The concept of global citizenship is so insignificant to the policy makers and the populace. It remains, that a national sentiment, or pride is the foremost ingredient of our individual character. If this type of citizenship is such a minor consideration, then why the sudden shift of momentum in popular protests in the Middle East? The European people in Spain and Greece have also taken measures to challenge their own governments, that have taken austerity measures to the point of becoming an oppressive character, like that of tyrants. Foreign policy in the U.S. constantly is chasing down global disruptions, and patching holes in international relations. Why, do conservatives in the U.S. instantly latch on to the sentiment that government is oppressive, and at the same time liberals tout that mega-corporations are destroying their economy? People across the globe are in fact economically oppressed, and this is the single most crucial component that links all these cultures together, because while one small percentage of the ruling elements of society participate in economic globe-trotting, a preponderance of individuals are bound by the lack of fair global rights, and are enraged at all those responsible for making the global environment less receptive to their societal and individual needs.
A Global Redefining of Welfare: Who Really is Benefiting from Free Markets?
Globalization has only enabled limited and more powerful elements of society, like those of corporations, the private military industrial complex, and more powerful elements that have the financial capacity to corral rights to an international presence. This arrangement seems to emphasize the incongruity and underlying injustice that the greater population must endure, in order to maintain the stability of the upper levels of class. For instance, in the United States, immigrants that have not yet acquired full citizenship, yet have the ability to attain public benefits in the form of welfare (1). The first question that arises from this, is why do people emigrate to the U.S. in the first place? One could propose that they come here for the opportunities of prosperity, those that their former nation could not or would not provide. On the other hand, who is to assume the prior predicament of an immigrant? There could be a slight chance that they came from a livelihood of sustainability, and did not have to wholly depend on the state for the bare necessities. Until there was a point in time that free trade, a product of global free markets, destroyed their sustainable life. So, then they arrive to the U.S. and the job markets may not be so open to newly arrived immigrants, and the economy is bad on top of that, so they have only to turn to welfare. The best the most free country in the world has to offer to the rest of the world, is a hand out?
Fine! I can understand that social programs like public benefits offers a certain level of economic stability, and is a social tool by which American citizens can fend off poor or unhealthy living conditions on a larger scale. In most cases it is beneficial to all of us, citizen or not, richer or poorer, but we are dealing with a crisis of failed global leadership, and their inability to improve economic conditions for those that have no national status, unlike the status of large corporations who spill over into other countries on the backs of their domestic taxpayers, with the protection of the taxpayer's soldiers or their hired military contractors. Ask yourself, who pays for this level of privileged welfare? The answer is a globally compartmentalized majority of citizens who are isolated by domestic rights and laws, yet have no ability to participate on the same playing field as transnational corporations or traders, who transgress the world suppressing human rights at the national level, by way of practicing business exceeding international laws, that lack regulatory effectiveness, and simultaneously depend on the welfare of nationalized taxpayers.
Take for instance, the small farmers within the United States! If they choose to sell their product on the market, they are required to meet an endless regiment of regulations put forth by domestic legislation. They are also hit by business contracts and the threat of agricultural intellectual property infringements, brought upon by huge agribusiness companies, when they've been enabled by the government to place patents on genetic modification of plant seeds. In contrast to the small farmer, large agricultural companies have the means by which to move certain elements of their business offshore, in the case that their practices fail to abide by the standards of regulations stateside. The U.S. government has provided no avenue for non-corporate agriculture to thrive in the same sense that the large corporations have.
There is an intrinsic failure when two elements so powerful as a developed nation's government, and a very financially endowed corporation team up to create the perfect scenario for creating excessive profits, especially when that gain is provided at the cost of a greater element of society's loss. This advantage is not some well crafted strategy, but rather a disposition that can only be attained by isolating lower class citizens (which does include the middle class) from any functional financial apparatus, such as those provided on a global scale, and forcing the lower realms of business to obey the limits of those isolated national laws or regulations. So, if capitalism's message is all about unbound free markets, it is beyond comprehension that the more enabled elements of any economy, by way of lacking international laws or regulation, combined with the absence of rights for the individual at the global level, a majority of the world has been disabled from participating in "free" markets.
Governments, very powerful ones, have a consistent desire to create a perfect economic environment for international businesses. If provided with the perfect conditions of enterprise, by which to maximize profits without contention, there is no limit as to how far these powerful entities are willing to make sacrifices in preservation of either sustainable economy, sound environment, the well-being of the average to below average citizen, or laws that are fair enough to those who cannot afford to purchase their way into legal favor. It is evident that "foreign capital creates incentives for states to establish an investment climate that is attractive to transnational corporations". This makes entering within a nation's border very enticing, and if the authority ignores its own laws, in order to persuade corporations to enter its country, that authority is no more, and it "may choose not to monitor or enforce laws and regulations that would increase the cost of operating within their borders" (3). If this is beneficial to the state at all, then why is there so much austerity taking place in the Western world? Were these corporations not successfully emigrated into the states, in order to create jobs? If this is correct, then why the need for providing welfare to lower class individuals, immigrants, that continue to struggle against a plethora of legal obstacles, and economic despair?
