslim country. For a while, therefore, it looked as if the EU and its Member States (Austria for example) would have to make a clear statement, namely to reject Turkish accession BECAUSE of racist and religious reasons (since we were sort of running out of other reasons). However, most recently, the Erdogan government is delivering a host of new reasons on a silver platter by violently suppressing the freedom of association and the media, throwing rule of law by the wayside in the treatment of Fethulla Gulen, and a host of other problems with rule of law and democracy. Thus, the short answer, from my point of view, would be: Never say never, but not anytime soon.

You may find my article on "The Past, Present, and Future of EU Enlargement" instructive in this regard. It is available for free download from my RG site.

Hi Violeta,

I think you are absolutely right.  And, I want to read the article supporting this position; however, so far, every article I have tried to upload on the Scribd.com website (so that I can download the article for free in accordance with their quid pro quo policy) has bounced back because the article is already on their site.  Since I didn't put any articles on their website, I imagine that they are scavengers prowling the web and adding articles to their site that were posted elsewhere. 

At any rate, once  I get the article, I will have it translated by Google since I have forgotten most of my Spanish (I am ashamed to admit that having been born in South Central Los Angeles, where Spanish is a second language).

Thanks,

Gwen 

Hola que tal, dear Gwen

An article I ran across begins: "This paper examines the interaction among the three forces that shape world politics in the contemporary system: globalization, regionalization, and nationalism."

http://kellogg.nd.edu/publications/workingpapers/WPS/262.pdf

The troika is typically a paradigmatic mechanism for deterrmining comparison-contrast issues. Taking the three together, but rarely any two of them, we observe one glaring commonality: *Asymmetrical* contexts and/or perspectives.

Our nation is by some a Federalist system, the past participle for what is often a 'regionalization' process, as many presumed Iraq might become, for example. As a political wedge issue we only reemphasize the point, as was Ronald Reagan's thought (and conservatives generally) in propounding 'states' rights' issues. 

Globalization in older usage, more etymological, was the implication of uber-connectedness. But in actuality it was economically motivated, principally by economic asymmetries of labor costs between more and less developed areas. Once the ball got rolling, you were on it or rolled over by it, whence a fait accompli of massive proportions. When economic players take power and all others follow, you can expect discontinuities, fractures and disruptions that start economically, become political and then become the subject of fallout therefrom with still worse consequences for many. The unintended (what was intended was profits and avoidance of comparative loss thereof) but nonetheless expected consequence was lower consumer prices, used as the excuse for it all, as per Walmart commercials and public statements.

Nationalism re-asserts what is potentially asymmetrical in matters of power and status, usually sourced in cultural terms. It differs from patriotism in just this way. 

Thus three asymmetries are involved: economic (globalism), psychological peer-clustering (regionalization) and cultural (nationalism). Of course these are superficial generalizations and the reality is that much of what these represent is of overlapping phenomena, thus regionalization is often applied to economic opportunizing upon a local resource market, for example. Even more clearly are the cultural factors involved in each of them: capitalism generates a cultural milieu favoring power and status, and finds excuses to capitalize (er, aggrandize).

But in all three, the archetypal factor grounding asymmetry is human nature, especially the honor-based variety. Ideally, the dignity-based (little of this seems ideal these days but we do hold out hope) would put principle before aggrandizement. Thus before and during the massive translocation to China, our Congress would have exercised oversight rather than being bought off by corporate interests in the personal pursuit of political advancement. Whence a dignity-based solution begins with taking lobbying money out of legislation and capping personal monies as additional to public funding of elections.

Honor-based culture easily degrades into us vs. them mentalities with nary a thought of oversight to keep all players on an even playing field. Economics began as a cult of honor (as did all professions), where principles were hoisted and stewardship ensured proficiency and proactive avoidance of harm. Early markets were quickly found using weights and measures for conformity and avoidance of appearance of impropriety. A man's worth (and so also his produce) was only as good as his word. Trust, not Pollyannish faith, was paramount (of course faith need not be Pollyannish). 

