2. Globalisation (as we know it) is the new colonialism, run in the interests of corporations :

(i). Free-trade - a definition: 'The sanctioning of market concentration for 'merchant capitalist' multinationals & finance capital'

This power-base (involving exchange between them or between their subsidiaries) allows Multinationals to trade-off labour and environmental standards with the need for more profitability. They have the flexibility to move anywhere in the world, holding countries to ransom whose neoliberal economic-policy prescription relies upon foreign investment, as dictated by the imperialism of the IMF who in turn execute their will through conditionality of loan payments and the subsequent debt. The World Trade Organisation and regional trade blocks such as the EU are also central to this process, since it is clear that trade agreements (geared in the interests of corporations by lobbying through groups such as the 'European Roundtable of Industrialists') are facilitating the supremacy of multinational capital over national sovereignty and the encroachment of financial capital in national economies of the South.

Freemarket orthodoxy or "neoliberalism", is fundamentally reliant upon national economies engaging in constantly cut-throat competition, with each economy trying to "out-compete with one another" for both multinational investment and in the shorter term, favourable market approval by investors on the stock-exchange. The result is a continual competitive race-to-the-bottom across the world, in terms of environmental and labour standards. John Bunzl: "The inherent uncertainty of international de-regulated capital markets tends to engineer a kind of paralysis of national economic policy ensuring governments' adherence only to policies they can be sure will not displease world markets" (from "The Simultaneous Policy" by John Bunzl 2000 - New European Publications).

The latest manifestation of this drive for greater and greater global competitiveness is the proposed General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which is to be negotiated in the WTO - legislation which contains policy frameworks that will eliminate any government policy "interference" where liberalisation of a particular sector has gone ahead (for e.g. a multinational will have full discretion as to whether it enacts for instance, environmental legislation, or subsidy options for the poor as provider of water provision). A recent example of GATS in action has been the privatisation of the water industry in Bolivia where those earning the minimum wage spent half of their income on water bills, while people were even charged for collecting rainwater! In Trinidad and Tobago where British company Severn-Trent have sought to privatise their water supply, the local newspaper - the Trinidad Guardian - described how, "like Christopher Columbus they came bearing small gifts and big promises. And like Columbus, their allegiance is not to the people of Trinidad & Tobago, but to their backers and shareholders" (Article in "WDM in Action", World Development Movement, Dec 2000). The preparation of this agreement was lobbied with massive support by several US finance corporations such as American Express & Citicorp (WDM, December, 2000).

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