For A Human Touch

THOSE of us who want India to open its arms wide and embrace the culture of globalisation in every sphere of life, think again. For, as the undp's 10th Human Development Report points out, market-dominated globalisation has led to growing marginalisation of poor nations and people, growing human insecurity and growing inequality with benefits accruing almost solely to the richest people and countries. 'The global gap between the haves and the have-nots, the knows and the know-nots, is widening,' it says.

HDR '99, which has a fairly independent tradition, marks a powerful and passionate plea for greater justice, a free and fair trading system, stronger global governance, including that of the World Wide Web, and development of technologies for the poor. In short, rewrite the rules for globalisation to make it work for people, not just profits.

How wide are the global disparities which the HDR calls 'grotesque and dangerous polarisation between people and countries that are benefiting from the system and those that are merely passive recipients of its effects'? Savour some nuggets:

For this is a new warófor technology and skill, for the human brain, for gene supremacy and for the ultimate knowledge. Like the blind librarian Borges in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, the rich corporations guard the door to knowledge. As globalisation has bridged distances, sped up communication and erased borders, there has also emerged a digital divide between the rich and poor, black and white, men and women, the connected and the unconnected. Poor people and poor countries risk being marginalised in this proprietary regime controlling knowledge. Even though developing countries are home to an estimated 90 per cent of the world's store of biological resources. Today, more strategic alliances are being struck between pharma firms and the governments or indigenous groups in resource-rich countries. Or, in the absence of proper institutional framework for governance, shamelessly lifted, as illustrated by patents taken out in the West on basmati rice, turmeric plant, bitter gourd or neem leaves. Money talks louder than need in biotech researchó'cosmetic drugs and slow-ripening tomatoes come higher on the list than a vaccine against malaria or drought-resistant crops'.

And this divide is stronger because of improving links. Communication has become cheaper worldwideóthe cost of a three-minute phone call from New York to London fell from $245 in '90 to 35 cents (in '90 value) in '98. The cost of processing information fell from $75 per million operations in '60 to less than a hundredth of a cent in '90. But benefits remain skewed. Industrialised countries corner 86 per cent of global gdp and 74 per cent of world phone linesóthe poorest fifth get about one per cent each. Switzerland spent 247 minutes in international calls per person in '95, Pakistan spent only one.

Even the Web is connecting only the well-educated and skilled. With 36 million Internet-linked computers in '98, 88 per cent users live in industrialised countries, representing less than a fifth of the people. Culture, too, is becoming globalised. The largest single export industry of the US is not aircraft or computersóit's entertainment: films and TV programmes.

Says undp chief economist R. Sudarshan: 'Knowledge is a public good. But what tncs are trying to establish is an intellectual property rights regime to privatise the business of knowledge. The signing of trips has given them an avenue to further exploit the poor countries and their hidden resources. The wto should thus become a rallying point for developing countries to safeguard their interests. They should also not blindly sign the proposed multilateral agreements on plant varieties and investments.'

Although globalisation has increased prosperity in many countries, jobs haven't grown. Unemployment has scaled 10 per cent in EU, and 7 per cent in oecd countries. With corporations expanding, m&as have shot up in key industries like computers, biotechnology, telecom, chemicals and mediaótotal deals in the first three were worth close to $700 billion in '98.

Apart from fdi, portfolio capital flowed freely and jerkily. Resulting in the east Asian crisis, which the HDR estimates will have cut global output by $2 trillion between '98 and 2000, prompting cuts in jobs, pay and social spending worldwide. Shrinking world demand has hit oil exporters; Angola and Kuwait could face a gdp decline of 14-18 per cent. Markets, says the HDR, can squeeze the non-market activities so critical for development. Markets give no rewards for care or caring labourómen and women's unpaid work, private market services and public services. And 'competitive markets may be the best guarantee of efficient production, but not of human development'.

In sum, says HDR '99, narrowing the gaps between rich and poor in and between countries should become explicit global goals. tncs need to be brought in the frame of global governance, not just the patchwork of national laws. And global governance itself needs to be out of the stranglehold of 'the largest economies, usually the G-7, sometimes just the G-1'. Read, the US.

At the end, one wonders why the HDR does not take political freedom also as an indicator of complete human development, not only the freedom to enlarge economic choices. Initially, the HDR team compiled a list of 30 freedoms. But most governments disagreed; independence and democracy were enough. Yet, at the sunset of the 20th century, HDR '99 proves the world's no less close to attaining freedom from the real kings than during the industrial revolution.