Quote Unquote - Paul Hawken - ‘Blessed Unrest’
A piece from Paul hawken’s ‘Blessed Unrest’. From the pint of view of those on the streets, WTO was trying to pu the finishing touches on a financial autobahn that would transfer income to a small portion of the population in wealthy nations under the guise of trade liberalization. The assumptions that undergird market fundamentalism are so pervasive that they have become conflated with fat. IMF, World Bank, and WTO are populated by many macroeconomists who believe that there is no such thing as involuntary employment, because in their economic models demand always equals supply. For true believers, markets are exquisitely calibrated mechanisms that always work perfectly; thus economics aberrations such as unemployment, poverty, or malnutrition must be caused by external factors. Because markets theoretically balanced demand and supply, imbalances are caused by regulations or restrictions. According to this logic, it is unions and high wages that cause unemployment, while poverty is the result of high taxes imposed on people who aren’t poor. In this upside-down world, idealism harms society and greed benefits the needy. Those who question the inevitability of supranational corporations to supply most of our material and employment needs are seen as our of step, if not nostalgic. But even the free market’s most articulate defender New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, knows better: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”