Creating borders that only exist for one element of the global society, and then erasing them for others is a fabrication of advantage. If the U.S. government, for example, is going to enter certain countries with a presence of force, in order to provide a secure environment for multinational companies to carry out trade, the single most characteristic principle of capitalism is missing: competition. In contrast to concepts presented by Thomas Friedman in his book, The World Is Flat, where everywhere around the globe, we all compete on a level playing field, the U.S. government has consistently preserved pre-globalization inequities. If the field of competition is going to be level, then individuals and smaller businesses will all need to be able to shed the shackles of national laws and begin to demand that their domestic leaders provide balanced legislation that grants them global rights and regulates those who have taken advantage of a system that has been looking the other way when it comes to global regulation.
Iraq and Afghanistan: Nations Made of Walls
A very good example of how individuals and small businesses are compartmentalized and are regulated from participating in global profit mechanism is the Iraq war, or more in general the need to economically control the Middle East. Here you have two compartments: the U.S. citizenry on one side, and the citizens of Middle Eastern nations (what is often labeled as the the insurgency) on the other. Both segments are powerless to function, operate, or overcome the force that Western coalitions bear upon them, as well as the lesser visible Western multinational corporations that swing in behind occupational forces, in order to gain business from this action, through lofty priced contracts. The U.S. enters a country rich in oil resources and attempts to sustain the limitations and the hazards of this resource. No matter the cost, whether it be lives or money, the powerful nation continues to force containment through economics and occupation. Instead of providing investments domestically for engineers, inventors or business persons to develop, research or design new forms of energy consumption, U.S. leaders find it befitting that the masses remain stagnant economically, and receive the resources that they have been consuming for almost over a century.
Many of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan faced an occupier that was interested in many things, other than to provide civil legislation that would elevate the peoples' rights, their ability to participate alongside the "civilian provisional authority", in a peaceful manner (even the name alludes to compartmentalization of Iraq itself by way of provisioning the economic infrastructure, instead of offering it whole). For example, there were no efforts by the CPA to have responsible elements of society compete alongside non-military contractors, and the only visible participation that individuals had to provide stability to their nation was to join the war effort and create more of an element of violence against Iraqis with Iraqi troop and police training. Obviously there is a good reason to have this, but it is not the single solution to stabilizing country or any other part of the region.
In Afghanistan, private contractors that financially subsist off of American tax revenues have consistently operated under a shroud of secrecy, and have been enabled to do so because they reserve the rights of privacy as recognized by U.S. constitutional laws, and not the laws of the nation of Afghanistan or the United Nations. They took on work within the war torn country, providing services meant to rebuild its infrastructure, but to this day, the American taxpayer has yet to see evidence of sweeping improvement in this realm. Yet, while both Afghani as well as American citizens await a solution, a rudimentary element of the economy has been sidelined by the occupation's failure to acknowledge the farming community, and the coalition-driven Afghan government's ignorance of any form of effective economic policy.
As noted by the Atlantic Monthly, "Afghanistan's economy is heavily agricultural, the health of the country's economy is directly tied to the mission of rolling back Taliban influence, and the U.S. has been sending farming consultants there for years" (2).With the destruction of most of Afghanistan's agricultural irrigation infrastructure mostly caused by combat, the farming community has had to rebuild it, or come face-to-face with economic fallout, being that agriculture "is the mainstay of Afghanistan’s economy", from where "eighty-five percent of income" derives (5). So, if one considers the reason for occupying Afghanistan was initially for hunting a single terrorist organization, and that this mission was responsible for completely destroying the main ingredient to thriving agriculture in this country, U.S. efforts, to re-stabilize the economy through something they initially destroyed, are simply a misgiving.
The same article addressed how the Pentagon is now in search of "secret farmers". To put this into definition, a secret farmer would be a private contractor hired as a agricultural consultant to advise local communities along the same lines as previously mentioned, where consultants would teach farmers how to farm. In a country where eighty-five percent of income is derived from farming, the U.S. military, of all agencies, feels the need to send in high-priced consultants to advise individuals who have spent their entire lives farming? The best way to control the economic development of a nation is not just secure by military means, but to also send in consultants to attempt to improve the economy, and yet the taxpayers in the states as well as the Afghan government and its citizens would have no insight as to why this is needed, and what it is these advisers would be doing. It is evident that secrecy breeds compartmentalization of society, and the mere fact that farmers need special clearance to farm, it is obvious that "this latest farming mission is about more than just the usual subsistence farming" (2). These farmers, if they held global rights, and the ability to import the needed resources on their own, without having to depend so much on either their own failed government or the profiteering mechanism drawn in by developed powers, they could just as well prosper and provide on their own. With the secrets of the powerful and advantaged, this is not part of the wider plan.
