by Irogbe, Kema
* The Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) was supposed to result in the reduction of agricultural subsidies in the North, and this was expected to improve the market access of those underdeveloped countries that export agricultural products. As it turned out, however, the agreement allowed the developed countries to maintain most of the high subsidies that existed prior to the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. For example, they are obliged to reduce domestic subsidies by only 20 percent. In contrast, most [underdeveloped] countries had no or little domestic or export subsidies. They are now barred by the AOA from having them or raising them in the future."
It is clearly obvious that the underdeveloped countries are barred from raising subsidies to support their farmers because the multinational corporations, using the WTO as its tool, want the peripheral countries to depend on export of food from the developed countries, primarily from the United States. Without government subsidies, small farmers cannot compete with the transnational corporations. And eventually, agricultural liberalization will contribute to world food prices being skyrocketed and the beneficiaries would be multinational corporations.
THE LONE SUPERPOWER
A great many people had hoped that the post-Cold War era would offer us new opportunities for peace and security in the world. Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War (around 1989) marked the beginning of an unprecedented and intense series of international conflicts. Some people thought that the competition during the bipolar era (the period of high tensions between the former USSR and the USA) that had a profound, and often violent, impact on many other societies was the root cause of the violence. Others believed that the balance of power had been replaced by collective security. In actuality, the collective security that was exercised by the United Nations against Iraq has vanished. Its replacement is a lone superpower - the United States of America! In building an empire around the world, the MNCs need the protection of their parent countries in order to control the host nations (mostly the underdeveloped countries) because without such protection their investments would be in peril. There are some apologists who have failed to understand the dynamic of global capitalism. As a consequence of the Untied States' claim of having conquered the fascists and communists of the world, the U.S. government now believes that it must create a favorable political climate in the international arena so that its MNCs as well as the MNCs of its European junior partners can penetrate to every comer of the globe, even the most remote territory. In doing so, the government is readily willing to repress any resistance or challenge to its lone superpower status. In the study of American foreign policy, Gabriel Kolko has concluded that:
Foreign policy decision-makers are in reality a highly mobile sector of the American corporate structure, a group of men who frequently assume and define high level policy tasks in government, rather than routinely administer it, and then return to business. The conclusion is that a small number of men fill the large majority of key foreign policy posts.38
From the days of "manifest destiny," the empire of the United States has been well supplied with such a creed. America's imperial creed since World War II has been "world responsibility". A former Treasurer and later Chairman of Standard oil of New Jersey, Leo D. Welch, once affirmed America's position: "American private enterprise is confronted with this choice: it may strike out and save its position all over the world, or sit by and witness its own funeral. We must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority stockholder in this corporation known to the world.. .Nor is this for a given term of office. This is a permanent responsibility."39 The developed countries are unified to a great extent in political affairs under the leadership of the United States. They are united politically by the fact that they face a common enemy at home and abroad; at home such as the riots in Seattle against the WTO and other protests across the country, and abroad such as the frequent attacks against the interests of the global corporations around the world.
The widespread military bases and the accompanying complex of expenditures at home and abroad, protecting present and potential sources of raw materials safe-guarding foreign markets and foreign investments, preserving spheres of influence such as the state of Israel - the "U.S. deputy peace-keeper", and maintaining the structure of world capitalist markets serve many purposes of special interest to the MNCs. In the words of former President Woodrow Wilson: "Suppose you go to Washington and try to get at your government. You will find that while you are politely listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the big stake - the big bankers, the big manufacturers, and the big masters of commerce...the masters of the government of the United States."40 This is why American diplomacy in the world cannot be viewed in isolation. It is part of a well-orchestrated global strategy aimed at safeguarding its interests and that of its European junior partners. In defending its interest, the U.S., the lone superpower, has become undoubtedly the international police force with the power to make, enforce, and adjudicate law. The United Nations is almost irrelevant or obsolete. In fact, it is now a tool of the United States for the implementation of American foreign policy. Take, for example, the case of Iraq. The sanctions against Iraq for its flagrant violation of international law by invading and annexing Kuwait were justifiably imposed. However, many countries including France, Russia and China shared the belief that it was time to lift the sanctions. But the United States, seconded by Britain, adamantly disagreed. Instead, the United States led a coalition-of-the-willing in an unprecedented unilateral, preemptive invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in March 2003 without the approval of the United Nations. Iraq, one of the so-called "axis of evil" as President Bush, Jr., referred to Iraq as well as North Korea and Iran in the 2002 State of the Union address, is now illegally occupied by the U.S.-led coalition-of-the-willing. The U.S. on-going military involvement in Nigeria cited earlier in this paper as well as in Colombia, Philippines, Afghanistan, and elsewhere under the disguise of fighting terrorism is all designed to protect the U.S. global economic interest.
