Energy

For years now, governments and non-governmental organizations alike have been trying to find ways to stop, or at least slow down global warming and the harmful effects that threaten the world we live in as a result. Yet, reducing global warming is not a prospect that is within reasonable reach, if possible at all. And, even if it is, it will not necessary make the world a better place.
There have been many treaties and agreements, binding or otherwise, to get countries to reduce their carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, most notably the Kyoto Protocol. Yet, will this really work, especially when the USA, the largest greenhouse gas contributor, refuses to ratify the treaty? To be fair, President George Bush did have legitimate reasons for choosing to not ratify the treaty, saying it was ‘not in the United States economic best interests’, as will be elaborated on later.
Some environmentalists have shifted the blame of climate change onto cars – gas-guzzling SUVs and supercars in particular. Yet, with supercars being the exception, cars constitute the only viable and most convenient mode of transport people can turn to. Sure, trains are more environmentally friendly, but people who can afford the luxury of cars would prefer to be stuck in traffic jams in the comfort and privacy of their cars, rather than the human squash in trains during rush hour. What I feel should be done away with, in fact, are unnecessary and astronomically expensive sports like Formula 1 (even though I personally am a fan of the sport), in which the cars use up ridiculously large amounts of fuel. In a single pit-stop, 120litres of petrol on average is pumped into a car. With 11 racing teams, 2 cars in each team and each car making an average of 3 pit stops per race, 7,920litres of petrol are used up in a single Formula 1 race. This does not include the fuel used up in transporting the cars and equipment in between each leg of the race which occurs all around the world, and that used in the practice and qualifying sessions. Thus, this sport alone I believe is a massive wastage of such precious resources, and definitely a major contributor of greenhouse emissions.

Moreover, while the bulk of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere are man-made, a significant proportion of greenhouse gases arise out of natural processes. For example, in an episode of BBC automobile show Top Gear, host Jeremy Clarkson stated that researchers have found that a cow’s single fart contains more methane than that which a car emits in an entire year. In Argentina, methane from cows account for more than 30% of the country’s total greenhouse emissions. Therefore, as we can see, while the causes of global warming are indeed man-made, there are certain important causes which man cannot do much about to stem global warming. Consequently, even if we do find effective ways to slow down or stop man-made causes of climate change, we cannot save the world from environmental degradation entirely, because sometime it is just inevitable. After all, we could not possibly rid the world of cows, or stop consuming dairy and beef products. And even if we do, what difference could all the vegetarians in the world (in America and the Netherlands, only 4% of the entire population is vegetarian, and only 5% in Britain and Germany do not eat meat) possibly make?
I know it does sound a little vague when I question if reducing global warming will make the world a ‘better place’. But that does encompass quite a few aspects of human life. First of all, saving the environment is not necessarily friendly to a nation’s (if not most nations’) economic policies, as reflected in George Bush’s quote, as mentioned above. Energy policies have never come under so much scrutiny until recently when Barack Obama and John McCain came under the spotlight in their race to become the 44th President of the United States. Republican candidate McCain, should he win the elections, seems to be going to continue to the energy policies of the Bush administration – to quote his running mate Sarah Palin in the vice-presidential debates: “Drill, drill, drill”. According to johnmccain.com, “John McCain will commit [the United States of America} to expanding domestic oil exploration” and “put our own reserves to use”, instead of exporting billions of dollars and putting further strain on the budget deficit to purchase energy and be dependent on other countries for it. While this may indeed be beneficial towards correcting the budget deficit, the detrimental effects on the environment are aplenty. Oil production results in much pollution and possible upset of wildlife due to damage of habitats and pollution in drilling for oil. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has proposed coming up with alternative and renewable energy so as to reduce the detrimental environmental effects of oil usage. Yet, these methods will be extremely difficult and expensive to produce, and would hugely increase government spending and the strain on the nation’s budget. As we can conclude, then, environmental and economic issues certainly do not go hand in hand, and it is difficult to compromise and find a middle ground between these two policies, and one of these has to be forsaken. And as such, global warming is indeed a phenomenon impossible to get rid of, and even if it could be, it may not be for the good of everyone in every single aspect.

