sebb@pyuxss.UUCP (S Badian) (01/27/84)
I am no longer active in the Model UN club since I am no longer at school, so I am unable to give any actual references. I'm pretty sure there is a commission to study the impact of multi-national corporations on third world countries, and they must have produced plenty of literature. Unfortunately, the last time I read any of it was 2 years ago. The bias of these reports is, of course debatable. Since most of the commission is made of representatives from the third world, they tend to be a bit hard on the developed nations.(By the way in the UN the division is no longer between third world and developed nations. It is between MDC(more developed country) and LDC(less developed country).) As a representative for LDC's at most Model UN's, we made it sheer hell for the US and Great Britain in this commission. I believe that the factual content of these reports is accurate enough for most of us to draw our own con- clusions. If one thinks back to the beginning of the industrial revolution and the exploitation of the West one can see that the same thing is now happening in most of resource-rich LDC's. The difference is, in the past, individuals (in general, adventurers or fortune- seekers) were out there exploiting the land. And they didn't have the benefit of our technology. And probably most important, they returned the money they made to our economy because they were Americans. Workers were exploited in the factories but it didn't take long for change to set in. The workers are now protected and paid a good wage for their work. If we look at an average LDC, we see the same resource exploitation, except now the exploiter is a large corporation from another country. Little money is poured back into the host country's economy, aside from the development costs and minimal wages. The profits are sent back to the companies stock holders. The host countries are stuck in a Catch-22. If they put in stricter guidelines for foreign corporations, the companies leave when it is no longer cost-effective to stay. There are always other countries with less stringent guidelines. But these poor countries cannot afford to develop their resources alone. It costs a lot of money to start copper mining or a steel mill. What the UN is pushing for is global guidelines to protect the workers and the countries from exploitation. But neither side is known for compromise. The plight of the LCD's is one of our greatest problems. What do you do with a country which is still largely in the dark ages? The people there don't read or write and there are generally too many of them. It's a very sticky situation with no easy answers. All of them cost large amounts of time, money and effort. The problems won't go away overnight even if we do find the optimal solutiion. I cannot in the limited amount of space I like to devote to an article bring forth some of my suggestions. One thing I know for sure- WE CANNOT TURN OUR BACKS ON THESE PEOPLE!! We have a vested interest in their success, politically, economically, and just as decent human beings. Sharon Badian Discussion is more than welcomed.