Re: global health vs. welfare

On John R. Groves' posting:
>
>>dear WSNers: Chase-Dunn's point on global social security echoes my own on
>>global health care.
>
assuming these questions are addressed to me rather than to Chase Dunn,
since
Chase Dunn did not drop that term and I did.
>
>I would argue that health care might be easier to start with
>>since we can identify a minimal state of health to aim at in the
beginning.
>I
think it would also be a smaller investment. It could increase over time.
>
    Precisely - let's start combating malaria for a start; a program which
on the point of nearly eradicating malaria was stopped by the WHO because it
was short of 200 million and the US didn't want to contribute. (And all this
while the US is investing 2 billion + in a missile-defense system against
attacks from God only knows who ...). So that malaria-mosquitoes resistant
to any known remedy have now re-emerged and are already threatening 300
million people in West Africa, with these malignant new forms of malaria
already spreading to the Middle East, South Asia and in the very near future
Southern Europe, Latin America and hence the southern United States.

    We have NOT won the war on viruses (never will really) and if humanity
as a whole does not continue to heavily invest in combating this threat -
sparing neither rich nor poor - the combination of global poverty and global
communication is going to insure the spread of epidemics comparable to the
bubonic plague. A vastly more concrete and immediate thread to the US than
some missile-attack in the God knows how distant future - Malaria is one
immediate candidate, new more deadly forms of AIDS - which already appear to
be emerging in Africa - being another.

    N. B. lest I be accused of racism - Africa is the main fulcrum of
epidemic infections on the moment not because it's black, but because both
its states and its people are poor - and thus also poorly able to prevent
the spread of epidemics - And as it is undergoing a transport-revolution on
the moment, in which so far isolated `disease pockets' are brought in
contact with the rest of the continent and hence, ultimately, the world.
Epidemic disease spreads together with trucks and minibuses on the
continent.
>>
>>I am wondering what sort of program of global social security or welfare
>system
>>(it wouldn't only be for the elderly, right?--I may be misunderstanding,
so
>>forgive me if I am) would be at all acceptable to core states.
>
    That's a major problem but let's begin with the beginning, as you say in
Dutch - the big problem on the moment in the Third World is youth - not -
yet - the elderly.

    But that's surely going to come: each family on the moment in the
Ghaza-strip, for example,  has ON AVERAGE 8 children now. I see utterly no
way the economy of a future independent Palestine state is ever going to
afford to pay the pensions for all these people in fifty years; meaning that
the Palestine state is going to depend on alms from the `internal community'
and on remittances of its workers abroad for at least the next century.

    But even a 4.000 miles journey starts with the first mile. So, let's say
that programs to combat child-labor,  - I mean LABOR here for the market
not merely helping on the farm - which are generally being discussed and
evoke a lot of popular attention should be accompanied by a program to
ensure general, obligatory, primary schooling for children. With the
government promising to compensate for lost incomes to the parents during
the schooling of the children - otherwise the parents are still going to
send their children off to work no matter what noble intentions of the
government. If, say, Third World governments undertake to promise this,
they'll be permitted to participate in a global UNESCO-led program to
ensure primary education to all children before, say, 2040 through funding
of schools and teachers, which is mainly going to be paid by the first
world.

    The second big problem on the moment in the Third World is unemployment
and, coupled to this, low wages and abysmal working-conditions, particularly
among very young people - 12 to 16, really children to a US-citizen -.

    Therefore - and I understand that's being discussed in Seattle on the
moment - we should come to a global labor-code, ensuring minimum wages,
health and safety at work and - but that's not (yet) being discussed - the
global introduction of labor-inspections to implement this. (- As was
pointed out for Brasil but that's equally true for the so-called
`fundamental rights' in the Constitution of India - the point is  NOT that
many Third World countries lack declarations of intent on social
legislation - the point is they have no way to implement these noble
intentions.)

    What the WTO should arrive at is that the `first world' should guarantee
that this will not lead to job-losses in the Third World through
trans-national corporations withdrawing investments from the Third World
countries, if
they raise wages. Therefore, the WTO should ultimately come to a code of
conduct for TNC's - to be reinforced with fines if they offend against this.

    All this is very much music for the future for now - but just keep up
the
pressure on the WTO ! They'll be forced to come with some result now - if
only to silence all the negative publicity!
>
>Should the people
>>of the U.S. agree to contribute to a minimum income for a billion Indians?
>A
>>billion Chinese? What is the extent of the core's responsibility to the
>>periphery?

    Do I hear something of good old US-isolationist sentiments here ? In
spite of all avowed internationalism of this list. Well - you can't escape
your culture can't you ? But for a start - if the US is serious about
wanting
to be the leader of the global community - let it really pay the
contribution it's
still due to the United Nations.

    As to the extent of the core's responsibility to the periphery, that's
simple - either the core takes responsibility for the periphery, or the
entire periphery is going to come to the core. For the periphery is
motorized by now - every villager in El Salvador can nowadays take a bus to
the USA - when I was in a provincial town in Ghana four months ago I
practically everyday met people who had lived for years in Amsterdam three
or four blocks away from my home here. In a `globalized' world the Center
can not simply shift responsibility to the periphery anymore.

>    What if India's population keeps growing? Are Americans also
>>committed to a minimum income to the people of a country that has lost
>control
>>of its population growth?
>>
    Actually percentage-wise Indian population growth is not much higher
than that of the US. But that's really putting the question upside down. It
may be a truism but it's still useful to remind you that children are an
old-age insurance in the Third World. The best way to combat global
population growth and therewith the global thread to the environment is
insuring a minimum income, a pension, schooling for women AND insure
children of a decent education until the minimum-age of, say, 16. For if
parents have to wait many years for their `initial investment' in a child to
pay-off, they're going to take less children. Note, again, that the
European experience tends to indicate these are global, culture-independent,
mechanisms. Believe it or not - the country with the lowest
population-growth in western Europe on the moment is Italy, in spite of its
Roman-catholic religion and a culture which values nothing more than having
children.

    Well, since I don't want to be accused of cloaking people's mail-boxes I
better cease here - I apologize in advance for posting.

Best wishes
R.J. Barendse