The exorbitant amount of security enacted in the Middle East as well as domestically for the U.S. is a symbol that explains that this is a conflict to contain, and to isolate the powerless from powerful potential and capacity, because what the occupation did was become "an operational norm for innumerable local, regional and sectional interests all intent upon acting as their own more-or-less equally inept ‘civilian provisional authorities’ within their respective neighborhoods, clan areas, ethnic homelands, sectarian zones or provincial jurisdictions" (4). It allowed private contractors, and other foreign profit makers to enter Iraq, with more freedom than what was granted to individual Iraqis, in order to access the resources of war and the natural landscape. The occupation was considered a "restoration" to the damage and violence that the occupying force had generated in the first place, and this was the primary justification to walling off Iraqi citizens from participating in the so called restoration, and the occupying force took full advantage of billions upon billion of American taxpayer dollars to fund this effort (compartmentalized by physical distance, homeland security, and national borders). Both Americans and Iraqis faced economic ruin.
How could an under-developed country like Iraq even need to step up from local economic strength, directly to the international market's competitive level? Why would that even be necessary, and why couldn't it slowly take steps to improving its economy on its own? If it had something that valuable to offer the world's developed nations and their own markets, it would make a lot of sense that the Western economies would push through Iraq militarily, in order to tunnel through the chaotic economic mess of conflict. The Iraq war was simply a "political strategy for isolating the ‘enemy’ element, engaging ‘supportive Iraqis’ and building ‘new institutions’ in pursuit of a security strategy for clearing areas of enemy control, holding areas seized from enemy resistance, and building new Iraqi security forces to nurture civil society. This which would underpin an economic strategy of restoring neglected infrastructures, reforming the economy, and building national market capacity" (4). But the Western coalition did not fully succeed in "nurturing" a civil society at all. Instead it contained it, and put in security to preserve its own interests from being torn down again by the interests of the Iraqi people.
The enemy was only defined as an insurgency, that was basically rebelling against the doctrines of a foreign state, not the pre-existing state that was Iraq. The Western coalition did not offer anything but the option of insurgency, isolating all factions of Iraqi society from one another through the single agenda of security. There was and still is no intention to break open the compartmentalized national sentiment through religious freedoms, civil rights, and practical constitutional foundation. What still is present is the huge amount of war profiteering that is being committed by transnational corporations, by way of the American taxpayer unable to restrict the use of tax revenue for defense, yet the Iraqi people still await even their nationally recognized citizenship.
It is apparent that the U.S. leadership, and leaders of the Western world have this aim to isolate national citizens of any country for the sake of preserving government and transnational corporate interests. It is purely a game, and a rigged one, at that. The scenario between Native Americans and American colonists has been turned inside-out, where instead of dominating a new world of a less advanced society, we are committing ourselves to domination of the old world that lacks a more advanced economy, that exists within globe of disconnected sustainable economies. It is the old world attempting to grasp at as much of its past's powers and wealth and draw that same dominance into a new world, future. By drawing apart the greater elements of society, the veritable citizens of the world, the powers that be are conquering by division, making the greater elements of the globe, much, much smaller, and therefore incapable of economically overcoming an empire of bogus competition. If the citizens of each nation were granted a global citizen status, they would gain a better foothold in this rigged game, not so much an advantage, but more of an ability to fairly compete, participate, and make provisions for themselves, and not be misguided by profit-schemes enabled by government policies that restrict only the citizens.
Free Trade, Bound Global Citizens
One of the greatest ironies or should it be called a double standard, are the policies of free trade agreements. Political leaders of developed nations have sought to take advantage of underdeveloped nations by tapping their cheap labor sources, and allowing the products made in those countries to come back through their borders for free. Yet, again, transnational corporate elements are easily granted the privileges to move freely about the globe, driving wages down, therefore driving the quality of life downward, and that becomes an economic advantage only to those elements of the corporate global society, and not the individuals who make up the economic cultures of each nation. Very powerful corporations have been granted a common law right to move freely about the globe without regulatory measures or laws to restrict their activities, meanwhile citizens of either nation are bound by strict, if not oppressive, immigration laws, the inability to move about the globe, in order to enterprise in the same fashion as transnational corporations.