But as F. Schiller noted,these noble beginnings naturally degrade, and in my terms they degrade into 'cults of dignity' where someone's dignity is better than others'. My nation has more dignity than yours. My region has more dignity than yours. My status as capitalist has more dignity than yours. Of course it is one thing to merely suppose one self to be superior; it is rather another matter, and it becomes the rationale for these remarks, when such thoughts beget notions that one is also better than law and propriety, or that one's status can be a legitimate excuse to aggrandize and cause suffering for the sake of lucre.

Religion has worked to counter these tendencies for the most part, none nearly so successfully as the excessively honor-based Islam. It worked TOO well by most Western appraisals, including my own. The amalgamating Umma would give way to Sunni-Sharia squabbles; respect for persons degraded into efforts to resurrect out-of-date culural fetishisms that only cause strain, and the avoidance of capitalism, usury, etc., helped to bring about economic collapse (moderation could have resurrected the golden age of Arab dominance).

Christian ethics (properly the stewardship of offices) is quite sufficient to the task, if only people would take the matter seriously. But they by and large do not, whence legal and/or political pressure are brought to bear, typically in extremist fashion. That extremism could be avoided utilizing legal equivalents of the stewardship principles that in fact retrace and redintegrate Christian ethics.

Perhaps a culture lesson was not expected, but it is never out of place where asymmetries rely on human motivations.

Gwen, I am delighted to hear you are pursuing a book on these matters!! BRAVO!!

Hi Charles, Happy New Year!

Thank you for checking in and giving input on the issues I am struggling with as my deadline for submitting the chapter approaches.  As usual, your careful analysis has helped me - you always go the full circle and tie the loose ends together.

You are a good friend, Charles; and I really appreciate you.

Gwen

Hi Gwendolyn,

It is pertinent to acknowledge that market processes are engineered by governing institutions. In this respect, globalization and regionalizations are products of the (hegemonic) state, with certain unintended social, political, and economic consequences.

Yours,

David

Hi David,

Thank you for responding to my question just as I am writing the section of my chapter in which I identify 'hegemonic' global institutions like the IMF as the engineers of the globalizing process.  In fact, I contrast the wealthy (hegemonic) nations of the West with weak countries like Jamaica that must comply with the 'Free Trade' dictates of the IMF (which makes removal of tariffs a precondition of its loans to needy nations).  I start my essay  with this quote from the Life and Debt documentary on Jamaica getting screwed by the IMF:

• "Why did we think they should reduce trade barriers?  The reason is that Jamaica is a very small country.  It’s not a country which could sort of thrive by producing only for itself.  We believe very firmly that countries are going to grow better if they’re integrated into the world economy and that means reducing tariffs. And, it needed to allow its importers [Freudian slip] – its people access to goods from the rest of the world rather than have them rely on this little -- (snicker) –little economy."
• … Stanley Fischer, Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)[1]

[1]Jamaica Kincaid. Life and Debt. Documentary Film. DVD. Directed by Stephanie Black. New Yorker Films, 2001.

So, David, do you agree that only certain nation-states have the luxury of being hegemonic?  Moreover, would you include global institutions like the IMF as supplementary  'drivers of globalization', especially as concerns forcing globalization upon the nations of the Third World?

Thanks,

Gwen

Dear Gwen,

I do agree that only certain states have the luxury of being hegemonic. In fact, I have a paper on this very topic - see here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228219940_Hegemonic_Currencies_During_the_Crisis_The_Dollar_Versus_the_Euro_in_a_Cartalist_Perspective

AAnd, yes, I would agree that global institutions like the IMF are supplementary drivers of globalization. yet creatures of the hegemonic state, in particular the Washington Consensus.

Yours,

David

Article Hegemonic Currencies During the Crisis: The Dollar Versus th...

also, this chapter of mine should be of assistance: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263193063_Dollar_Hegemony

Yours,

David

Chapter Dollar Hegemony

and for issues concerning the periphery, or Third World, see here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261760417_Dollarization

cheers,

david

Chapter Dollarization

Hi David

Of course your point is well taken. Perhaps I am overly prudish regarding a word 'indicating what is intended and intending what is intended', to borrow from a parent congener. Thus I would hesitate to confound the words 'unintended' and 'unfortunate'.

With knowledge comes responsibility. In professional contexts (to the usual professions I add the work of company executives and government officials in charge of policy and planning, both of which are properly to be considered 'professional' as I use the word) this mantra becomes more pertinent because the damage done through mis-communication looms larger, whence in law the higher office abused the greater the consequences (damage and penalties - thus the Constitutional 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.

