We need to have an alternate system to promote just trade and a democratic system. We must fight for a new humanism, beyond capitalism and socialism!

Day #3 LDC conference

05/10/11

“An alliance of the marginalized is the way forward. It must happen at community, country, regional, and global levels. We need to have alternate system to promote just trade and a democratic system. We must fight for a new humanism, beyond capitalism and socialism!” – Prof. Babu Mathew, Director ActionAid India

A common dialogue during the conference is neo-liberalism and capitalisms’ repeated failures. Prof. Babu Mathew, from India, gave a great presentation at a plenary today on how LDCs are struggling as result of neo-liberalism policies and capitalism. This is being emphasized through out the conference because it gets to the root cause of why LDCs are not developing.

For those of you new to political lingo the term neo-liberalism is in reference to Ronald Regan/Margaret Thatcher style of economics; the epitome of corporate gain over economic equality. The five main concepts of neo-liberalism: the rule of the market, the cutting of public expenditures for social service (welfare), unregulated markets (environmental and labor laws), privatization and replacing the concept of the public good with “individual responsibilities”.

Prof. Mathews explained that neo-liberalism forms when there is a combination of what multi-national corporations would like to do and what the industrial military complex decides to do. 

As I mentioned in my last my last report agriculture and land sovereignty play a large role in how LDCs develop. Prof. Mathews explained that post-Istanbul we need to pay close attention to agriculture sectors and support a new agricultural system. He explained: “The agriculture industrial system has failed. It is impossible for the industrial system to absorb the excess labor, specifically in developing countries. The shift to agriculture will be difficult, but necessary. Industrialization has failed the people, but has been very successful for multi-national corporations. There are movements in the global south towards local food production and the fight against corporations. Specifically we can look to India and the wide spread movement to save seeds and fight Monsanto. All attention needs to be turned towards agriculture”.

During the plenary the concept of LDCs taking ownership of their own development were discussed at length. Rudy de Mar from the organization 11/11 in Belgium carefully articulated what ownership means for LDCs:

“I have ambiguous feeling about the concept of ownership. A core component of the development process is that people must decide what happens to them. But the term ownership is often vague and a misused word in the development world. When we start talking about ownership, we are basically talking about the question of power. Ownership is not a gift thrown in your hand, you must to grab and conquer it.”.

Thus concept of “ownership” is similar to the term “empowerment”, terms that are often thrown around at UN conferences and in documents. Both concepts need to organically develop within communities and countries. A person does not become empowered by being told “we will give you A, B and C and then you will be empowered”. You have power when you decide to take power and there is a social structure that allows power to develop. This concept is transferrable to a country level, if there is global economic system that does not exploit and “own” LDCs they will have a chance be have ownership and develop at their chosen pace.