Technology

The advances in technology are unprecedented. – what one used to think could never happen is now happening right before our very eyes and has even become integral parts of our daily lives. In the past, people could not imagine seeing moving images in a black box, and now satellite dishes transmit television shows and sporting events simultaneously as they are occurring across over on the other side of the globe.
Similarly, technology has advanced many aspects of our lives – not just the means of communication and gadgets, and all that jazz. Technology has led to advancements in science and medicine that could has had enormous impact on people even though its development is not yet complete. Human enhancement and stem cell research has emerged in the past decade, with promises of letting mankind overcome the limitations of their own bodies. Yet, this has raised much controversy and fears on the part of some people, and these fears are not unfounded, even as they promise to improve the human biology.
Stem cell research is definitely the one topic that has garnered the most attention and controversy in recent years. As stem cells can potentially be differentiated into any type of cell in the human body, they have the capacity to be used as a treatment to damage done to parts of the body such as the brain, spinal cord and muscles. It could also potentially be used to treat degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease.
Yet, despite the promise of stem cell research, it has attracted many detractors. Stem cell research, in the process of creating human embryonic stem cell lines, destroys human embryos which were originally created for in-vitro fertilization but not used. Pro-life activists have slammed this, claiming it to be tantamount to murder, as it violated the sanctity of life.
Technological advances in science and medicine has also spawned human genetic engineering, where humans are genetically engineered by modifying the genotype of an unborn individual to control the traits that it will possess when it is born. Thus, not only can parents can now decide the sex of their unborn babies, but they can also in the future decide that their unborn child should have better brain or lung capacity, among other things. Of course, critics have also hit out at this, asserting that genetic engineering interferes with the normal course of human life, which they consider to be sacrosanct.
Personally, I feel that stem cell research is a breakthrough in medical science that should be embraced by one and all. It has offered us so many options to improve our lives, given that one has the economic viability. While it has to be conceded that it does indeed interfere with the nature course of human life, it could save us from potentially fatal or incapacitating situations, such as when we were paralysed in an accident. Stem cell research could give us another chance at life, should our bodies be incapacitated under any circumstance. The destruction of embryos in stem cell research, in my opinion, is attracting more controversy then it should. An embryo, though having the potential to develop into a full-fledged human being, is nevertheless not human yet. The sanctity of life should only be considered when life is in the form of a human being, or a fully-developed foetus. Life starts at pregnancy, or when a foetus is created, not in the form of a cell or an embryo. Human genetic engineering, in my opinion, while beneficial to parents, may be rather unnecessary. By dictating the sex of your unborn child, rather than waiting to find out whether it would be a girl or boy, it would very much take away the essence of normal pregnancy and childbirth. Then again, I do feel that the cloning, or serial cloning of humans would be pushing the limit. It will seriously threaten the individuality of mankind – after all, how would you feel about yourself if there are twenty other people looking exactly like you out there?

