Getting Involved: My first protest

The week of September 25th, 2000 was the annual meeting of the World Bank and IMF organizations in Prague. Delegates from all over the world came together to discuss what has become a very controversial subject: globalization. Similar to meetings held in Seattle and Washington within the last year, thousands of protestors showed to express their concern with the wealthy nations of the world exploiting less fortunate nations for their own gain.

The work of the World Bank and the IMF is capitalism at its worst. They preach to help diminish poverty around the world, but the results have been discouraging. The rich are making the rules and even though they are financially supporting some nations, the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer.

Being an economics major, this situation particularly upsets me. The foundations of economics are to enhance personal and national growth by working together, sharing resources and producing more for less. Unfortunately, to the big businesses of the world, these definitions mean exploiting natural and human resources in other countries. The IMF and World Bank offer to financially help these countries, and then control their resources and their lives. All over the world, there are unemployed human beings living in inhumane conditions. In theory, globalization would bring these people jobs and money. While some are receiving jobs, the wages and benefits are ridiculous.

Over the past year, several car-manufacturing factories have closed in the United States and jumped the border to Mexico. There companies can open and operate factories at a fraction of the price they can in the states. Again, greed has caused companies to take advantage of the principles of economic theory. Cutting back on costs and making more for less is not a crime. However, creating sweatshop conditions is. These companies do provide inhabitants of Mexico with jobs they desperately need, but they also pay them a third of the minimum wage in the United States, do not provide standard health care benefits, and refuse to provide their workers with proper safety equipment. In addition, thousands of dedicated Americans lost their jobs because of the move. Finally, NAFTA allows them to bring goods back to the US with our severe import taxes. How is this good? Who is helped by this process? The answer is simple. The people who don't need any more help.

33 million Americans live below the national poverty line. 1 and 4 Americans is without health insurance. While those numbers are absurd, to someone in a third world country, anyone of these Americans makes more in a year than they will ever see in their life. 1 out of 46 people in Burma have AIDS. Right now, 17 million people are without homes in India because of mass floods. Millions of people worldwide live on less than $1 a day. All of this goes on while wealthy capitalists, many of whom make up the IMF and World Bank, sit back and become wealthier. All of this goes on as the G-7 tries to globalize their way of life. Do you think a 12 year old in Burma wants an overpriced Happy Meal? Or do you think a homeless man in India wants a to surf the web for a new television. The answers to all of the questions are overwhelmingly no. They want what once was the American Dream: health and happiness.

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