In normal parlance we almost unthinkingly and innocently (as an expression of sincere disavowal of bad faith or intention) posit an act yielding a crime as being 'unintended'. When governments and companies are aware, as certainly they are, that their policies carry downsides, the issue is whether we can permit the luxury of a veil of liability protecting officers from 'unintended' harms. At issue is whether we can allow 'unintended' to embrace 'unwitting' as well. For what is unwitting is, if outside of stated policy directives, nonetheless an 'accepted' cost of doing business' that many ethicists would hardly consider a legitimate justification.

Thus when a professional observer can allow that policies were presumably unintended, we can rest assured that those same actors will happily cotton to the term and expect liability protection. 

But human nature is what it is, and we do, far more than we would like, acknowledge that in reality we cannot hold policymakers to common sense objections. Knowing this, however, adds an added poignancy to the obligation to hold officers accountable if only by officially requiring them to openly explain their motivations (whence the interminable Congressional hearings that end up being largely this very exercise). What law will not approach shame assuredly can, and in an older philosophy of law, shame was no less a punishment than written law. Thus in ancient Greece banishment was equivalent to hemlock because the shame of being banished removed the obligation of persons to account for negative treatment of outsiders even when known to be of questionable character.

My way of taking the shame orientation as a legitimate vantage is to remind readers as I write precisely what my view really is, and not what is the official pablum (or the style guide allowance, etc). Thus in my opening remarks what I took as voluntary and intended was gain - "The unintended (what was intended was profits and avoidance of comparative loss thereof) but nonetheless expected consequence was lower consumer prices, used as the excuse for it all, as per Walmart commercials and public statements."

While not saying that they overtly intend harm, I couch the matter as I see it, that they are simply feeling themselves able to avoid any responsibility regardless the degree of knowledge or involvement. I do not consider such as 'unintended' in any accepted use of that term. They know EXACTLY what they are doing and they know EXACTLY the results to be expected, and they know EXACTLY how far they can go with impunity, if only because they have paid lawyers to instruct them in violating Pliny's admonition that a lawyer NEVER stretch the envelope (Book II, Loeb Series).

I know it seems carping or worse, I just can't avoid the shivers going up and down the spine when I hear an inadvertent excuse for what is clearly mendacious activity. When it is known that policies cause downstream problems 50% of the chief stewardship obligations are in play, viz., the duty to avoid *preventable* harm. That term 'preventable' means exactly what you think it does, which is why it is so appropriate a word to describe the stewardship obligation of EVERY officer in EVERY office ever conceived and prosecuted. Details, details.

The devil is in the details, but God looms large in the breast of every thinking person holding an office (excuse a metaphor as I am an atheist), whence we can say that Seldon's lapidary (ignorance of the law is no excuse) was in my view clearly intended to aim at the offices of life where over 80% of the law is apt to come into play for the garden variety of violation. No one trained to an official level or having otherwise earned it or accepted it does not know the stewardship obligations attending such, whence there is no excuse for failing the task of proactively avoiding preventable harm.

And exactly how much effort have policymakers and companies undergone in order to avoid preventable harm? Well, duh. And therein lies the problem, a problem I believe is made all the worse when we loosely use language that gives them all the more reason to believe they need not cotton to such silly Pollyannish stewardship norms nor toerate the accountability that an office inherently requires.

So, David, my remarks are not meant to condemn you, for I easily grant they were unintended in regard of the issue I raise. But I ask all professionals who comment on these matters to bear a responsibility to speak more 'truth to power' than otherwise proper on such matters as en mass escape from accountability while metaphorical (or literal) massacres take place that could have been meliorated where not averted.

Where governments fail to keep themselves accountable it is left to us as professionals to constantly remind others that stewardship IS real and deserves to be credited accordingly.

Please forgive an unusually long peroration on a side topic. I just have a cringe threshold for certain things.

And thank you for your additions to this conversation,  they are valuable and appreciated!!