Bioterrorism

With the onset of globalization, diseases can spread across the globe in a matter of days. Even in the past when one could not travel from one continent to another in one day, pandemics were prevalent, for one reason or another. It could be due to the strength of the virus strain itself, it could be that the conditions in which a population or group lives in make the perfect breeding ground for such viruses to thrive, or it could be a combination of both.
However, with such great advances in technology and medicine, many pandemics have been eradicated or at least come under control, at least for developed countries. Cholera, one epidemic which took millions of lives worldwide, not just once, but five times. During the first World War, more people were hospitalised due to contracting the avian flu than from sustaining injuries in the war. Of course, science still has its limits – medicine has never been able to overtake or even catch up with viruses. It has been unable to completely combat the flu virus (which constantly mutates into new forms), among many others, and some have taken advantage of this.
The roots of biological warfare go all the way back to the ancient Roman civilization. Soldiers dipped their arrows in poison, and dead and rotting animals were thrown into wells to poison and contaminate the drinking water supply of the enemies. In the 15th century, smallpox was used on contaminated clothing to defeat South and Native American invaders (Bock: 2001) During the second World War, the Japanese had planned to burst open bombs at low altitude over California, releasing millions of fleas contaminated with the bubonic plague, but it was never carried out for the Japanese navy instead gave priority to launching kamikaze attacks in defense of their own islands (Sernau 2006: 162). The consequences would be unimaginable if the Japanese had went ahead and realized their plans – not only will be millions and millions of Americans be infected with the highly contagious plague, the USA would have plunged into political and economic turmoil. With so many suddenly infected overnight, there will be widespread panic and the economy would cease to function, let alone thrive. The world would be very different from how it is now – the Americans definitely would not have been able to play the role of a political and economic figure at the end of the war – that is if the war would have even ended that way it would, with the United States and their allies as the victors.
Since then, bioterrorism has emerged from biological warfare. In 1984, the residents of The Dalles, Oregon, were experiencing the first bioterrorist attack in the United States. Members of the Rajneeshee, a Buddhist cult devoted to beauty, love and guiltless sex, infected salad bars at eleven restaurants and products in supermarkets with salmonella strains. They also managed to infect a judge, a district attorney, a doctor and dentist. Altogether, 751 people became very sick as a result – although there were no fatalities – so that the cult could seize the government by packing booths with imported homeless people, while making citizens too sick to vote.
In 2001, there was widespread panic all across the United States as 22 people were made ill – 5 of which died – by an anthrax attack. Anthrax spores were distributed via letters sent to media organizations and political offices. Postal facilities in Washington D.C were shut down for almost 2 years as a result, and the culprit (who committed suicide when informed of his impending arrest) was not identified until early this year. Even then, the motives of the culprit were not known.
The primary suspect was a scientist who worked at the government’s defense labs, but the FBI were pressured by the White House to prove that the attacks were a second wave of assault by the Al-Qaeda. This not only shows how easy it is to gain access to and disseminate biological and chemical weapons, but that such bioterrorism can be done by anyone – that person responsible for it does not have to be a renowned terrorist. It also showed that nobody could be completely insusceptible to bioterrorism – there is always a chance of being caught off-guard, especially when bioterrorism is so insidious and difficult to detect. It could happen to anybody at anytime, and it is probably more dangerous and fatal than any other form of terrorism, for anyone could be the terrorist, given that some of these agents used are readily available as household items. Bioterrorism indeed is the form of terrorism which the world needs to take guard against.