This paper has argued that the MNCs, the Western media technology, the WTO, the IMF/World Bank, and the lone superpower - the United States of America - in the process of globalization are jointly responsible for the development of underdevelopment of the peripheral countries. What then is the answer? The world would be a lot better off without the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. We realize that we live in aninterdependent economic world and hence we do not prescribe an autarky as a solution to the problems of the underdeveloped countries. No country can realistically survive on its own without the collaboration and cooperation with others. But a genuine free trade must be mutually beneficial if it is to be sustainable. The imposition of globalization via homogenization of economic, social and political order is a recipe for unending conflicts. The world must foster internationalization by encouraging increasing collaboration of nation-states based on multiculturalism and diversity. Instead of an outright global economic integration, we endorse a regional integration such as the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the proposed common currency in West African countries etc. International relations ought to be based on mutual interest and respect. There ought to be reciprocity. An international arena based on the survival of the fittest cannot guarantee peace and security. It is tantamount to the choice between slavery and freedom. And Patrick Henry, one of the United States of America's founding fathers, gave us the answer to that question many years ago: "Give me liberty or give me death." Finally, the United States must be pressured both at home and abroad to abandon its unilateral global policy and pursue multilateral decision-making via the United Nations. But we find insufficient evidence to establish a more optimistic prognosis for that to happen. For the 'wretched of the earth', poverty-stricken, exploited and oppressed working class people in America and those around the world, a luta continua!
NOTES
1. Theotonio Dos Santos, "The Structure of Dependence," American Economie Review: Papers and Proceedings, IX, 2, No. 2 (May 1970). p. 231.
2. Osvaldo Sunkel, "Big Business" and "Oependencia" Foreign Affairs (April 1972). Pp. 517-531.
3. Daniel Offiong, Imperialism and Dependency (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co. Ltd., 1980). p. 74.
4. Offiong, Imperialism and Dependency, pp. 74-75.
5. Ibid
6. Ira Katznelson, et al., eds., The Politics and Society Reader (New York: David McKay Co., 1974). pp. 175-176.
7. Katznelson, et al., eds., The Politics and Society Reader, pp. 175-176.
8. Daniel S. Papp. Contemporary International Relations: Framework for Understanding, 5th edition (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1977). p. 107.
9. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
10. Sarah Anderson, (ed.) Views From the South: The Effects of Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries (Chicago, IL: Food First Books, 2000). pp. 159-162.
11. Ibid., p. 62.
12. Ibid.
13. Festus Iyayi, "Leadership and the Failed Nigeria Nation-State," Paper Delivered to the Association for Good Governance and Productive Leadership in Edo State at Saidi Centre, Benin City, Nigeria. (see Guardian, December 26, 2001htt:ngrguardiannews.com/appointments/ap843 612. html)
14. Laolu Akande, "U.S. Plans Possible Military Intervention in Niger Delta," Guardian, December 16, 2001.
15. Papp, Contemporary International Relations..., pp. 95-96.
16. Guardian, January 27, 2000.
17. This occurred during the writer's visit to Nigeria in December 1989.
18. Jay Dubashi, "Globalization Is Economic Terrorism," Smachar, October 10,2001 (htt://features.samachar.com/081001-fpj.html)
19. J. Sinclair, et al., New Patters in Global Television Peripheral Vision (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1996).
20. U. Hennerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London, England: Routledge, 1996).
21. D. Morley and K. Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London, England: Rougledge, 1995).
22. E. Herman and R. McChesney, The Global media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism (London, England: Cassell, 1997).
23. Jeffrey D. Sachs, "With Friends Like IMF..." The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 6, 1998.
24. Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Global Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001). p. 77.
25. Ibid.
26. Iyayi, "Leadership and Failed Nigeria Naion-State," pp. 2-13.
27. Ibid., p. 77.
28. Jay Dubashi, "Globalization Is Economic Terrorism," Samachar, October 10,2001.
29. Ibid.
30. Cited in the work of Walden Bello, (ed.), The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance (Oakland, CA: Food First Books, 2001). p. 63.
31. Ibid.
32. Laurie R. Blank, The Role of International Financial Institutions in International Humanitarian Law (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2002). pp. 15-16.
33. Bello, (ed.), The Future in the Balance..., p. xii.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., p. 37.
36. Quoted in "Cakes and Caviar: The Dunkel Draft and Third World Agriculture," The Ecologisl, Volume 23, no. 6 (November December 1993). p. 220.
37. Sarah Anderson, Views from the South ...,pp. 22-23.
38. Kema Irogbe, The Roots of the U. S. Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985 (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997). pp. 26-27.
39. Irogbe, The Roots of United States Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985, p. 28.
40. Ibid., p. 29.
By Kema Irogbe*
* Professor of Political Science at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina. His areas of specialization are African politics, international relations, and public administration. He is the recipient of a number of awards including fellowships at Harvard and MIT. He has published articles in International Third World Studies Journal and Review, Race and Democracy, The A lexis de Tocqueville Tour: Exploring Democracy in America, and has authored a book: The Roots of United States Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985. He is currently working on a naner: "Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Causes and Prosoects".
Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
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