Gwen, when you are looking at the case of Jamaica being urged/pushed/bullied by the IMF to remove its import barriers, you have another example of unequal bargaining power. Jamaica needs loans and the IMF has the money. He who has the gold makes the rules. However, what remains a mystery to me is that not only small countries with modest means but even large countries like Brazil and rich countries like Saudi Arabia do not hire real experts for these kind of international negotiations. Instead, they typically rely on bureaucrats from their ministries who are hopelessly overmatched by the negotiators on the other side of the table. As a result, agreements are drafted by one side only and the other side does not even come up with some creative suggestions, for example how and why tariff reductions should be phased in or bread subsidies should be phased out in ways that would be more acceptable and better absorbed domestically. To give but one example: When Saudi Arabia negotiated its membership in the WTO, they did not have a single expert for the TRIPs Agreement. In the end, they brought in an engineer, probably on the assumption that he would at least know something about patents. In this way, countries save a few hundred thousands of dollars for the experts and waste potentially billions in trade benefits. In extreme cases, they negotiate such bad deals that the results may be famine among the poorest of their citizens and revolution or civil war for the leaders. Beats me every time...

Hi Frank,

You are absolutely right that countries should hire experts to advocate for them with these global institutions, especially the IMF.  According to Stiglitz (who I believe is a Nobel Prize-winning economist) the only countries who succeed in getting back on their feet after receiving an IMF loan are those who take the money, but ignore the IMF's advice.  For instance, Stiglitz notes that Korea and Malaysia persistently resisted complying with the IMF's 'non-negotiable' requirements and got their economies back on track. 

Also, I recall that the President of Ghana, which got an IMF loan a number of years ago, stated that one "has to have their stuff together" when going to the IMF or else expect to get screwed.  (I note that last year, 2014, Ghana was going back to the IMF hat-in-hand and wonder if they "have there stuff together" this time.)

An aside, Frank, you look pretty young, judging from your picture,  so I think you are a product of your cohort generation which feels everything is negotiable -- even grades (which annoys me no end with my students).  Also your cohort group has become infamous (especially in Manhattan) for hiring tutors and consultants for their kindergarteners to prep them for interviews to make sure they got into the right prep schools and thus have a shot for the Ivy League.  Don't take offense, Frank, I am not being mean; it is just that I believe consulting and hiring experts is in your DNA, but it might never have occurred to the administrations of the LDNs that went to the IMF without representation (because they are older than you and from a very different culture; i.e., not Americans!

Smile and Hugs,

Gwen

Hi Qwen,

You raised many interesting questions in your comments to my answer.

1) There are big differences between states and multinational corporations as economic actors. When corporations are direct actors, states are often indirect actors whose acts are influenced by other goals like international prestige or success in national elections.

2) Religions in state polititcs form a broad topic that I have not discussed as you pointed out. I do not totally agree with your opinion on Turkey and the EU, because the possible loss of farming subventions has much influenced the French opinion.

3) I think that everybody has to consider globalization and financialization, even though these are economic "occurances", both will influence our lives in many ways. Of course, when our Earth is divided between some 200 states, everyone has to be a citizen in one of these countries.

Hi Veli,

Thank you for your post.  I am glad you are checking back on this question so that you --as have I-- benefit from the rich diversity of opinion on this subject. 

For instance, I respond to subpart 1 ("states being influenced by international prestige or success in national elections") of your post by saying that in the U.S. when the state is an 'indirect actor' in aid of 'direct action' by corporations, the U.S. is definitely participating as 'an economic actor' in the global arena.  In short, its only interest in international prestige is for economic reasons; and it is impossible to link "success in national elections" in the U.S. with anything extraneous to economic gain -- no matter how you slice it.   

What lies behind the administration-in-power's activities on behalf of corporations in the international arena is the aggressive lobbying by Big Business in Washington D.C. (where there are many more lobbyists for Big Business who are full-time D.C. residents than there are members of Congress). 

Another strong lobbying interest influencing U.S. 'direct action' in the global marketplace is the heavily subsidized  U.S. Agricultural Industry (e.g., when the Clinton Administration filed an unfair trade complaint with the WTO against Britain to stop it from using Jamaica as its sole source of bananas).  Here, I am sure you would agree that the U.S. was solely a 'direct' economic actor in the global arena.  As is France, if you are correct that any opposition it has to Turkey's admission to the EU is because of fear of losing its ability to continue subsidizing its  agricultural industry rather than a fear of Islam.