Urbanization

Urbanization has, without a doubt, improved the lives of many around the world. It has brought about industrialization, which has made our lives easier with access to technology. Communication has been more than enhanced – we used to rely on snail mail, now information can be transmitted in the space of a second across continents. With that came the rise of multinational corporations, which have brought about life to the economies of many countries.
Urbanization is of course not entirely beneficial to us. First of all, it has resulted in large-scale degradation of the environment. Forests are being depleted at an alarming rate, either to make way for more cities and industrial sites, and the trees to supply us with more of what we need as consumers – furniture, paper, whatever. With the arrival of more cities and industrial sites, the natural outcome would be more pollution – exhaust from cars, industrial fumes, all for things that were never once essential to our survival, now pivotal to our lives because of the change this world has seen.
With this environmental degeneration, many companies would naturally take advantage of it to come up with sales gimmicks, all to increase their revenue. Car companies have come up with allegedly environmentally friendly cars. There are certainly cars which aim to reduce carbon emissions, but there are some car companies which have put out models, claiming them to be environmentally friendly when they emit just about as much environmentally harmful gases as normal cars, albeit in different ways. One example would be the Toyota Prius, which boasts a fuel-cell hybrid engine. At low speeds, the car makes runs on electricity, and as a result there will be zero carbon emissions. However, in the production process of the car, the environment is just as much harmed. The mining of nickel, a process which is extremely polluting, is done in America, with the nickel then shipped on an enormous tanker to Europe where the batteries are made. These batteries will then be shipped to China, where foam (another polluting material) is added to the batteries. All the components of the car are then shipped to Japan, where they are assembled. The finished products are then shipped to the rest of the world. All the shipping and transporting of the car and its components no doubt harm the environment more than it really should, given that what is in production is supposedly environmentally friendly.
Urbanization by far has only benefited economically well-off countries. The same cannot be said of most third world countries. These countries, most of them formerly under colonial rule, were rich in natural resources. Their former rulers, all affluent countries such as Britain, still feel the need to ‘intervene’ in their former charges’ affairs, especially economically. What they do is exploit these countries, making use of their cheap labor and taking away as much natural resources as they possibly can for the former’s benefits, leaving the latter to fend for themselves. Affluent nations and multinational corporations take natural resources such as coal away for a minimal sum. What is left behind is nothing but barren and infertile land. They have also set up production sites in these countries to utilize – or exploit – the cheap labor offered due to the extremely low standards of living there. Workers are paid barely enough to even meet subsistence, all the while tolling 18 hours a day on products, which will finally be sold to rich consumers at 50 times the labor cost. Because of the exploitation these poor countries face, they do not have the chance to be properly modernized, for the only people who can help them improve their domestic economy are the very people exploiting them and leaving them with nothing. Such inequality is definitely here to stay.
In the future, resources will of course become increasingly scarce, and increased competition among corporations and nations will result. Consequently, conflict among people will add on to the conflict between people and nature. That one day nations may resort to war just for resources to expand and sustain their urbanized cities is a scary but extremely probable occurrence.

Identity

With so many ongoing conflicts worldwide, peace is definitely something that is hard to come by in the modern world. These conflicts did not appear out of nowhere – more often than not, we can always trace these conflicts back to a root cause, with one major starting point being ethnicity and identity.
The conflict between Israel and Pakistan has certainly been a long-standing one, tracing back to the 19th century, when a Zionist movement was created, largely in response to European anti-Semitist sentiments. The movement sought to create a Jewish nation-state within Palestine, a predominantly Muslim state. The fact that the fundamental differences between these two religions would clash was obvious. The British promising both the Jews and the Palestinians what was essentially the same plot of land only served to exacerbate the conflict, which still sees little resolution even after a century.
The establishment of a Jewish nation-state was of particular significance to the Jews. Having formerly been deprived of even the basic right to survive with the waves of Anti-Semitist movements, a state was crucial in supporting the Jewish identity. Ultimately, the official existence and recognition of a Jewish state would prove the legitimacy of the Jews’ existence, which had been consistently suppressed.
Even in Singapore, while the conflict or tension among different ethnic or religious groups is not as apparent in other countries whose people make it a point to pour out their grievances, or where the conflict escalates into full-blown violence, it does not necessitate the fact that such tension does not exist. The Singapore government all along has adopted the policy of “multiculturalism” to ensure harmony and peaceful co-existence among the different ethnic, racial and religious groups in Singapore, which might have been successful to a certain extent. However, it ironically served to create even wider awareness among the different groups by explicitly defining their differences.
Nevertheless, with this policy of multiracialism for the sake of peaceful co-existence and as a result unanimous social and economic progress, Singaporeans have grown to become tolerant of each other in spite of their differences, even if it encroaches on their values. One example would be a difference between the cultures of the Malays and that of the Chinese. While the Buddhist or Taoist Chinese make offerings to their ancestors or other worldly spirits, they would leave pork lying around on the turf of HDB blocks where they usually carry out such worship. While pork is a Muslim taboo, most Malays have grown accustomed to it – they condone such happenings, as do any other religious or racial group with regards to groups of differing (or even conflicting) values and traditions, for the government has come to advocate the accommodation of cultural and religious difference. As much as this may seem to be simply sweeping the dirt underneath the carpet, this accommodation of the differences among the many groups in Singapore has been effective, for the people just grow acclimatized to it.
As such, this has led me to wonder if the occurrences of conflict due to differences in identity and the scale of it would be greatly reduced if every government were to advocate such accommodation of differences. Perhaps it may, but as far as I can see, it probably would not work. What if George Bush were to suddenly espouse racial, ethnic, cultural and religious differences? He may be the most powerful man on earth, but that does not necessarily mean that Americans would all listen to him like how Singaporeans (mostly) immediately subscribe to LKY’s words. Bush, being the staunch Protestant that he’s all along claimed to be, may be branded a hypocrite even by his most loyal supporters and entrenched Republicans, whom I (in my opinion) feel are possibly one of the most ethnocentric groups around.
In addition, many countries are still at conflict with one another – you cannot take the concept of multiculturalism and try to impose it on the Israelis or ask the Arabs to accommodate the Jews, for they have such a long-standing history of conflict and violence. In other authoritarian states, accommodation is out of the question – dictators believe that integration or assimilation would do the job just as well. Even worse still, they simply just turn to genocide to achieve their means. With such issues in mild, it is hard to believe that conflict based on identity differences would ever come to a halt.

