Relocating industries

Countries have been fighting each other to see which can offer the international corporations the cheapest labour and the lowest social and environmental costs. Jobs are being moved to places with lower wages, lower business taxes and greater freedom to pollute. Employers are using the argument of "international competition" to reduce wages, fees, taxes and environmental protection and to replace high quality jobs with temporary, part time, insecure, low quality jobs. Governments are justifying budget cuts in education, health and other services as necessary elements to reduce taxes on business, as the only way of preserving jobs.

International regulation of the globalization process is very limited and boils down to the decisions and negotiations of GATT (Uruguay Round) to establish rules for international trade, principally the rules of the International Monetary Fund which sets minimum levels of financial controls, fiscal balances and limits on State interventionism in internationalized markets. The development of increasingly expeditious mechanisms of control in matters of environment and labour is of utmost importance and should help to stimulate and foster the development of the virtuous circuit of globalization rather than a vicious or perverse circuit leading to greater inequities. The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the World Summit of Social Development in Copenhagen were two events of transcendental importance in this direction, although for many observers it is not yet possible to perceive their practical results.