(c) Copyright 1998 by Graham Strachan
The MAI is the latest step in a programme to which successive Australian governments since at least 1983 have committed this country: it’s called ‘GLOBALISATION’. The public have not been properly informed about it, let alone asked if they want it. Nor has the real meaning or full implications of ‘globalisation’ been made clear to them. The word has subtly been slipped into the language by the media, and the process proceeded with as though it has all been agreed to. The realisation of what ‘globalisation’ really means is only now dawning on the public, brought to light by the MAI.
When people ask, “Why would successive Australian governments pursue an economic policy obviously designed to run down the nationally-owned and controlled economy, in favour of foreign ownership and control? The answer is, “That’s part of globalisation”. It’s no conspiracy theory:
At the Canberra Press Club on 1 December 1997, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told journalists Australia was committed to ‘globalisation’. During recent programmes on the MAI on the ABC and SBS the presenters and participants all refer to ‘the whole process of globalisation’ as something that’s accepted as given, and under way. In Buenos Aires on October 17, 1997, President Clinton said, “a great tide of change is sweeping the world.... isolationist voices must be ignored....Globalization is irreversible....Protectionism will only make things worse.”
Globalisation means the political and economic integration of all the countries of the world into a new world order under one world government. ‘Isolationism’ means a country wanting to mind its own business, go its own way and not be ‘globalised’. ‘Protectionism’ means a country protecting its industries, economic assets, and the well-being of its people from exploitation by outsiders. Those things have to be stamped out: thus the hysterical media campaign against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. Its policies entail an independent, sovereign, non-globalised Australia. To the elites who superstitiously worship mystical ‘laws of history of social development’, this is ‘turning back the clock’, resisting the tide of destiny.
A ‘globalised’ world does not allow for independent nations wanting to go their own way. They have to be turned into interdependent ‘member states’ of the global order. To turn an independent nation into an interdependent ‘member state’, four things must be abolished, or at least substantially reduced:
Governments like Australia’s, committed to globalisation, have to deliberately run down their own national economies, turn over their country’s economic assets to internationalist ownership and control,and sign treaties and agreements such as the MAI which relinquish national economic sovereignty. To run down national economies, two false economic theories are being employed:
The MAI is supposed to be about 'free trade', but Paul Ormerod says in his book, ‘The Death of Economics’(1994) at p.17: “Ricardo was careful to point out that his theory was dependent upon the assumption that funds available to invest in industry (capital) did not flow freely from one country to another....In contrast, at the end of the twentieth century, capital is for the most part highly mobile.” It can and does flash around the globe in milliseconds.
What the MAI gives effect to is the new phony meaning of ‘free trade’. It seeks to create a legally enforceable ‘right’ for multinational corporations (MNCs) and global investors to go wherever they like, and do whatever they like, anywhere in the world, without interference from national governments, and without any social responsibilities. If national governments try to interfere or obstruct them in any way the MNCs and global inverstors can sue them in a special international tribunal.
Nobody seems to have realised yet, that such behavior is incompatible with a civilised social order. ‘Freedom’ in a civilised order must necessarily be limited and carry with it responsibility for the effects of one’s actions on others. Multinationals and global investors want the best of both worlds: they want all the benefits of civilisation (a social order in which to make profits) without the responsibilities, like greedy children.
To excuse such irrationalism, the myth has been invented that such behavior will be ‘good for everybody’. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, through which the pursuit of self-interest produces socially beneficial results, has been distorted to ‘justify’ greed and anti-social behavior by the super-rich for whom enough is never enough. More disturbingly the doctrine of social-Darwinism has resurfaced in big business ideology: that it’s ‘good for the human race’ that the strong should destroy the weak. Civilisation becomes a jungle with buildings.
The character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas in the Oliver Stone film ‘Wall Street’ (1987) stated the new doctine: “Greed (for want of a better word) is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save [this corporation], but also that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”
That is garbage, of course. Greed is possibly the most destructive force in the world. The ‘better word’ Gekko didn’t bother searching for, was ‘rational self-interest’: the self-interest of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’. Greed by definition is ‘irrational self-interest’. There’s a world of difference. One builds, one destroys.