Thirty
- five billion
I've been toying with the
figure $35 billion which I heard the other day - toying with it because
I, like most folk I've spoken to about it since, couldn't grasp the
sheer enormity of it. What did it actually represent?
So I decided to do my own in-home research using the New
Internationalist World Guide latest edition's figures (UN statistics).
This is what I came up with: $35,000,000,000 is the equivalent of
(GNI
is gross national income):
1) 1 year's GNI of $35,000 for 1,000,000 people in USA
2) 1 year's GNI of $1,000 for 35,000,000 people in the Philippines
3) 1year''s GNI of $480 for 70,000,000 people in India
4a) 1 year''s GNI of $240 for 140,000,000 people in Mali or
4b) 10 year's GNI for total population of 14 million in Mali
5a) 1 year's GNI of $100 for 350,000,000 people in Ethiopia or
5b) 5 year's GNI for total population of 74 million in Ethiopia.
Now, if just one person owned all that wealth they'd have to put
it somewhere safe, in some kind of bank or shares or whatever where it
would be safe and accumulate, e.g. a 1 percent return over 1 year would
produce $350,000,000 in interest; a 5 percent return $1,750,000,000; 10
percent $3,500,000,000
and so on assume compound interest kicking in and you'll have to do
your own figures or find an expert; however, you get the picture.
Of course when you''ve managed to accrue enough after a few years
to be able to give away the lion's share without noticing any
difference at all in
your own life style people will applaud you and say what a wonderful,
altruistic person you
are.
What would you choose to do with your fortune? Beat malaria? Wipe
out the debt of several Highly Impoverished Nations? Bring clean water
to some
of the millions without? Fund schools or hospitals in perpetuity from
your
foundation's coffers? The possibilities are endless.
But, surely, one person wouldn't actually have so much money! How
would one person acquire enough in the first place to be able to put
money to
work to accrue more money? Simple, just use other people, lots and lots
of people, to do the work for less than it's worth to produce the goods
on your behalf and pocket the difference.
The less you manage to pay your workers and the more you're able
to sell your goods for to other workers, the better the profit you'll
make, enabling
you to be the one to choose how to improve life on the planet for the
unfortunate masses.
How can it be, however intelligent, hardworking, honest and/or
altruistic, that one person's 'gift' can be equal to the income of all
the people of
Ethiopia, men, women and children, for 5 years?
How can it be that one person should be able to choose how to
affect (or not to affect) such a multitude of people, albeit in a
positive way?
How can it be that so many people have so little choice in their own
lives?
It's the system, my friends, the system that puts profit above all else
- how else could it work?
The system that uses and abuses peopleall around the world, the
system that can't work with full employment, universal healthcare and
satisfied bellies,
but must rely on chasing profit around the globe whatever the
consequences for the
planet and its inhabitants.
Imagine 1,000,000 US citizens giving up their whole year's income.
Imagine the entire population of Mali having no income at all for 10
years.
Imagine one man having that much spare cash. I don't doubt that you
know which particular man I'm writing about - the second richest man in
the
world, Warren Buffet, who's decided to donate not $35b but $37b to the
charitable foundation of the richest man (Bill Gates) .
But what's $2,000,000,000? Well, 3 years GNI for the Maldives . . .
Am I knocking Bill Gates, Warren Buffet et al? No, I'm knocking the
system which allows, nay encourages, a small minority to exploit the
vast majority
in an unequal relationship.
The capitalist system cannot work with equal relationships. There
have to be (a few) winners and (many) losers. Life, liberty, the
pursuit of
happiness, the right to clean water, enough food, access to health
care, a comfortable home, to raise one's children in a cooperative
rather than a competitive society in a
well-husbanded world environment in the knowledge that there is a
sufficiency of all our basic needs and no good reason for anyone to go
without.
This is the only fair system. If you're content with the status
quo then carry on as before. However, if you've taken the time to read
this far the chances are you're not content. If you're sick and tired
of hearing the same old
political fixes on offer and are looking for real answers then take a
few more minutes to look at the only alternative. It could be the best
thing you'll do this year.
JANET SURMAN
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Calling
Home
One aspect of globalisation is
outsourcing or offshoring: moving jobs from a country where they've
traditionally been performed to
another, usually on the grounds of lower wages and therefore higher
profits. This has already happened with many manufacturing jobs: work
is now carried out in China and India rather than in Britain or
elsewhere in Western Europe.
But factories aren't the only workplaces
to be outsourced, for it also applies to
one of the 'boom' occupations of recent
years, namely workers in the call centres
which are often now the only way to contact your bank, insurers or
credit card company.
A huge office-cum-warehouse where
employees essentially just answer the phone all day doesn't need to be
in the same country as the caller or the company's head office.
After all, if you live in Dover it probably
doesn't matter if your call is answered by
someone in Delhi rather than Darlington-
indeed you may well not know where the person at the other end of the
phone line is.
Hence many call centres operate in India, which has a ready and
keen supply of educated English-speakers. Workers there are given
special classes in British TV, especially soap operas, so they can
engage in chitchat with callers, who often want to do a bit more than
just talk about their bank account.
Savings for the employers could be as much as 50 percent over a
similar operation in Britain.
But now it seems that all is not so rosy
in the garden of the outsourced call centre (Guardian, 30 June). For
one thing, workers in India have turned out to be not so docile or
grateful for the work after all, as absenteeism and staff turnover
approach levels found in the UK.
This is what happens with so many of the jobs resulting from
globalisation:
they're boring, there's no career structure, and workers are subject to
a lot of petty controls such as the time taken for breaks.
And for another, there have been complaints about poor service,
and some companies make a point of advertising the fact that their own
call centres are still in Britain.
There's no doubt some prejudice operating here, against
non-native speakers of English, but if companies lose customers because
of their
perceptions about call centres then they will sit up and take notice.
The sting in the tail of the Guardian
article is the information that an Indian outsourcing company is
intending to set up a large new call centre in Belfast, attracted by
the cheap property prices there.
Capitalism truly is a global system, and those who own the means
of production will go to any lengths to boost their profits.
PB
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