Globalisation and free-market capitalism are the dominant systems influencing the lives of billions in our dysfunctional world. These doctrines are pushed by corporations powerful enough to dictate to politicians their demands and not the other way round. Moreover, democracy is bent, distorted and subverted to serve the insatiable greed of the very few at the expense of the rest of humanity and our fragile planet. So what is this globalisation as it is advocated and practised by the powerful? Noam Chomsky captures its essence thus:
The term “globalization” has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the “free trade agreements” as “free investment agreements” (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as “anti-globalization”; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers’ movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity – that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems.
There you have it. Capitalists are free to roam the world to exploit…