 Thanks for your continued interest,

Gwen

Hi Gwen, I am sporadic and tardy owing to internet connectivity issues. Just wanted to remind you that yes, Stiglitz is a Laureate. Relevant to the current thread, he also wrote an intro to a recent edition of Polanyi's Great Transformation where you will note that his use of the terms 'liberal' and 'neoliberal' are precisely as I employ them. Further, the editor did a knock-out job in offering the overview. This is Polanyi's best, and I warmly recommend this to you, esp. with the two great commentators. It is a tour de force and a fabulous introductory accounting of some economic issues you have complained of being shy over. No worries being shy after this work, let me assure you of that! Gold Standard? Duck soup!! Further, Polanyi, like other great thinkers, spent lots of time in sociology and anthropology, which I am certain you will find captivating.

As ever, w/hugs all round

Gwen, I am 52 and the first person in my family to finish high school. But I have been working with some two dozen governments trying to help them to get better deals in negotiations with the WTO, EU, IMF, and other organizations and I have seen time and again that the representatives or these governments either did not ask for advice or did not take it. In many cases, they were actually very comfortable signing a deal that would be good for international "investors" coming after the natural resources of the respective country, but really bad for their population and/or the environment. You may want to think about the real dichotomy, which is not between North and South. It is between rich and poor. The rich in the West and their multinational corporations are in cahoots with the 1.5% elite in the developing countries, i.e. the business elite that is either identical to the political elite, or at least married and otherwise closely related to it, or maintains the political leadership like a zoo, with the joint purpose of extracting the wealth of the respective country for private profit. The common good and the interests of the rest of the entire country and its population are not even afterthoughts in these deals. Unfortunately, the IMF and World Bank have been much better at promoting the interests of their wealthy supporters than the poor people in the developing world. And, of course, the Western governments are after economic growth and jobs in the West (and profits for their political donors) long before they are really interested in economic growth and jobs in the global South. The narrow middle class in Africa, (South-East) Asia, Central- and Latin America and, even more drastically, the impoverished masses in these countries, simply do not have anyone speaking for them, except for a couple of academics and a couple of NGOs. And the NGOs, for the most part, have not been very sophisticated in their efforts at helping their constituents because smashing shop windows in Seattle or saying no to everything in the Doha Round is not a negotiating strategy and certainly does not improve the lot of a single person on the planet. Sure, there are exceptions, like much of the work done by Oxfam, but they are too few and too weak... Long story short, nothing is going to change until this changes!

Frank,

Thank you very much for this insider's look at the pathetic state of affairs in the global marketplace, which I find just too depressing to contemplate (let alone incorporate in my paper which is already negative enough).    The existing negativity in my paper is because I, of course, already understood the disparate treatment poor nations receive at the hands of global institutions, especially the IMF and the World Bank which do not have one-nation, one-vote like the WTO.  However, poor nations being "hung out to dry" by their own countrymen/women adds a new level of injustice and is just too much for me to process.  Moreover, since NGOs ("global civil society") are the only moral agents in the global arena, I am not really willing to abandon them as the great hope for people in poor countries "left behind by globalization."[1] 

Hence, I deem the NGOs -- disorganized and unsophisticated as they may be -- to be a beacon of light for people living in less-developed nations.  Moreover, I think abandonment of one's own people by identifying with aspirational social classes in other societies (and helping them screw one's own people)  is the exception rather than the rule.  Indeed, I have to believe this in order to retain my faith in humanity. 

Indeed, your success (despite  being the first person in your family to finish high school)  in reaching an aspirational class status and nonetheless not abandoning the cause of the downtrodden shows that my faith in humanity is not misplaced.  So, I prefer to believe that "elites" in poor countries who help themselves rather than trying  to help their people are freak aberrations, rather than the rule. 

Finally, as I stated before, I think the failure of poor nations to utilize consultants and/or "negotiate" better loan terms for their countries on their own is due to the 'culture of poverty' that prevails in those nations -- a culture that (unlike the 'culture of privilege' that we enjoy as Americans) is more conducive to stoically accepting one's fate rather than taking an aggressive stance (such as the American mantra, "Oh yeah, see you in Court"!).

