Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet (50 page)

23
. Birdsall 2007.

24
. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) (DFAT) 2012.

25
. Griffiths 2002; Ben-Ari 2002, 9; Soares 2005.

26
. Chang 2002, 2.

27
. Chang 2002, 22, 30.

28
. Wade 2004, 581.

29
. Vidal 2008; 2007.

30
. International Air Transport Association 2013.

31
. Payer 1991, 39–41. In 1981, “Latin America was lent an incredible $61 billion, of which $45 billion immediately went back to the banks as repayments” (Hanlon 2002, 28).

32
. Brzoska 1983, 274–275; Perlo-Freeman and Perdomo 2008; Jubilee Research 1998.

33
. Mandel 2006, 16–20.

34
. Mandel 2006, 31; Hanlon 2006, 211. Precedents for cancellation of debts date from the refusal of the United States to honor Cuba’s debt to Spain in 1898 and extend to the 2003 write-off of part of the Iraqi debt contracted by Saddam Hussein.

35
. Hanlon 2006, 215–216.

36
. Karliner 1997.

37
. Buckley 2002/2003.

38
. Speaking to Stephen Long on September 22, 2009 (Long 2009).

39
. UN Conference on Trade and Development 2004, 10.

40
. Hanlon 2002, 27–28.

41
. George 1992, xv–xvi.

42
. Edward 2006, 1667–1668.

43
. Reddy and Pogge 2005.

44
. Reddy and Pogge 2005.

45
. Edward 2006, 1680.

46
. Wade 2004, 570–571. More recently (2013), Gallup estimated median per capita household income at $2920 (PPP adjusted). Although significantly greater than Wade’s figure for 1999, it remains low—an indication of the persistent gulf between the richer and poorer halves of the world’s population (Phelps and Crabtree 2013).

47
. Woodward and Simms 2006, 1.

48
. Reddy 2008.

49
. Wade 2007.

50
. Johnston 2005.

51
. UN Development Programme 2005, 17–18.

52
. Henry 2012; Shaxson Christensen, and Mathiason. 2012.

53
. Davies et al. 2008, 7.

54
. Edward 2006, 1673.

55
. Roy 2002, 2–3.

56
. Edward 2006, 1673–1680. In Edward’s study period (1993–2001), the poorer half of the world’s population received less than ten percent of the increased income between them; by 2014, these 3.5 billion people were calculated to own about the same as the 85 richest individuals on earth (Fuentes-Nieva and Galasso 2014).

57
. Krueger 2004.

58
. Woodward and Simms 2006.

59
. Murdoch 2008.

60
. World Bank 2007, 73; DFAT’s APEC report (2007, 6) was based on these figures.

61
. UN Millennium Development Goals 2013, 42–46; World Bank 2012, 72.

62
. Buckley (2009). In 1999, these five were Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mexico, though Brazil might have to be added as a sixth by 2011, and coastal China would also be a candidate (Buckley, pers. comm.). In several of these examples massive inequality persists. Such polarization makes averages suspect.

8 Growth and “Sustainable Development”

1
. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) 1987, 40–41.

2
. WCED 1987, 43–52, 59.

3
. WCED 1987, 67; see chap. 7.

4
. WCED 1987, 85.

5
. WCED 1987, 5–6.

6
. WCED 1987, 1.

7
. Sachs 1999;
Ecologist
1993.

8
. Middleton, O’Keefe, and Moyo 1993.

9
. UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 1992a, 1992b.

10
. Grubb et al. 1993, 98–103.

11
. Khor 1997; Middleton, O’Keefe, and Moyo 1993, 2; Grubb et al. 1993, 106, 125.

12
. E.g.,
Economist
2003; Goodman 2011. The only approximation of the phrase I found in contemporary records was written by Elmer-DeWitt (1992) for
Time
magazine, who attributes it to “US negotiators.” The phrase might also have arisen when the
Guardian
reported the president saying that “we cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going extreme on the environment” (Walker et al. 1992, 1).

13
. Middleton, O’Keefe, and Moyo 1993, 4, 11.

14
. Grubb et al. 1993, 86.

15
. Andrews 2001. This attitude is mirrored in Australia, though rarely stated quite so explicitly.

