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Re: A tool to directly remove bad elected officials
John BUNZL
Thursday, 17 April 2003
Dear Frank, Zita and Friends,
I don't think we have any fundamental disagreement about politicians and of
course additional methods to impeach or remove them are always welcome!
I do, however, feel we differ somewhat about the reasons why politicians
generally act in ways that are detrimental. Your view seems to suggest that
they do so either because they are corrupt or because they are somehow
'misguided'.
Now of course there are some - even many - politicians who could fall into
either of those categories. But my own view is that by far the greatest
influence on the behaviour of politicians is destructive international
competition.
Why, for example, don't politicians adopt the Tobin Tax to stop currency
speculation (or adopt other such measures)? Because if they did, financial
services companies would move their operations to other countries causing a
loss of jobs in their country.
Why don't they impose tighter environmental regulations or taxes on
corporations? Because the higher costs this would impose on their own
industries would make them uncompetitive with industries in other countries,
thus causing jobs to be lost as they move to those other countries.
Who do they allow public services to be privatized? Because they can neither
raise the necessary taxation from corporations to fund services (for fear of
corporations moving elsewhere) nor can they increase taxes on the public
(for fear of losing votes and stifling economic growth). So privatization
looks like a logical option....
And so on. (There are, of course, other reasons too, but I will not go into
that now). My point is only to show that - generally speaking - politicians
behave so badly not so much because they are corrupt or stupid, but because
globally competitive markets effectively force them to act as they do. Not
to do so would only mean losing out to other countries thus making the
situation even worse.
The same is, of course, true for corporations. Many people in the Global
Justice Movement tend to demonise corporate executives for polluting and
other detrimental practices. But in a global market, any corporation
unilaterally taking on higher social or environmental standards - and thus
higher costs - is likely to make themselves uncompetitive with other
corporations who choose not to adopt those standards. So it's a vicious
circle which corporate executives - like politicians - (and the rest of
us?) - are locked into.
This is, therefore, a largely systemic problem requiring a systemic change
to international relations. And that is why a WP (or some other form of
global governance) is so vital along with the various campaigns (including
Simultaneous Policy http://www.simpol.org) which are designed to take us
closer to that objective.
Best wishes
John Bunzl - Director ISPO
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
Information, inscriptions, désinscriptions: germa@alliance21.org
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