Sociology final
In his book “Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People” author Jon Jeter reckons that globalization has become “an international shakedown” especially for the working class people that has “widened inequality, corrupted politician, estranged neighbors from one another, unraveled families, routed rivers, emptied ports of ships and flooded streets with protesters” (Jeter 45). The author gives a thorough assessment of how globalization and the concept of free trade have turned many of the world’s manufacturing centers into “global flea markets. Jeter interweaves the narratives of cab drivers in Brazil and sex workers in Buenos Aires, tomato sellers in Zambia as well as an upwardly mobile African American woman in Chicago. He narrates how globalization has significantly contributed to slow growth in post-apartheid South Africa intertwining with racism in Brazil that sees the state and employers target black poor women fore involuntary sterilization for the alleged greater good of a larger worker force. With examples of nations like Chile have had to rethink their perception about globalization and drifted towards new forms of strength and independence, the author challenges the free trade orthodoxy along with its potential to reduce poverty. Jeter’s reservations about globalization and free trade enrich the debate about those who benefit from a “global economy” on the one hand, and those who suffer from it on the other.
According to Jeter, countries that have embraced the emerging neoliberal ideology have typical characteristics such as free trade, privatization, deregulation, corporate downsizing, and IMF austerity. In countries such as Malawi and Brazil, the author posits, this ideology is responsible for increased poverty, urban gentrification, capitalism, childhood obesity, and sub-prime mortgages among other things. Jeter recounts how Zambian government dismantled its tariffs during the 1990s following the advice of international lenders, resulting in an influx of foreign-made products which overwhelmed and eventually its formally well-doing industrial base. There was a decline in the number of Zambian textile plants from as high as 140 to as low as eight, forcing majority of Zambians in abject poverty and to wear imported castoffs. Similarly, the action of the South African government to privatize its water services rendered water so high for most people that many were forced to fetch water from streams which resulted in a cholera epidemic. The author also recognizes that the implementation of the Argentinian government policies which were supported by Wall Street did not make country to have “the most prosperous and industrialized economy in Latin America” (Jeter 79)
Jeter shows the far reaching negative effects of the abstract economic policies of the neoliberal ideology to poor people living in favelas and townships. The author reckons that “globalization pits men and women against each other, fueling greater miscommunication, jealousness and even violence,” in the sense that loss of well-paying jobs has resulted in disrupted conventional gender roles (Jeter 82). The poor are a byproduct of a thoughtless, almost-primeval drift towards globalization, anything that cannot be quantified (i.e. human awareness, the traditional meaning of place, the spirit of a public school) is not even consciously rejected. It’s simply forsaken. The elements of human life that are significant as lived are merely ignored, leading to a fellowship of the dispossessed. As such, the book paints the plight of millions of people made to suffer under the bondage of the new colonialism – economic imperialism championed by the cooperation of multinational corporations, the World Bank, the IMF, and other private/public elite who wield great power in the world.
Jeter acknowledges the model of globalization practiced by the Chilean and Venezuela’s governments, which he terms as having a human face. The author reckons that these two are examples of countries that gone against the conventional wisdom of “the Washington Consensus” to realize substantial prosperity. Chile, in particular, was able to realize prosperity when its government reverted back to some common-sense protectionist policies together with re-regulation of its national assets. While he faults Chile for entering a free trade with the U.S., he lauds its salmon for dominating the U.S. market. The Chilean salmon industry illustrates how the country successfully navigated the ebbs and flow of a rerouted global economy more than any other Latin America country and indeed all developing countries around the world. Unlike the economies of its neighbors which were stumbling, the Chilean economy was able to prosper from selling more fish, wine, fruit, and processing metal and food products abroad than ever before (Jeter 89).
While most countries continued aligning their economies with the Washington economic protocol, Chile begun shifting course by reestablishing government’s influence in industry and trade. The Chilean government influenced key exports and utilized legislation, regulation and taxes in taming the feral free-market system that had negatively affected the country during the 1970s and 1980s. It almost doubled its taxes on large corporations, strengthen its labor legislation by doubling the minimum wage and demanding employers to give jobless benefits to the unemployed workers. The country’s central bank also devalued its currency and kept the exchange rate on a relatively tight leash to curb inflation and protect local industries from imports which would be rendered inexpensive by an overvalued peso. The government also considerably increased its budgets in public health and education for the benefit of its people.
Reference:
Jeter, Jon. Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People. New York: W.W. Norton. 2009.
