Globalism is the ideology of “free trade.” It aims to open up national economies so that multinational companies, using modern transportation and communications, can freely shift their capital, technology and products around the world so as to maximise their profits by: • Exploiting the cheapest labor costs, shifting operations to Asia where wage rates are…
Colin Teece, former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Trade, demolishes AQIS claims that Australia was obliged to drop quarantine standards over NZ apples. Popular mythology, and, indeed, AQIS itself, asserts that international trade obligations now require us to maintain less stringent controls over the import of diseases which could threaten human, animal and plant…
The year: 2000. The place: Earth, a desolate planet slowly dying of its own accumulating follies. Half the forests are gone; sand dunes spread where fertile lands once lay. Nearly two million species of plants, birds, insects, and animals have vanished. Yet man is propagating so fast that his cities have grown as large as…
Bob Browning explains that the choice for the world economy is not Wall Street or Albania – although some zealous advocates of globalisation continue to speak in such terms. F ailure to give uncritical support to “globalisation” risks provoking accusations of being against capitalism, the market and international trade. Neo-liberals would do everybody a good turn by making it clear what precisely they are promoting when they claim that “globalisation” is in everybody’s best interests. Globalisation is a very general term. It covers a host of developments, processes, policies and outcomes – some good, some bad. Demanding the whole package…
George Weigel, the Pope’s biographer and a noted political theorist, recently visited Australia. He told News Weekly that the principal challenge facing the Western democracies was the reinvigoration of the social and cultural elements which make democracy work. News Weekly: Where do you see the world in 50 years time? George Weigel: I really think…
The recent moves towards an Australian-New Zealand currency union would drag the Australian dollar down and pose a serious threat to Australian agriculture. Once touted as the way forward for countries such as Australia, a liberalised, deregulated New Zealand is now a basket case. Historian and commentator, Robert Manne, suggested some years ago that economic…