Arms trade

It may sound like a joke when one says that the arms trade, illicit or otherwise, is one of the most lucrative in the world, but the truth is not too far off. There are 200 million firearms in circulation in the United States alone, at worldwide, at least 1 in 12 are armed. The illicit arms trade is clearly illustrated in independent documentary/movie Lord Of War starring Nicholas Cage, which is set in the 80s and based on actual events, with the producers working closely with actual illicit firearms suppliers (also known as gunrunners).

This movie depicts how Yuri Orlov (who was partially based on a real-life gunrunner Viktor Bout, who was arrested earlier this year), an Ukrainian-American who decided that his destiny lay in the illicit arms trade simply because he was “good at it”. He supplied weapons to everyone, from Colombian drug lords to the dictator of Liberia, essentially fuelling and keeping the bloody civil wars in the Western African region alive. His first big break at arms trafficking came when the Cold War ended – the Soviet troops left Ukraine, leaving behind inventories of weapons, most of them the Kalashnikova automatic rifle (otherwise better known as the AK-47), all of which nobody had any use of with the sudden absence of an enemy to protect themselves from, and which Orlov made good use of selling them off to supply warlords.

Prior to that, in the aftermath of the 1982 Lebanon war, the American troops left the country and left their munitions behind, because it was apparently “cheaper to buy new guns than to ship these back” , and Orlov similarly cashed in on the stockpile. These two occurrences depict a vicious cycle in war – when powerful nations (such as the United States) intervene in skirmishes or civil wars between lesser nations, they put forward their support in the form of a constant supply of troops and weapons. And when the fight boils over, the men leave without the guns, which are then sold by such gunrunners to leaders or powerful figures of other nations, getting violence elsewhere underway and exacerbating it.

Yet Orlov’s conquests were not without obstacles – Interpol agent Jack Valentine (portrayed by Ethan Hawke) was time and again on his tail persistently. And yet, after numerous occasions where Orlov successfully evades him, when he finally manages to have Orlov under police custody, he finds that he is unable to prosecute Orlov. Quoting directly from the movie,  Orlov tells Valentine that “the reason I’ll be released is the same reason you think I’ll be convicted. I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of these men are the enemies of your (the USA’s) enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss – the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year – sometimes it’s embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can’t be seen supplying. You call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I’m a necessary evil.”

