December 2, 2006

• World Trade Organization Offers Humanitarian Plan for Africa

  There's never a shortage of interesting things to post about.  I was going to post something else, until the press release below "came across my desk" shortly before Thanksgiving and seemed to take priority.  You'll have to decide for yourself whether the proposed initiative is "real" or not, but there seems to be ample documentation.

  One has to ask oneself....how could we ever doubt the sufficiency of "free-market" capitalism to solve global problems, when its logic is so unassailable and its motives so obviously pure?

  There's also no small degree of irony contained right in the WTO's press release itself, and you don't even have to dig to find it.  "....World Trade
  Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO
  initiative for 'full private stewardry of labor' for the parts of Africa that
  have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the
  West."  So....the solution for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West?  Yes, of course!  MORE "free trade" with the West!  I'm sure THIS time the West has only the best interests of Africa at heart.

  Have you ever wondered just exactly what the World Trade Organization is and what it does, who controls it, what it's for?

  Vox clamantis in deserto,

  John

  EDIT: The first web site listed below, supposedly the official WTO web site, has a disclaimer that reads as follows:
     Important Note: Many visitors from all over the political spectrum have read this
  release and believed it to mean that the WTO is officially in favor of
  slavery.
  
     
  In actual fact, we at the WTO would never, ever wish to suggest that
  the modern version of the West's free trade with Africa is tantamount
  to its older form, slavery, or even worse than its other older form,
  colonialism. That would fly in the face of everything that we stand
  for.
  
     
  The catastrophic failure of free-trade policies in Africa may be one
  partial source of this confusion. The actual, literal slavery that
  flourishes under the auspices of free trade (in Brazil, Jordan, and elsewhere) may be another.

  Now...does that clear everything up for you?

  **********

  November 13, 2006
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  WTO ANNOUNCES FORMALIZED
  SLAVERY MARKET FOR AFRICA
  US Trade Representative to Africa, Governor of
  Nigeria Central Bank weigh in at Wharton

      Text, photos, video: http://www.gatt.org/wharton.html
      WTO Contact: Hanniford
  Schmidt (mailto:schmidt@gatt.org)
      Conference website: http://www.whartonglobal.com/africa/panels.asp#Trade
      Conference
  contacts: http://www.whartonglobal.com/africa/contact.asp

  Philadelphia
  - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in
  Africa, World Trade
  Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt
  announced the creation of a WTO
  initiative for "full private
  stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that
  have been hardest
  hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the
  West.

  The initiative will require Western companies doing business in
  some
  parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted
  how
  private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport,
  power,
  water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The
  WTO's "full
  private stewardry" program will extend these successes to
  (re)privatize
  humans themselves.

  "Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available
  solution to
  African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market
  theory,"
  Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that
  the
  stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but
  explained
  that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the
  rough
  edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full
  stewardry,
  or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to
  developing
  ones.

  The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor
  of the Central
  Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African
  Affairs
  at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other
  notables.
  Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Scmidt for his
  macroscopic
  perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the
  WTO's
  general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo
  also
  acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to
  appreciate
  it as much as did Agama.

  A system in which corporations own
  workers is the only free-market
  solution to African poverty, Schmidt said.
  "Today, in African
  factories, the only concern a company has for the worker
  is for his
  or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years,"
  he
  said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits--out the door. Get sick,
  get
  fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7,
  lifelong
  concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick,
  get
  care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS
  scourge
  will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as
  a
  profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child
  for
  later might make more sense than working it to the bone right
  now."

  To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by
  a
  free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who
  don't
  like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups
  of whales in
  order to stop those particular whales from getting
  whaled as much," he
  explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World
  humans will "empower" caring
  First Worlders to help them, Schmidt
  said. (http://www.policynetwork.net/main/article.php?article_id=505)

  One
  conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain
  as stewards
  once their employees are too old to work or reproduce.
  Schmidt responded that
  a large new biotech market would answer that
  worry. He then reminded the
  audience that this was the only possible
  solution under free-market
  theory.

  There were no other questions from the audience that took issue
  with
  Schmidt's proposal.

  During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three
  phases of Africa's 500-
  year history of free trade with the West: slavery,
  colonialism, and
  post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has
  brought
  tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with
  poverty
  steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's
  a
  pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad
  for
  people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so
  happy to
  announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and
  the West: good for
  business--GOOD for people."

  The conference took place on Saturday,
  November 11. The panel on
  which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa:
  Enhancing
  Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in
  the
  conference were entitled "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing
  Africa's
  Appetite." Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his
  three
  co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee,
  Thomas
  Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off
  to
  the side.

  "This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt.
  "It's about the
  freedom to buy and sell anything--even people."

  • 5:31 am
  • 38 Comments