Global free market capitalism is unequal, or unbalanced in a world without global citizens. It does not favor the individual economically in the least. Therefore, citizens all over the globe tend to migrate, based on what is called the "push-pull model", migrating from developing to developed nations. This is happening because instinctively people have the need to live where they can have a better quality of life, they want to remove themselves from environments of poor social, economic and political exposure, thus moving to environments of the same elements, it is attractive to want to earn higher wages and have a higher standard of living, and improved social conditions, that offer a higher sense of personal freedom (6). This is the right of every citizen throughout the globe, regardless of their national status, but its principles have only been granted to very powerful elements of our society known as the corporation (comprised of many individuals who have already attained a better quality of life), because they have the financial capacity to either drive regulatory legislation out of global policy making, or to ensure that their ventures are not restricted by any laws that would diminish their unrestricted colonial practice of market takeover.
Bound citizens have no options when isolated from global maneuvering, like that which is practiced by corporate elements. It is not like several hundred years ago, where an element of society that was overwhelmed by an oppressive leadership, could just pick up and flee to a new world, because there is no more unsettled places in the world. So, the only thing left to do is to counter the oppression. But, in a highly controlled global market, attacks on the system, in the form of reform, are not warranted, and must be contained through higher levels of security. This is not in the form of an obvious police state, but something more along the lines of inspection of the citizenry, so as to preserve the sentiment of personal freedom, but below the surface there is much more being done. It is extremely unfortunate that acts of terrorism have removed certain freedoms from American society, the most free people in the world. Through no fault of their own, the average citizen can no longer travel in or out of the country without being thoroughly inspected. Not a single person is an exception, and every item on their person is exposed and/or scrutinized. This is representative of a higher sense of personal freedom, and a quality of life? There is no place in a sustainable and developing economy for highly sensitized security that takes its citizenry for granted for the sake of satisfying fear. Confidence in an economy stems from the mere fact that there are no castle walls to be protected, and that if one group of citizens can interact freely with a separate group of citizens without fear of the unknown, then that is truly representative of global prosperity. That is a free market for all, and not a select few who can afford to be free.
"Growth comes from innovation driven by individuals", and not the massive structures that succeed at sequestering the capacity of the individual to compete at the global level (7). As long as citizens remain constrained by national borders, they will never reach the capacity to compete or innovate on the global scale. Free market global capitalism is an annihilator of societies, because its sole focus is growth through competition. It represents globalization in the form of crusade, but it does not ensure preservation of society, because in concept it destroyed the security of market reciprocity, where one individual receives an item of value in trade for another, "market relationships were destroyed", and while it created the perfect environment for "rapid accumulation" it, over the long-term, "consumed the social and human fabric of society" (7). On one hand those who participate in markets globally, must have the financial capacity to do so, therefore they have inherited a freedom that, without global representation for each individual, goes beyond the extension of national laws. Deregulated markets will travel the globe consuming elements of society without ensuring the rights of global individuals, and at the same time, the society of individuals have no legal recourse to ensure that they are receiving a fair deal. Of course, most free market capitalists have a eugenic attitude about how great the concept, that there will always be many losers for every winner in global capital markets, and this is the crux at which confidence in global markets today is lost.
It would be more of an advantage if global citizenship was a reality. If individuals were capable of moving about the globe with minimal regulation, performing trade in the same manner as corporations, it would benefit all of the elements of the economy. Instead of this elegant scenario, the citizens of the world are limited to the faulty economic structures bound by primitive national policies, that only support the upper levels of society in a brute and clumsy manner. If the world's corporations are incapable of creating thriving markets for even themselves, then states should collaborate on creating the global citizen. Global citizens would provide not just the man-power to enable more production, but would also be a presence for new ideas and concepts on how to manage the world economies in an effective, as well as an efficient manner. The modern world is getting too complicated, and moving much too fast for the masters of the old world order to keep contained anymore.
REFERENCES:
- BHUYAN, R. (2010). Reconstructing Citizenship in a Global Economy: How Restricting Immigrants from Welfare Undermines Social Rights for U.S. Citizens. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37(2), 63-85. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
- Fisher, Max. "Pentagon in Search of 'Secret' Farmers for Afghanistan". The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly, 15 June 2011.
- Anderson, Rachel J. "REIMAGINING HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: TOWARD GLOBAL REGULATION OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS." Denver University Law Review 88.1 (2010): 183-236. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 15 June 2011.
- Luke, Timothy W. "The insurgency of global Empire and the counterinsurgency of local resistance: new world order in an era of civilian provisional authority." Third World Quarterly 28.2 (2007): 419-434. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 23 June 2011.
- Glasse, Jennifer. (2011, June 15). Americans Work to Modernize Afghan Agriculture. Lincoln Tribune. Retrieved from http://lincolntribune.com/?p=14117.
- Varma, Roli. "Changing Borders and Realities: Emigration of Indian Scientists and Engineers to the United States." Perspectives on Global Development & Technology 6.4 (2007): 539-556. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 July 2011.
- Taylor-Gooby, Peter. "Introduction: Open Markets versus Welfare Citizenship: Conflicting Approaches to Policy Convergence in Europe." Social Policy & Administration 37.6 (2003): 539. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 4 July 2011.
