I wonder how the good economist (or is he a robotic drone) explains the phenomena described in PLANET OF SLUMS by Mike Davis. A billion people living in appalling conditions, with no possibility whatsoever of any betterment in their prospects.And their numbers are inevitably growing every day as a result of the destructive processes of globalisation.

The fact of the matter is that globalisation in its current form is quite literally grinding eveything to rubble. In its current form globalisation is the latest and deadliest phase of the drive to total power and control at the root of the western imperial project. And as such it (globalisation) is totally indifferent to any and all forms of life, including human life.

One dimensional media driven and created consumer "culture" rules OK. We are literally consuming ourselves to death.
One of the meanings of the word consume is to destroy. The "destroyer culture".

ALL traditional forms of culture and the planetary ecosystems which support and all the sentient beings on this planet are being trashed.
Have you read the news?

Saul, I wonder if you will read this. If so, Hi!

I worry that the ebb and flow of capital may be too capricious to reflect the reality of the everyday world. In fact, the whole economic setup has the potential to turn us all into blundering idiots.

Consider the following - forests:

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"Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distils water, makes complex sugars and food, makes micro-climates, and self-replicates.

Hey, why don't we knock that down and write on it!"

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- see what I mean?

Now, isn't it about time that the brainy economists like you, and old plunderers like me got together and learned some new tricks? For instance, we could contemplate the soil beneath our feet - and call that wealth.

- is that too big an idea? Are we too far gone to understand?

Eslake in this article successfully demonstrates that he is heavily indoctrinated, as you would expect the chief economist of the ANZ bank to be. There is no such thing as “free trade”; what is called “globalisation” is a series of bi-lateral and multi-lateral investor rights agreements designed to serve the rich. Globalisation is all about protecting the rich from markets. Free markets are for the poor, as they always have been and always will be. Notice Eslake’s touching reference to the perfidy of ordinary people who lament rising inequality whilst, supposedly, their absolute incomes are rising. If only everybody were to posses the cynicism of the connected and sophisticated.

The key axiom of economic theory is very simple, and Eslake demonstrates it here. It is, “we must make the rich happy because if they are happy nice things will happen”

I don't think Australian businesses should fear globalisation. I'd like to see more outward looking firms that are prepared to become committed and invest in enterprises that can deliver knowledge and skills to developing Countries like Ghana, West Africa that have around the same population as Australia.

Ashante Goldfields is a success story in Ghana with Australian gold mining know-how making a profitable business venture that also gets high praise for applied social infrastructure investment in the local community creating good will, employment and tax revenue.

Export promotion agencies should engage the media and perhaps even documentaries to persuade people of broad benefits of responsible trade and investment liberalisation, by show casing the huge benefits that flow when corporate social responsibility is a core value along with sustainable technology and manufacturing processes.

The anti-globalisation criics have valid points to make when foreign investors make sweetheart deals with brutal dictatorships. The Chineese Government did a weapons for oil deal with the Sudanese government that fueled decades of brutal civil war in the south and to this day panders to a genocidal agenda of a murderous dictator in Western Sudan.

In globalisation the stakes are very high. The good deals can do great good through the multiplier effect. Ethical and well conceived investment that focuses on the triple bottom line should be the only kind of investment that gets the green light.

All stakeholders also need to be made aware of the risks associated with accepting deals where naked greed and self interest are the only selection criteria. AWB's food for oil contracts a case in point. Those bad deals need to be exposed and condemed at every opportunity to bring about change and minimise the enormous harm those deal makers do to humanity

Okay, okay, okay Mr Estlake, you love international trade. We heard that. But in the middle of your piece you do raise the matter of, in your words: "... the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions made by the transportation of goods, services and people ..."
But then you continue right on to sing the praises of increased global transportation of goods etc, without showing how the environmental problem can be overcome. You acknowledge that you are simply hoping that this "valid" concern will not be used to limit transportation of goods. Mr Estlake, you have to bring more than wishful thinking to your argument.
Just think about the extraordinary activity (so profitable for economies) of European water being bottled in plastic bottles and shipped to, say, Fiji, and Fijian water being sent to Australia, and some Australian water being sent to USA, and so on according to how successful marketers are at stretching the truth and inducing markets to want these products.

Ho Hum
You a right that a billion people live in appalling conditions. You are 100% wrong to blame globalisation as the cause.

A few hundred years ago, pretty much the whole world lived like that. Then, through processes that included globalisation, some parts of the world started to rise above the subsistence or near-subsistence living that had been humanity’s lot until then. Gradually, the number of prosperous regions and countries increased, and even though the world’s population rose rapidly as death rates fell, the proportion of people living in absolute poverty increased and continues to rise today. The decline in poverty is not as fast as it could or should be, but globalisation is part of the solution, not the problem.

If globalisation is the cause of poverty, then how come:
Every country that with high living standards is relatively open to trade and investment (I’ll admit there are no pure free traders)
All those countries currently sustaining rapid reductions in their poverty levels (e.g. China, India) are doing so while becoming more open to trade and investment flows
There has never been a country that that has sustainably raised its living standard by becoming more protectionist
More than 100 developing countries have joined the WTO since its inception in 1995. Are they all dupes, or might they be right in thinking they’ve more to gain by being part of a liberal trading regime than outside it

Markob, I understand your cynicism, but the thing that most irritates economists about the free trade debate – as Saul clearly shows – is that trade is not a zero sum game, so we can be both self-interested and altruistic when we advocate it. Machiavelli would love it - free markets are good for the poor, and they’re good for the rich too