16
. UN Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) 2013. Plehwe (2009, 32–33) notes the role of the Heritage Foundation (see part III) in the demise of the UNCTC. The Heritage Foundation’s “applied neoliberal policy knowledge” played a key role in undermining the UNCTC and shifting development emphasis from notions of economic independence and sovereignty to those of “good governance and corporate citizenship expressed by the amicable relations between corporate and political leaders in the UN Global Compact frame.”

17
. Sachs 1999; Redclift 2005; Pandit speaking to Latha Jishnu, October 19, 2008 (Jishnu 2008); Daly 1993, 267–273; 1996, 166–7. Growth here refers to growth in
material
flows—extraction of resources for physical production and the resulting waste. See also chapter 2.

18
. Sachs 1999, 29.

19
. Seabrook 2002.

9 Growth and Its Outcomes for the Poor

1
. More 1999 [1516], 101.

2
. Lynch 2004.

3
. Landesa Rural Development Institute 2011, 2. Landesa, with headquarters in Seattle, works to secure land rights for the world’s poorest 2.47 billion people, living on less than $2 a day.

4
. Taylor 2005a, 2005b, 2005c.

5
. Elkington and Lee 2005.

6
. Balazovic 2011.

7
. McLaughlin 2012.

8
. Padel and Das 2007, 25.

9
. Wasley 2009.

10
. Fernandes 2006, 113–115.

11
. Lewis 2006.

12
. Guha 2005.

13
.
Business Standard
2006.

14
. Ray and Chaudhury 2008.

15
. Goldman 2005, viii–ix.

16
. Speaking to Norman Swan on January 25, 2010 (Swan 2010). Sen was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment under antiterrorist laws on what appear to have been trumped-up charges relating to his visits to prisoners. After several periods of imprisonment, he was granted bail by the Indian Supreme Court in April 2011, pending the hearing of his appeal.

17
. Patnaik 2007, 3132–3135.

18
. Patnaik 2009, 69.

19
. International Institute for Population Sciences and Macro International 2007, 273.

20
. Page 2007.

21
. Magnier 2013.

22
. Friedman 1980.

23
. Davis 2004, 5.

24
. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA) 2006, 19.

25
. Yeung and Lo 1996, 41.

26
. UN/DESA 2006, 2.

27
. World Bank 2008, ii.

28
. Davis and Belkin 2008.

29
. UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) 2003a, xxv–xxvi; 2003b, 12.

30
. UN-Habitat 2003a, xxvii, 46.

31
. Mulama 2006; UN-Habitat 2003b.

32
. Brugmann 2009.

33
. Chu 2008; Apte 2008.

34
. De Launey 2006; Amnesty International 2008.

35
. Carmichael and Nara 2001.

36
. Rostow 1960, 10.

37
. Murdoch 2008.

38
. Edward 2006, 1677.

39
. Reddy 2008.

40
. Edward 2006, 1673–1680.

41
. Lappé, Clapp, Anderson, et al. 2013a.

42
. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2009, 2010.

43
. UN Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG) 2009, 11.

44
. Lappé, Clapp, Anderson, et al. 2013a.

45
. UNMDG 2013, 6. Extreme poverty is defined by the World Bank’s $1 a day metric.

46
. FAO 2012, 55.

47
. FAO 2012, 8, 4–5, 15–27.

48
. Lappé, Clapp, Anderson, et al. 2013b, 9–10.

49
. FAO 2012, 27.

50
. Lappé, Clapp, Anderson, et al. 2013b, 13–14; Guereña 2010, 25–28.

51
. ILO 2006, 13; UNMDG 2013, 6, 8.

52
. Ekins 1991, 250–252.

53
. Goodman 2009a.

54
. Goodman 2009b.

55
. Kempf 2008, 47–8; UN Development Programme (UNDP) 2005, 18.

56
. Hervé Kempf describes this global oligarchy as a “predatory and rapacious ruling class … blind to the explosive power of manifest injustice. And blind to the poisoning of the biosphere” (Kempf 2008, 59)

57
. Vitali, Glattfelder, and Battison 2011, 3–4, appendix S1. The top fifty holders of control are listed in appendix S1, 17.

58
. Cited in Matthews 2008.

59
. Musgrove 2006; Connor and Dent 2006, 4, 8; Adams and McLaughlin 2009;
Sydney Morning Herald
2008a.

