People, not just profits
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN
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The 26 Counties has the highest level of poverty in the industrialised
world outside of the USA
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Twenty percent of the 26-County population bought shares in Telecom Éireann
last week. Twenty-three percent of the 26-County population are
functionally illiterate, which means they would
not have been able to fill out their share application forms. This is a
startling example of the realities of economic inequality in the Irish
economy today. It is just one of the United Nations' damning findings about
economic and social inequality in not only Ireland but around the world.
The United Nations Human Development Report released this week shows that
the 26 Counties has the highest level of poverty in the industrialised
world outside of the USA. The UN report found that over 15% of the Irish
people are living in ``human poverty''.
The UN measures states using a Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI takes
account of income, education and life expectancy. The 26 Counties has
fallen to 20th out of 174 states measured on the HDI. Last year the state
was ranked 17th.
Internet inequality
``People, not just profits'' is the title of this year's Human Development
Report. As well as producing the usual HDI rankings and measures, the
report focuses this year on the effects of globalisation on equality across
the world.
``Reducing the gap between the knows and the know-nots'' is the emphasis of
the report, which argues that this gap is widening. The report says that
the Internet is the ``fasting growing tool of communication ever''. It
predicts that the number of Internet users will grow from 150 million today
to more than 700 million by 2001. However, the report argues that an
invisible barrier has emerged ``like a Worldwide Web, embracing the
connected and silently, almost imperceptibly, excluding the rest''.
For example, the U.S. has more computers than the rest of the world
combined. Bulgaria has more Internet hosts than the whole of sub-Saharan
Africa, excluding South Africa. South Asia has 23% of the world's
population and less than 1% of the world's Internet users.
Access to the Internet is dictated in most cases by the quality of your
education. In China, 60% of the users have a university degree. In Brazil,
75% of users are men.
According to the report, ``the typical Internet user worldwide is male,
under 35 years old, with a university education, and high income, urban
based and English speaking''. Eighty percent of Web sites are in English,
yet less than 10% of the world's population speaks the language.
Money talks louder
Transnational business is also studied in the UN report. These huge
businesses are controlling ever larger slices of the global market. For
example, the top ten telecommunications companies held over 86% of the
market in 1998. The ten largest pesticide companies control 85% of their
global market. The ten largest computers companies have 70% of their global
market.
Most significant was the finding that industrialised states hold 97% of the
all worldwide patents. The UN report calls for a shift in research
objectives: ``In defining research agenda, money talks louder than need -
cosmetic drugs and slow-ripening tomatoes come higher on the list than a
vaccine against malaria or drought-resistant crops for marginal lands.''
Rich and poor
The growing gap between the rich and poor has been another feature of
successive UN Human Development Reports. This year's report found that the
top three billionaires in the world have assets greater than the combined
GNP of all the least developed states and their 600 million citizens.
Buying a computer in the USA costs on average one month's wages. In
Bangladesh it would cost eight year's income. Over 80 states have lower per
capita incomes in 1998 than they did in 1988.
The top 20% of the world's population living in high income states control
86% of the worlds wealth, 80% of world exports and 74% of telephone lines.
The gains from crime are also measured. Organised crime syndicates are
estimated to gross $1.5 trillion yearly, while trafficking in women for
sexual exploitation is a $7 billion-a-year business.
Solutions
The UN report concludes with a call for changes in the process of
globalisation. Markets have been allowed dominate the globalisation
process, it says. The result is that ``the benefits and opportunities have
not been shared equitably''. Working conditions and incomes have suffered.
Financial volatility has increased.
The report also calls for formulation of regional labour and environmental
standards as well as an international public programme to fund the
development of biotechnology, and information and communications
technologies to meet the main technological needs of poor people. This
could be financed in part by a ``bit tax'' on electronically delivered
messages.
Finally there is a call for a global forum to include multinational
corporations, trade unions and non-government organisations that would
``give rich and poor people a louder voice in global decision making''.
This might be a workable proposal but it does not cover up the failure of
the UN to deal with global inequality. The UN commissioned this report and
it is through the General Assembly that these global inequalities should be
addressed.
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