And indeed, the world’s five leading arms suppliers are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China – ironically the five permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council, which is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. With the most powerful nations in the world taking on double roles, engaged in movements and campaigns rooting for world peace while supplying what precisely exacerbates what they are trying to eliminate, peace on a regional scale (particularly in the African continent) already seems like a task impossible to achieve, let alone globally.

CRIME

Crime has so much become part and parcel of our lives that we hardly ever stop and ask ourselves why crime even exists at all – especially in less criminogenic countries such as Singapore. It has become part of the society to the extent that crime prevention has been integrated into urban planning.

This phenomena did not just occur on its own – there are various reasons for it, with the most striking one being the inequality in society. People are born into various economic and social classes in society, and very few from the poor ever manage to break out from the classes they were born into – and as such, inequality is pretty much perpetuated. This inequality often results in much frustration on the part of the poor, who are then driven to crime, which they see as a last and only resort to economic survival. Modern society’s increasing emphasis on materialism and material wealth being a determinant of one’s social status only serves to compound the problem.

While the poor may find it difficult to break out of their classes and move upwards in society, it is only too easy for those in the higher classes of society to slip into a world of crime and degeneration, especially at a young age. This is even more so in double income or single parent families where minimal or complete lack of parental supervision may cause children to be led astray and into a world of crime.

Crime is possible at any point of time in life, regardless of one’s wealth or position in society. As mentioned earlier, the poor sometimes turn to crime as a means of survival due to the lack of economic opportunities, while the better off, or even the wealthy, in their greed and materialism, resort to crimes such as embezzlement and corruption.

The socialization of an individual, notwithstanding his or her position in the social structure also plays a part in one’s susceptibility to crime. For example, if domestic violence was rampant and unbridled in an individual’s surroundings since childhood, he or she may not just be desensitized to violence – he or she may even see it as a means to get what one wants. As a result, he or she might resort to violent crimes for whatever that needs to be achieved. The role of the media also plays an important part in portraying violence, drugs and crime as normal, or even beneficial – be it in movies, or through celebrities whom which the younger ones increasingly take to as their role models.

Crime could be greatly reduced if we would allow equal opportunities to everyone. Let us take the example of the Aborigines in Australia – for years, they have consistently marginalized by the non-indigenous Australians. This stigmatization and marginalization of the Aborigines led to the increased susceptibility to crime among them, and such attitudes toward them only compounds higher crime rate among them into a vicious cycle.
Earlier this year, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a speech to honour the Indigenous peoples of this land… (and) reflect on their past mistreatment”, which he, on behalf of the Parliament and other Australians, apologized for. Yet, nothing much still seems to be done by the government to better the lives of these people, making Rudd’s speech more or less an empty one. Moreover, discrimination against the Australian Aborigines still exists, and such deep-seated feelings seem to be here to stay, and as such, the marginalization of the Aborigines is more or less permanent. Thus, if the masses’ opinions of the marginalized – whether they are true or false, biased or just – do not change, the latter will find it difficult to obtain opportunities to access to wage labour and wealth, which is necessitated by urbanization.

Women & Work

It is saddening to see how relations among families in the modern world becoming increasingly strained as family members get caught up in their jobs to try to earn a living and support themselves and one another – also otherwise known as the ‘time-bind’. It is also ironic how, in trying to keep the family together by working hard and keeping food on the table, they at the same time manage to drive a wedge between themselves, due to the lack of communication among them. This lack of communication also leads to the lack of understanding of one another – one family member will then be unable to put him or her self in the position of another member, and thus conflict amongst them results, and the family unit as a whole simply breaks down.

However, it would be unfair to claim that these people do not make an effort to maintain a balance between their families and their work-related duties, even though it is a task that is far from easy to take up and maintain. This is especially so for women in the workforce who have children, who after a long day at work still have to fulfill their domestic responsibilities, which men are often unwilling to help out with completely, if at all, even if they are unemployed. This is even more so the case for single parents and the working class.

