Globalisation should mean more freedom for citizens, says economist

Globalisation has little meaning unless countries can create the environment in which their own citizens gain access to credit, infrastructure and domestic and overseas market for their produce or their skills.

Instead of focussing on this aspect of globalisation, the debate on the subject in India has degenerated into slogans like "globalisation makes the rich richer and poor poorer", or "globalisation leads to elimination of domestic brands by foreign ones", said Pranab Bardhan, a non-resident Indian economist who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.

The former was false, as poverty had declined in India, while the latter was partially wrong as diversity had not eliminated.

Delivering a lecture in memory of Sisir Kumar Bose at Netaji Bhavan over the weekend, Bardhan said India was ranked one of the lowest in the index of globalisation.

In his lecture, he made the inevitable comparisons between India and China but said he was not convinced that China had prospered because of globalisation alone.

"China has invested huge sums in infrastructure and in the changes needed to provide its citizens the access to the issues I mentioned, and I feel it was this that created more prosperity than mere globalisation", he said.

The economist admitted that globalisation created exploitation but warned that the consequences of following the alternative path of isolation and fragmented markets was worse.

Some anti-globalisation protest groups in developed countries were actually pro-protection labour unions in disguise seeking to block entry of imported goods which would cost them their jobs in unviable factories.

"I tell radicals in Californian universities protesting against so-called women-run 'sweat shops' in Bangladesh that their action only strengthens the hands of the Islamic preachers who want women to be barred from work and to remain under male domination", he told the audience.

"A banana grower in Equador gets $2 for two dozen bananas retailing at $26 in US supermarkets, but he was getting much less when the bananas were not going to the US. Similarly, the Indian middle-class will complain about how expensive shrimps have become ever since their export to the US started, but will never realise that shrimp and lobster farmers are now earning more", he quipped.