3071-The political economy of new slavery

Emma Dowling 213
support. Yet the fact that most governments, except for France and
Canada, 9 discuss the topic 10 and then do not implement the tax, shows
that they are under much more pressure to satisfy business interests
than those of their respective electorates. One might even argue that they
benefit through collaboration with them. One of many examples is that
of offshore banking. According to the Association for Accountancy and
Business Affairs (AABA), the UK government could raise up to an extra
£85 billion a year by tackling this leakage of revenues into tax havens
(ATTAC London, 2002; Attac).
If a Tobin tax were implemented, governments might have more of
an incentive to clamp down on offshore transactions; however the
existence of offshore areas is used as a reason not to implement the
tax. Furthermore, if governments were really concerned about offshore
transactions, they could introduce a fee for transactions from such areas,
which would make it more expensive for traders to retrieve their money
(Wahl and Waldow, 2001, p. 7). Such behaviour does imply that business
has a great hold over governments. As Hans Eichel, the German
Minister of Finance explains, in reality, nobody in the industrialized
states wants the Tobin tax (Eichel, cited in Schaefer, 2001, p. 1).
In 1999, the European Parliament decided against the Tobin tax,
stating that a ‘reimposition of restrictions on capital movement would
signify a reversal of globalization’ (Patterson and Galliano, 1999, p. 6).
Within the official document there was no clarification of what the
parliament means by ‘globalization’ and I can only conclude that they
had a neo-liberal interpretation that emphasizes free trade and the
deregulation of financial markets. Such an interpretation assumes that
the market is best left alone and will ensure a fair distribution of goods
and services (Rodrik, 1999, p. 1). There are two important points in
this context. One is the fact that the term ‘globalization’ is used unquestioningly
which signifies an insensitivity to the idea that ‘globalization’
is a term that can be employed to signify different kinds of processes
and more importantly is not a process that is experienced in the same
way by all of those affected (Steans and Pettiford, 2001, p. 145). Second,
it is not questioned whether ‘globalization’ is actually a desired process.
As van den Anker argues in Chapter 1 of the present volume, globalization
is often posited as a process in which we cannot intervene
successfully, rather than a political and economic project. The example
used above shows that at this time, the European Parliament made a
decision that benefited those who support the neo-liberal discourse that
has such negative consequences, especially for the world’s poor. The free
flow of capital is presented as the solution to the woes of poor people