Thus, as Sernau mentioned in the readings, it is obvious that we are living in an increasingly matrifocal (as opposed to the favored term of matriarchal) society. This is a phenomena occurring not just in urbanized and industrialized countries, but developing countries as well. And if this is the case, why is it that women’s rights are still constantly being grossly violated, especially in the developing countries where the way of life is more traditional and conservative?

In a speech by prominent feminist Hilary Clinton, who also happens to be the first woman to have ever run for the US presidency, noted accurately how “for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence”. Despite the contributions of women to their families, in both domestic and income-related responsibilities, they, even up till today, have to put up with being subject to subordination, belittlement, discrimination, and sometimes even humiliation from their male counterparts. This is because the traditional view that the role of women should be confined only to domestic responsibilities still exists, even in modern and urbanized societies. It could also be that the rise of the importance of women with regards to a nation’s economic survival has displaced many a man. This thus leads to the latter feeling disgraced (after having taken a blow to the male ego) and as a result blaming the women for undermining their roles in society, and they channel this embarrassment into suspicion and aggression to their sisters, wives and daughters. The surge in domestic violence during the period of time whereby women started taking on a larger role in the economy would almost entirely attest to this assertion.

Even if men were supportive of their female domestic partners taking on the role once thought to be only taken up by men (that is, being the sole breadwinners of their respective families), women often find that progress in their respective careers was extremely hard to come by, all because of their gender. They face wage discrimination, where they get paid lower than men for the same amount of work (or even more so) done, as well as the ‘glass ceiling’.

Hilary Clinton is also one of the extremely few female faces in world politics, which is excessively dominated by men. Other than figures such as Condoleezza Rice, Benazir Bhutto and Angela Murkel, powerful women are largely unheard of in the political arena. What could be the underlying cause of this? My guess is that men who often (even unconsciously) hold the perception that women not as assertive and firm, which is an absolute necessity in politics, as men. It is also due to the fact that they, having been in power since the start of civilization, are unwilling to give up their roles and see what was rightfully theirs being taken away by a woman.

Free trade and labour

“…Whether either production enriches or impoverishes the world is not always clear.” This is one statement that one can never disagree with. Producers are increasingly seeing the need for cheaper costs of production while reaping in higher profits. Whatever their motivations may be, greed or otherwise, it has driven them to outsourcing their production to Third World countries where labor is abundant and thus extremely low in cost.
The people who benefit from this move are far and few between – and perhaps the only ones who stand to gain are the producers and corporations themselves. In moving production from one country to another where labor comes at a cheaper price, jobs will be lost in the former country and people will be displaced. The income that these people have depended upon their whole lives to support themselves and their families would have vanished in the blink of an eye, most of the time even before they can search for alternatives to continue making a living.
On the other hand, in the developing nations, jobs are created for their people, boosting the employment rate. However, the situation is not as rosy as the aforementioned statement puts it to be. Workers (a better choice of word would be labourers) toll for hours on end, often in dangerous settings, for pay that is way below the minimum wage. Thus ultimately, this employment does nothing to improve the lives of the people of these developing nations, where producers set up their production plants. The producers see themselves as the Messiah and the savior of their employees; the labourers merely look upon their employers as exploiters. While these corporations see the jobs that they offer as the path and solution to a better life for their workers, the workers feel that what they do are confining and restricting them from fulfilling their potential, for they find what they do in their job to be mundane, repetitive, monotonous, meaningless, impersonal and degrading.
A worse-off scenario would be that of child labor. It is astonishing how major corporations such as Nike and Adidas pay children close to nothing to work in their factories, only to sell the finished products in developed nations at a price one hundred times that of the production cost. These companies may try to justify their actions by claiming that they have provided employment to these children and thus the needed extra income for their families; however, it does not take someone exceedingly bright to realize this gross exploitation. Not only are these children, to put it mildly, overworked and underpaid, they are also robbed of the chance for a proper education, simply because they spend at least 60 hours a week working at these factories. Given that child labor is so extremely widespread in some developing nations, one starts to fear for the future of the country – what would then become of the nations’ future leaders?
Many countries are still extremely resistant to the idea of worldwide free trade, and most of them have good reasons for it. For example, some nations may have industries which are still in their teething period, as a result not being as efficient as foreign producers, thus charging a higher price. Should free trade occur, products from this particular industry would be available from foreign suppliers to local consumers at a much lower price. This may in turn cause the local industry to fail. Protectionism on a government’s part also serves to protect its people from predatory pricing by foreign producers. However, one cannot deny the benefits that free trade can bring about. With the abolishment or great reduction of taxes, tariffs, and other forms of trade barriers, the volume of import and exports worldwide will then greatly increase, bringing about widespread economic growth, for example.
However, I find that this is a faraway ideal. There are certain factors which stand in the way of free trade, which seem to be here to stay. First of all, there are certain resources which are not as mobile as we would like them to be, such as labor, or particularly cheap labor. Secondly, governments often impose embargoes upon a certain nation for political reasons, which almost certainly will not be done away with for the sake of free trade. Also, one has to consider the fact that the advocating of free trade may have certain moral or environmental implications.