Gwen

[1] Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1996), 239.

Thank you, Frank, for your wisdom and vision, but most of all your finely-honed sense of reality (which many a liberal lacks and at which many a conservative takes as fodder to aggrandize). You of course hit the nail on the head with the elite culture and rich-poor dichotomy, each of which deserves further elaboration if only to let poor Marx rest more quietly.

Speaking of 'reality' and a *culture* of realism: We can begin from two tacks, one anthropological, the other philosophical. The former was handled forcibly and with great talent by the Durkheim scholar Mary Douglas who forthrightly tackled what so many lay folk have long recognized, namely, the honor-based tendency to be 'hyper'-realistic, taking reality as a matter for respect if not necessarily regard. And vis-a-vis Douglas, the lay folk were right. And that is also what just happens to be validated by the philosophical approach.

Douglas considered that societies in general were susceptible of taking reality as *fate* (she failed to comprehend the honor-dignity distinction and made a fool of herself in her introduction to Mauss when dictating that there is no such thing as a social grounding for non-reciprocation of gifts).

Looks, however, can be deceiving. She correctly saw the respect for reality but misinterpreted it. The honor-based sense of reality shows rather as tolerance for fate but which is grounded in a tacit motto: If you can't lick it, join it. From an adult's point of view it seems a bit childish, but in actuality it is a product of lessons well learned for traditional societies that must above all cope with adversity. We moderns (mostly by definition - if  not practice - dignity-based see reality through a lens of opportunity. When honor-based groups see opportunity they often go after it with a vengeance whereat they become more successful even than ourselves. For they see a victory over reality as a special dispensation. 

Further, this is all part and parcel of the *culture* of poverty (considered in its widest sense). Thus what a people expects is seen in the context of history and perspective of immediacy, and this in turn in the further context of long history and long future. The intense scrutiny of reality teaches patience, teaches to look far ahead as well as far back. Honor-based cultures are said to have 'long memories'. Indeed. In business they are known to think ahead. Indeed (note this is one of five dimensions utilized by Hostede).

Some specifically negative attributes to this culture of poverty include a non-intuitive realization that successful outsiders can, once becoming status-holders in successful society, look at their former peers as weak and witless and even spineless if they cannot or will not make something of themselves. Happens everywhere, for the tendency is, broadly speaking, all too human. Justice Thomas cloaks his negativity behind affirmative policies said to inhibit the sense of striving. The part in which he is correct (honor-based self-determination and striving, love of success, etc) is a poor piece of work. He has replaced respect for natural reality with unbridled respect for status, another honor-based hallmark.

Which brings us to another negative, at least in the modern context, the notion of status. The justly revered legal historian, Henry Sumner Maine, considered that mankind progress by two stages, the first in which society was held together by status, and then when it came to be held together by contract. Status is predicated on trustworthiness bred of experience, in particular success. Contracts and negotiations predicated thereon, are typically looked upon as asking to act less on trust than upon faith. Honor-based groups, being hyper-realist are by nature mistrustful, and trust must be earned. It may not be very 'fateful', but it is a lesson born of living life in reality,

When an honor-based group approaches with hands out, they are in a sad way, for everything in their culture militates against this very act. It is the very regard for reality that finally compels them forward, not some mystical reliance upon fate. In many instances in which tribal medicine is found wanting, it proves the point to demonstrate the magic of modern potentates (medicines). Reality governs success, and respect of success is the basis of the culture. Problem: the power structure of such groups rarely allows the contest (but it has gone well when attempted, as in Eskimo societies, for example).

Lawyers have a saying attached to requests for equitable remedies. 'Come with clean hands'. This is a very old saw and reflects the early honor-based grounding of law and equity. (Failing to recognize this is but one of so many boneheaded deficiencies in the modern teaching of law.) This is not to say that these old saws have no value, for obviously they do. But any comparison of honor-based and dignity-based societies reveals scores of instances in when both culture types desire the self-same result, BUT they desire it from disparate motives and with disparate intents. Not to see the truth of this is to admit ignorance of cultural theory.

