Globalisation is not the solution; it is the problem

By Jay Dubashi

Dhan.com December 12, 2000 (Source: Free Press Business Journal)

We are thus caught in a three-way squeeze, from MNCs and from WTO. Since the two are part of the same globalisation system, it is globalisation that will one day kill our industries, just as the globalising British and their East India companies killed our industries two hundred years ago. Globalisation is not the solution; it is the problem. MNCs, WTO, World Economic Forum and Enron are aspects of the same problem and so are foreign investors. That China has been able to survive them is the result of careful strategic planning by Chinese authorities, while we have nothing up our sleeve to protect ourselves.

We seem to think that more and more foreign investment will solve our problems, while the fact is that it will create more problems. And you cannot deal with one problem by creating two more problems. A growth rate of nine per cent a year is the kind of target India should aim at and it is perfectly within our reach, provided, and it is an important proviso, we lay the necessary groundwork for it. China has been able to maintain rates exceeding 10 to 12 per cent a year for the last decade, but the high growth rates are not entirely due to high rates of foreign investment. China's investment rate is actually lower than its gross savings rate. India has to put its house in order before asking organizations like WEF to help. As far as I know, WEF has never been allowed to hold its summits in China. China does not require such summits. Its economy is firmly under its control and it knows how to go about its business without undue outside interference.