Tuesday, March 25, 2008

International greediness

David Forsythe
"Transnational Corporations and Human Rights"
Human Rights in International Relations

pg 224
"There is a disconnect between much of the normative framework for national capitalism and (to prevent gross exploitation) and the main concern of regulation of international capitalism (to stablize capitalism regardless of exploitation)."

"In the national political economy, at least from the view of nationality and with class considerations aside, we are all 'us'. In the international political economy, there is an 'in' group - us - and an 'out' group - them. Nationalism being what it is, as long as the benefits flow to 'us', the moral imperative to show concern for 'them' is reduced. The World Development Report, produced by the United Nations Development Program, regularly chronicles the large and growing gap between the wealthy global north and the impoverished global south. As one would expect in a situation of mostly unregulated international economics where a sense of global community is weak, the elites with property rights and capital prosper, and many of the have-nots live a life on the margins of human dignity. Dickens would not be surprised."

pg 226
"Politically, when corporations deal with repressive governments and/or those known to violate international standards on human rights and humanitarian affairs, to get the business, companies tend to defer to governmental policies. This is true not just of IBM in Nazi Germany. The Caterpillar Company, when urged by certain human rights groups to not allow its its bulldozers to be used by Israel in ways that violated international humanitarian law in the West Bank ( collective punishments through of destruction of houses alleged to be linked to 'terrorists'), said it was a matter for the Israeli government. Had Caterpillar withdrawn, it is likely that Israel would have continued the policy through a different company".

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