Coming for 'special' treatment is not so far off to asking for hand-outs coming from an honor-based vantage. They may well understand that they deserve melioration or redress from potential harm, but let us recall the general tone of early (= honor-based) law: it favored self-reliance to thwart crimes but required raising hue and cry; only a person can sue, and only for his own interest. Let a man die and all legal issues are buried with him. no honor-based person in their right mind admits guilt, whence the modern saying but upon dignity-based premise). The honor-based legal worls was mean-spirited and rough-hewn. It was the age of status and self-reliance. All but the grandest machinations were private, not public.

The common law is a tale of TWO laws. The one, honor-based, we have taken many centuries to grow out from and mature into dignity-based precepts as are implied in our constitutional documents (in good Honor-Based fashion, however, the Declaration and Preamble are not allowed as official 'source' of law in court). Which goes to show that nominal labels need not be well manifested in behavior. The other common law is the law of aspiration and fundamental right, nowadays the still unwritten law and most of that at equity. (The Bill of Rights was at first not envisioned as necessary, recall).

Returning, then, to our honor-based folk requesting to 'negotiate' a loan for their country. Asking for favors or for special consideration is acknowledging a modality of 'dependence', which to the honor-based is next only to anathema. Dependence is the surest way to divulge oneself of whatever honor one may have claimed. Orphans were the poster children of dependence and were generally short-lived, Not pretty? Welcome to reality 101. When culture theory isn't taught we are bereft of a full deck at the bargaining table!

Of course their appearance at the table may seem anything but demur or tentative. They are taking in the reality - of poses, postures, tones, words. Language is usually how one gains authority over others in the honor-based culture. In Islam one can freely hang out a shingle as Imam. The authority of such is generated by the crowds attained through eloquence in sating the case. Slam is the height of heights for honor-based religion. When universities began in Italy the qualifications to teach were not excessive because the proof was in the eating,in the number of students attending.

Once upon a time the haggling was between Yassar Arafat and Bill Clinton. This was haggling, not negotiating. Haggling was the earliest recorded example of pure stewardship, a method employed to keep everyone honest, to prevent advantage from being exacted when immaturity came to the table. Haggling is of a status-based provenance, where status is authority, the authority to get what is deserved and permit what is necessary but not excessive. Negotiating comes from the world of contract. The intent of the contract, however, is really just haggling in finer garments with a trust in the instruments less than the negotiators themselves.

The so-called 'considerations' of the contract (that lawyers are famously at odds and evens with) are nothing less nor more than the contractual modality of haggling objectives. That lawyers are so perplexed by something so simple would be laughable but for what it implies of the deficiency of their instruction throughout law school - of course the smart ones figure it out through practice - after all, it's not rocket science, is it?).

The Camp David negotiations dragged on and time was running  out. In haggling as in so much else in reality, history and experience counsel patience. Arafat waited long enough to see Clinton seriously ruffled at the prospect of a failed negotiation. Arafat knew exactly what that meant. It meant there what it meant in haggling: any indication that the process revealed personal objectives rather than a correct outcome was sufficient to break the deal as if no consideration had been offered in negotiating a contract.

In coming to the table for a hand-out, however, one's status is already low, indeed one's posture is properly considered 'adverse reliance'. Which to the honor-based is throwing salt into the wound opened by admitting dependence. They know what the real world wants and largely how it works. They already know that what Frank said about elites and about the 'system' is what they could expect even without benefit of Frank's evidence experience. Such are the lesson of reality, at which again the honor-based have long had to cope with matters beyond their scope.

The Lakalai tribe of New Briton was highly introspective and elaborated at great length a summary view of a type of behavior that the DSM (in psychiatry) suggests to practitioners to treat presumptively as bipolar disorder. (You can read more in my article Bathing in Bipolar Semiology here at RG). Beyond the psychology, the pertinent point for the Lakalai, as for us, is how the they dealt with these biolar types, who were brash, frontal, charming, devious and more. These were the sorts who the Lakalai assigned to negotiate with the Brits. Sharp primitives, them folk.

What the honor-based lack in detail they try to make up for in their experience in dealing with their fellow man. But in negotiating with IFM and etc., they know, as do these institutions, that the cards are all in the hands of power. The honor-based are accustomed to treat authority with respect and deference (in person, rarely from a distance). Asking for a negotiator, even in a circumstance as bleak as this, is risky, for it is but another evidence of dependence. In requesting them to accept advice, we accept them to take a foreigner's medicine contrary to all they know.

