On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Gernot Kohler wrote:
> The question whether the last 25 years of globalization have begun to
> break down global apartheid, is a difficult one. At a symposium where
> related questions were discussed, the Third Worlders among the
> participants seemed to agree that global apartheid has gotten worse for
> the South during this period through new forms of domination, including IMF
> conditionality etc. (see, special issue of _Alternatives_ (World Policy
> Institute, New York), vol. 19, no. 2 (Spring 1994)).
> On the other hand, there are also signs of a "Third Worldization" of the North.
>
Yes, IMF/World Bank conditionality is a new kind of domination, but it's
main purpose is to open up countries to foreign investment and create good
environments for foregin and domestic capital in subject countries. Thus,
at least in some semi-peripheral countries, it creates new competitors for
global investment and undermines the positions of elements of core
countries. And with telling effect: private capital flows to the 31
largest emerging markets reached a record $200.7 billion in 1995; FDI to
developing countries was $90 billion in 1995, a 50% increase over 1994.
Global capitalism wins, but increasingly the losers are spread across
national boundaries.
>
> One interesting *empirical/analytic* issue arising from the concept of
> global apartheid has to do with boundaries. If I understand this
> correctly, the general presumption in world(-)system analysis is that
> global capitalism is more or less ignoring national boundaries. In the
> global apartheid view of the system, there is one type of boundary that
> matters a great deal-- namely, the boundary separating the predominantly
> white labour markets of the North from the multi-racial labour markets of
> the South of the world. (See, Arjun Mukherji, "Economic Apartheid in the
> New World Order," in Phyllis Bennis and M. Moushabeck, eds., _Altered
> States: A Reader in the New World Order_(New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993).
>
Perhaps, but on the other hand, look at the incredible
internationalization of some professions in the US - medical doctors,
engineers, computer specialists and scientists. The numbers may be small,
but if there was full protectionism in employment surely these would be
the jobs to be reserved for "whites" as you put it. Anecdotally, I have a
friend in the engineering school at Northwestern (an Iranian) who says
that American WASP students are so rare in the school that they are
remarked upon and excite interest when they appear.
- DMG