Globalizing aids the rich

If Edwin Dean (“The good of globalization,” Dec. 28) asked Colombian coffee farmers what they want, they would tell him they want a fair price for their coffee, so they can feed and clothe their families and send their kids to school.

Indian software technicians? They would tell him they would like to not have to work 100 plus hours per week for so little money that they can’t even have a family.

Corporate globalization is not doing any favors for working people or the very poor.

It’s all very nice for Dean to talk about GDP per capita in poor countries, but GDP isn’t shared on a per capita basis. The transfer of capital he mentions reflects the same problem; most of it flows right back to the multinational corporations, with some stops at corrupt politicians’ pockets.

All over the world, including in the U.S., the wealth generated by the current system is going to the people who are already in the richest one percent of the population.

The fact is that the current world trade system was created specifically and knowingly to maintain the wealth of the developed world at the expense of the underdeveloped world. The good news, which Dean doesn’t seem to have heard, is that the system is collapsing.

To see the change that is coming, simply look south, to southern Mexico down through Central and South America, where millions of people are saying “Basta! Enough!”

Bonnie Preston

Blue Hill