Your issue #129 featured two articles that dealt with Nepal joining the WTO and globalisation in general ("An alternative to Davos" and "Three views on globalisation"). I was disappointed that within these articles, a very important factor to consider in the fairness of globalisation was completely overlooked except a short phrase from Emma Bonino's excerpt. She wrote "Globalisation can multiply its benefits only if it manages to defeat its greatest enemies: the resistance of too many political leaders in the North to eliminating barriers to the free circulation of good and peoples..." The free movement of people is indeed one of the greatest enemies of globalisation's benefits. The current situation of the world is not unlike the feudal system practiced in Europe centuries ago. Transnational corporations set up shop in poor countries and employ desperate people at desperate wages. The goods are then sold in wealthy countries at high prices. The profits remain with the wealthy, while the workers have only enough to survive. Just as in the feudal system, the workers work, but don't reap the justified benefits.
Yet, because of visa restrictions, people from poor countries have almost no chance to travel and work in a wealthy country where they would be paid at decent wages, just as a serf had next to no chance of ever becoming a lord. If goods from the West are to arrive in Nepal, how is it fair that Nepal isn't allowed to offer one of its greatest assets to the West-man and woman power?

In my opinion, the issue of work visa restrictions is the hidden flaw in the logic of globalisation as it is conceived of today. Poor countries have a limited array of goods to entice the wealthy countries. Plus, how can a poverty stricken country reasonably trade goods with countries wealthy enough to subsidise and even dump excess goods in poor countries to be sold under the cost production thereby plundering internal markets and damaging the local economy? I believe that the answer is to create and enforce a decent global minimum wage for transnational corporations, and to greatly reduce work visa restrictions. Until a man or woman can look for work freely across borders, or at least for decent wages within their own countries, the trading of goods across borders will only increase the disparity between wealthy and poor nations.

Ralph Turner,
Kathmandu