Social clauses *
Green protectionism?
by Luis Miguel Sánchez Seseña
It is clear that the principal problems facing the developed economies are environmental deterioration; serious unemployment and social exclusion. The globalization of the economy and the interrelationship of these social and economic problems is also evident. At the Rio Conference and the
Copenhagen Summit, the principal culprits for the social-ecological crisis admitted the existence of increasing poverty, unequal distribution of wealth, strong environmental deterioration...
At the same time, the great economic orientations advance under the argument that these are the only possible policies, so that structural adjustment — deregulation, privatisation, liberalisation — become a universal recipe. The great transnational corporations —and international finance capital — are the protagonists of the global scene, controlling over 70% of world trade. Centralised decision making is the organising principle within these enterprises and at the heights there is a gigantic conglomerate quite resembling a centrally planned world economy. The institutions of Bretton Woods - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation - impose their plans of structural adjustment, their megalomaniac investment projects and their processes of colonisation, in absolute collusion with each other, under the vague rubric of the "free market" and "free trade." The solution to all problems, under the neoliberal vision, is a nightmare of social regression, which covers up an even worse nightmare, reality itself. Competitiveness becomes the supreme goal according to neoliberalism.
Even though it should be obvious that the same policies cannot be applied to countries with different social and economic structures and with diverging problems and priorities, at the international level power lies in the hands of institutions in charge of managing the world economy.
Concern about the environment surfaces, in the current state of affairs, in the developed economies. According to a Report produced by the European Commission, greater economic growth associated with economic liberalisation will produce an increase of emissions of SO2 and NOx, of 9% and 12% respectively, which will exacerbate the problem of acid rain; residues of all kinds will increase by 30%; there will be structural transformations in the transport systems, which will generate a 50% increase of heavy highway traffic by the year 2000 and an increase in the stock of automobiles of 17 million vehicles which, other effects aside, will contribute to the emissions of CO2, the principal culprit for climactic change, into the atmosphere.
One can conclude that the search for greater competitiveness will generate resistance to the internationalisation of environmental costs to prevent their impact on the final price of products offered in international markets. Hence the denunciation of the danger of environmental dumping, understood as the possibility of unfair competition through prices which do not reflect real costs of production if the norms for the protection of the environment which imply costs are very different between countries competing in the world market.
In parallel fashion, it seems, the developed countries are awakening to the fact that the world market cannot become a jungle, without any kind of social rules, and therefore, the GATT agreements should be complemented with respect on the part of all beneficiary countries towards the common freedoms and minimal labour conditions established in the basic agreements of the International Labour Organisation. Perhaps the slogan to be launched should be: GATT yes, ILO also!
The social and ecological clauses put forward by the countries of the developed North become a way of justifying protectionist barriers, while at the same time toning down the contradictions with the general liberalising discourse. They are a way of hiding the true motivations behind the proposed obstacles to commerce, which as usual are nothing other than the defence of specific economic interests. This apparent contradiction is not surprising, since the world economy is full of such examples. One of the most glaring examples is the opposition between increasing liberalisation of the traffic of goods and capital, and protection of the labour markets of the developed countries, which become sealed fortresses to the workers from the poorer countries. Once again, it is a matter of defending selfish economic interests because, if one were to pay attention to the neoliberal discourse, the logical thing would be to open the borders to the free circulation of workers. Well being in the world economy would increase, according to orthodox theory. And. of course, it would not be necessary to have a social clause at all. But the practice of the rich countries goes in the opposite direction.