It requires some astuteness on the part of someone like Frank to convince them of the wisdom of protecting their interests. Obviously, Frank is adept at it. They assume the worse and presume that abject obeisance is the only posture likely to ultimate in the needed funding. I would be interested in knowing if there are any minor or major trends as to what culture areas display what leanings and desires in these negotiations. No culture is ever a mere flat-line mirror to the generalities stated above (which are nonetheless correct as such and serve theoretical more than practical purposes until more is known of a given context and perspective).

The honor-based are not for all of this bereft of hope. Their religions serve them better for such than ours do for our own needs. But the greatest hope is possible only from a dignity-based religion, for the hope engendered here is a pure hope and not a personal or social aspiration; a hope that asks for gifts bestowed to all, for the reason that all, even the apostate, are inherently deserving.

Such sentiments seem not to enlighten bankers in international conclaves of finance and self-interest. Matters come full circle in considering elites, for they return to earlier honor-based values where they cotton less to the charitable of them, far more to those that are most readily used and abused to their benefit. Such groups are called 'cults of dignity', for in their membership the dignity is greater than for all outsiders, and in particular for suppliants!

But it was the honor-based world that gave us the cult of dignity. Euripides spent lots of ink explaining this to the Greeks, whose elites had come to look rather like the operatives of the Republican Party here: preach apple pie, deliver a philosophy of minimalism. Because the chief social desideratum for an honor-based group is social cohesion, greater tolerance of nastiness from leaders is thus allowed and expected, but never enjoyed. Offices are granted on merits and not on the intention to to a good job, which abets corruption and indeed protects the corrupt from detection and prosecution. It is thus the sad truth that it is the third-world and fourth-world peoples who are the most plagued by the worst depredations from their own governments, and which is a prevailing trigger to banking organizations to treat them accordingly. What exceptions there are from this rule are to be studied carefully for hints that might be elsewhere applied.

The right approach CAN be found to achieve remarkable success with honor-based peoples in need of help, but knowledge of their culture is apt to be essential for predictably good results (vs. what we were treated to in the cult classic The Ugly American). Helping them to stress their own values, showing them they can trust you, less for financial than for sincere and informed knowledge of their needs and circumstances, may seem self-evident. Simplistic it assuredly is not. It starts with cultural knowledge that should be a requirement for anyone in an international institution.

Great, Charles!  Thank you,

Gwen

Economics are not everything. Not everything is reducible to economics. Man is more than homo economicus. See, for example" my recent "NATO Now and Then" and Norman Fairclough's recent piece on critical discourse analysis of globalization and development.

Political and the economic activities interact. For example, the creation of the ECSC/EC/EU was and continues to be a series of political acts. In earlier situations, trade followed the flag.

Thanks, Francis, for your insightful comment.  Indeed, the strong bond between politics and economics is rearing its head here in the U.S. as I write this response.  I am thoroughly convinced that a Republican-led Congress will be unable to resist opening up trade with Cuba as swiftly as possible given the Republican penchant for supporting Big Business.  The clamor from their constituents to "get the show on the road" so the U.S. to Cuba tourism can start will become louder and louder and legislators up for re-election will become more and more nervous about stonewalling (in order to irritate President Obama) as the election year nears.

Gwen

TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is a new political agenda for the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries. This is a new version of  "extraterritorial pacts (WTO, NAFTA, EU, MERCOSUR, ect." So, I have posted this new question:

Trump and Sanders are opposed to the TPP. How the International Trade theory and International Political Economy explain this?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Trump_and_Sanders_are_opposed_to_the_TPP_How_the_International_Trade_theory_and_International_Political_Economy_explain_this

I believe that this is really what International Political Economy and International Trade theory must explain. How do you think? Please argue freely in the new question page.

Is conflict in international trade an illusion? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_conflict_in_international_trade_an_illusion#57990cd296b7e41cbd72ee31

And what about the interactions between global and regional institutions?

Absolutely right Mr Emmert

regional trsade agremeent have become very fashionable, but especially the olders ones often confliczt with the MFN of WTO and need to be adjusted