| Author | Message | ||
     Methhanithodugu Side Hero Username: Methhanithodugu Post Number: 5942 Registered: 12-2008 Posted From: 59.93.94.85 Rating: N/A |
Lets ban Mc Donalds/KFC while bama arrives  | ||
| Vjavasi Side Hero Username: Vjavasi Post Number: 4683 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 75.131.192.17 Rating: N/A |
final ga ee useless mafia licker Singhvi gadu oka manchi article rasadu...is it a part of demolish MMS plan ? http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/columnists/why-globalisation- is-a-dirty-word-in-america/205982.html Why globalisation is a dirty word in America Vir SanghviFirst Published : 12 Sep 2010 12:36:16 AM ISTLast Updated : 12 Sep 2010 01:34:46 AM IST Globalisation is a funny thing. One moment it is a force for good in the world. And the other, it is suddenly transformed into a nasty phenomenon that causes honest American workers to lose their jobs. Most of us will remember the clamour for globalisation from the late 1980s. In that era, the influence of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was still being felt all over the world. Thatcher and Reagan were both under the spell of those economists who preached that markets were the solution to the world’s problems. The larger the market, the happier the situation. By the '90s, when this mantra reached India, it had a particular resonance. For too long we had shackled our entrepreneurs and artificially suppressed our markets. Once the Manmohan Singh-inspired reforms took effect, the license-quota-permit Raj was dismantled and the results were instantaneous. Growth rates shot up and a new era of prosperity dawned on urban India. The 1991 reforms emerged out of adversity. India was bankrupt. Our gold had been pledged to the Bank of England and we barely had the foreign exchange required to cover our import bills. While the reforms emerged out of Manmohan Singh’s belief that regulations needed to be liberalised, they were also directed by the IMF which was loaning India the money we needed to survive. As far as the IMF was concerned, globalisation and liberalisation were merely two parts of the same phenomenon. You could not liberalise without dismantling your tariff regime and encouraging foreigners to set up industries in your country. There were inevitable consequences to globalisation. Factories closed down. People lost their jobs. Domestic industry was wiped out by foreign competition in many sections of the economy. But such consequences, we were told by the IMF and its Western sponsors, were okay in the long run. A regulated economy had created many distortions. Globalisation removed these distortions even if there was a short-term human cost. At the time, many people argued that societies did not function on the basis of economics alone. The human costs of globalisation could not be magicked away. All societies had to reach a balance between economic efficiency and social happiness. This formulation was pooh-poohed by the West. Opponents of globalisation were, according to the West, cowards who were scared to face up to the short-term costs of a better future for everyone. Critics of the West argued that globalisation was no more than an attempt by Western economies to explore new markets for their goods. This position was also trashed. Well, the shoe is on the other foot now. The West reckoned that the Third World would only manufacture products that the West itself was no longer interested in making. Therefore, globalisation would lead to a bigger market for high-priced Western goods in the Third World and a Western market for products that the Third World would produce cheaply for American and European consumers. What nobody predicted, way back in the 1990s, was that India had a very special export: intelligence. India differs from China, Africa and many Third World countries in one important respect. There are very few jobs that Westerners can do at high cost in their own countries that cannot be done as well and far more cheaply by Indians in India. And with advances in communication technology, it no longer matters that India is so many miles away from America or Europe. A single phone call or an Internet query can be answered in real time by Indians even if the caller is sitting in San Diego. This unexpected by-product of globalisation was never supposed to happen. When the Americans told us what a great thing globalisation was, they never realised the threat that the intelligence of Indians posed in such areas as software, customer servicing and technical support. But the truth is that Indians are better at all this than Americans. And we ask for much less money. The logic of globalisation — so painstakingly explained to us by the West — is that economic efficiency must be pursued no matter how high the human cost. So, even if outsourcing to India leads to a loss of high-wage American jobs, it should still be the preferred option. After all, the human losses are short-term and easily worth it when you consider the long-term benefits. Except that it hasn’t worked out that way. The state of Ohio banned outsourcing of government work last week. There is pressure on other states to follow suit. And President Barack Obama declared that America had made too many other countries rich while ignoring the needs of its own people. In some strangely ironic way, the West has now reached where we were two decades ago when critics of globalisation complained about the human cost. But while we were told to shut up and take the costs, American politicians are singing a very different tune when their own country is paying the price. Suddenly, globalisation is no longer the wonderful economic phenomenon that we were told it was. It is a terrible thing. It leads to American jobs being Bangalored. It causes American workers to lose employment. And so on. Many of us have been angered by the Ohio decision. We cannot understand how the United States of America, which was once such an advocate of globalisation, can behave in this manner. These moves are anti-Indian, we declare angrily. Speaking for myself, I do not share in the anger. Some points are worth remembering. First of all, liberalisation and globalisation were never the same thing. We were conned into believing that part of the process of releasing the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian people was the opening up of our markets to Western imports. Secondly, we always forget at our own peril that all nations are essentially selfish. America did not support globalisation because it believed that it was the best thing for the world. It propagated globalisation because it believed that it was the best thing for America. Now that events have taken an unexpected turn and globalisation has turned around and come back to bite Uncle Sam in his posterior, America is taking a different attitude. This is not a betrayal of an ideology. It is merely a re-definition of self-interest — and self-interest was always the name of the game anyway. And finally, let’s not waste so much time getting angry. India has no God-given right to expect American contracts. We are not morally bound to get every outsourcing deal from every American state. That’s not how the world works. Just because we were idiots and believed that we should open up our markets to the West, it does not follow that the West has a similar obligation to export its jobs to us. The truth is that globalisation is a great idea — in theory. But in practice, all nations will do whatever furthers their own interests. It is a lesson we should never forget. |