Ideology & equality

This topic is one which really gets my attention due to two reasons: poverty and inequality have been my favourite topics to write about for General Paper in my Junior College days, and I have always been interested political ideology.
I must admit that the readings contained a lot of information that I was stunned upon knowing. I used to think that Communism was an ideology that did not make sense, until I realized that even Karl Marx believed that Communism was not for every country, but only those which have already flourished under capitalism.
This has led me to wonder how different the world would be if the communist ideology actually became the predominant one in countries which Marx felt communism would flourish in. After I went through my readings, I found that the line that was particularly stuck in my mind was: “Everything the communists told us about communism was a lie. Unfortunately, everything they told us about capitalism was true”. I do acknowledge that capitalism ultimately triumphed over communism to due the merits that its system holds – more than the communist system would, at the very least, but I would just like to explore how the world would turn out to be had we adapted communist ideology on a worldwide scale.
What would have entailed would be the abolishment of class. Businesses would become state-owned, and wealth would be redistributed from the rich to the poor. If communism was brought about through revolts from the poor, it would ultimately be brought down – if it has not already caused the system it is operating within to implode – through revolts from those unwilling to give up their wealth.
This then brings us to the question: will equality and equity necessarily make the world a better place? The world has not been fair and equal for as long as it has existed, and I personally feel that trying to change this may just upset many other things in the process – for example, the rich in a particular country with a progressive tax system (especially in countries with high taxes like Denmark) will definitely be less than happy to see their hard-earned money being taxed away. Extremely high taxes may result in disincentive to work, and this would then upset the economy of a country.
I would also like to talk about the modernization and dependency theories. Even though they are extreme opposites of each other, I feel that both theories are right. However, one thesis of the dependency theory that I do not agree with personally is that the underdeveloped conditions of a poor nation stems from colonialism, which has brought about the exploitation of the nation.
While it may be true that corporations from rich nations have exploited poor nations which were rich in natural resources, the usage of cheaper labour in these usually over-populated countries may not be blatant exploitation of human resources, if at all. Outsourcing production into these poorer nations actually lead to the creation of jobs. While one may argue that exploitation of the resources of poor nations (in this case inexpensive labour) has been perpetuated, I personally feel that it may be justified. In these poor countries, the cost of living is relatively low, and with the creation of jobs, these companies are actually benefitting the people, providing them with enough income to get by – a change from when unemployment would be even more rampant without the corporations outsourcing production into their country.
Also, while some may accuse rich nations of exploiting the poorer nations by mercilessly stripping them of their natural resources, they may have failed to consider the nation’s vent for surplus. If their natural resources were left untouched, would these resource-rich nations have properly utilized them? They could have been better off exporting these resources to these richer countries, albeit at a less exploitative rate.