60
. Bengali 2006; Ackerman 2008; Egan 2007; Hamer 2007. Corporate miners have also operated without precaution, fouling rivers and destroying food gardens and fishing grounds (Burton 1999; Forero 2009; Gumbel 2007; Perlez and Bonner 2005); in 2006, a gas drilling rig near Surabaya in Indonesia pierced a toxic mud reservoir that continued to inundate fields and villages for years (Mydans 2008).

61
. Kahn and Landler 2007.

62
. Auffhammer and Carson 2008.

63
. Environment News Service 2008.

64
. Shiva 2008, 45.

65
. Shiva 2008, 45.

66
. Waldman 2005.

67
. Shiva 2008, 49–52.

68
. World Bank 2012, 72.

10 Propaganda

1
. Arndt 1978, 71, 73.

2
. Arndt 1978, 18, 27–37.

3
. Leach 1993, 8.

4
. Arrighi 1994, 241, 281; Mitchell 1989, 82.

5
. Chandler 1977, 321.

6
. Chandler 1977, 334, 328.

7
. Chandler 1977, 317.

8
. Arrighi 1994, 287; Marchand 1998, 10; Chandler 1977, 368–372.

9
. Chandler 1977, 241; Arrighi 1994, 270–71.

10
. Arrighi 1994, 281, 72. These internal trades facilitate the (perfectly legal) tax avoidance practised by many TNCs, in which profits are shifted to jurisdictions that levy little or no tax.

11
. CNN
Money
2012.

12
. Leach 1993, 6–8; Lamoreaux 1985, 159.

13
. Marx 1954b [1887], 714–715.

14
. Griffin, Wallace, and Rubin 1986, 155.

15
. Cited in Marchand 1998, 42.

16
. Le Bon 1960 [1895], 9.

17
. Ewen 1996, 41–43.

18
.
New York Call
, January 28, 1915, cited in Ewen 1996, 79–80.

19
. Marchand 1998, 43.

20
. Creel 1920.

21
. Creel 1918, 188.

22
. Ewen 1996, 102–104, 121, 423.

23
. Lippmann 1920, 5, 12–13.

24
. Cited in Cochran and Miller 1961 [1942]), 333.

25
. Bernays 2005 [1928], 54, 48.

26
. Ewen 1996, 219.

27
. Ewen 1996, 223.

28
. AT&T president, cited in Cochran and Miller 1961 [1942], 340.

29
. Cochran and Miller 1961 [1942], 342.

30
. Soule 1947, 142.

31
. Cochran and Miller 1961 [1942], 338.

32
. Cited in Lee 1929, 37.

33
. Ewen 1996, 180.

34
. Soule 1947, 142.

35
. Cited in Marchand 1998, 4.

36
. Bernays 2005 [1928], 94.

37
. Lane 1950, 18–19. This was the first congressional investigation of NAM’s propaganda activities. Although numerous bills to regulate lobbying were subsequently introduced, none was passed (Carey 1997, 21).

38
. Walker and Sklar 1938, 428.

39
. Cited in Marchand 1998, 202–203.

40
. Fones-Wolf 1994, 25.

41
. NAM 1936, “What is your American system all about?,” cited in Ewen 1996, 303–305.

42
.
Fortune
1938, 51.

43
. Roosevelt 1944, 111–116.

44
.
Fortune
1938, 51.

45
. NAM action chart reproduced in US Congress 1939, 283.

46
. Ewen 1996, 314.

47
. Walker and Sklar 1938, 433.

48
. Lippmann 1927, 37–38.

49
. Ewen 1996, 312.

50
. I am indebted to Ewen’s book (1996) for alerting me to the existence of this revealing photograph, showing a breadline under an American Way billboard during the 1937 Louisville Flood, Kentucky. It was taken by the celebrated photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

51
. Walker and Sklar 1938, 123.

52
. Ewen 1996, 312–320.

53
. US Congress 1939, 218.

54
. US Congress 1939, 178.

55
. Ewen 1996, 327.

56
. Ewen 1996, 322–335.

57
. Ewen 1996, 234–235.

58
. Marchand 1998, 214, 226, 207.

59
. US Chamber of Commerce, cited in Marchand 1998, 137; Wall 2008, 48–49.

60
. Marchand 1998, 235.

61
. NAM executives conference, cited in Ewen 1996, 340.

62
. Marchand 1998, 336; chairman of NAM’s executive committee in 1942, cited in Fones-Wolf 1994, 26.