The truth is that the first globalisation between 1870 and 1913 under the British hegemony, mostly the movement of goods and money, rather than by market forces and voluntary participation, was forced on weaker nations through British military might and colonialism. So, colonial rule and unequal treaties deprived the then weaker nations the power to pursue protectionist policies driven either by bans or tariffs.
But for stronger nations such as the United States, Germany, Japan, and Russia that were able to resist British imposition of its free trade were able to industrialise with such a speed that not only were they able to catch up with Britain within a short period of time but even the US and Germany eventually overtook it themselves and then joined in its free trade globalisation. But, discovering that free trade was no longer benefiting its interest, as its products were uncompetitive globally, Britain wasted no time in reintroducing tariffs. In response, the US Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, and Germany too returned to its 1841 high tariffs walls. That was how the British-led first globalisation came to an end.
Unlike the first globalisation, which emphasised free trade, today’s second globalisation led by the US involves other western governments using their national corporate monopolies to invade weaker and less industrial economies. To promote these western industrial nations by scolding any surprises from industrial weaker nations, the World Trade Organisation was given birth to in 1994 with the goal of allying itself with other western imperialist organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the CIA, the WHO, Rockefeller Foundation, Open Society, the United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, NATO, Bank for International Settlements, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Project for the New American Century, Trilateral Commission, the CNN, Wall Street, the Red Cross, Bilderberg Group, World Economic Forum, the G8, as well as many western intelligence agencies.
Given this full projection of western power prying open developing markets, it’s quite understandable why the yet-to-industrialise countries like Nigeria are being so suffocated from all angles that they are denied any breathing space. This argument that there is no alternative to this one-size-fits-all neoliberal globalisation is succeeding in countries like Nigeria where they have no difficulty stationing so-called Nigerians educated at western universities and elevated so high before dispatching them to push neoliberal economic agenda of the West. To promote the false argument that there is no alternative to this one-size-fits-all globalisation, a maze of western sponsored corporate mass media is fully mobilised.
But for the few western scholars who’re alarmed by this level of economic imperialism, they can’t stop opposing neoliberal globalisation, which MIT’s social critic, Noam Chomsky, describes as nothing less than ‘’an economic fascism, not different from an occupying army.’’ In his book, “The Secret of Government of the New World Order”, Jeffrey Grupp, believes that ‘’these fascist globalists use German advances in the study of the human mind, behaviour and propaganda to subdue developing countries’’. Given its economic genocidal effects on citizens of developing countries are, the no-nonsense anti-western imperialism, William F. Engdahl, author of bestselling book, “Gods of Money,” qualifies neoliberal globalisation ‘’as worse than the denotation of America’s atomic bomb on Japan.’’
In his 1997 book, “The Beast Reawakens,” Martin Lee wrote, ‘’Fascism is on the march again…and fascist groups in Europe and the US feed upon this malaise.’’ For the bestselling author of “The Rise of the Fourth Reich” and “Ruled by Secrecy”, Jim Marrs, ‘’what we’re witnessing today is a new global feudalism.’’ Even Martin Feldstein, the ultra-conservative Harvard economist, who was a key adviser to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, confessing recently, called western neoliberal policies ‘’maximum economic exploitation.’’ Concurring, Erwin Lutzer wondered the moral basis for west to be stampeding weaker economies in the name of ‘’competing on a level playing field.’’
In the meantime, ultra-neoliberal economists like Jeffery Sachs and Andrew Warner not only accused anti-neoliberal globalisation as people handing ‘’the proverbial rope on which to hang (a developing country’s) economy’’ but also labeled as ‘’noisy neurotic enemies of progress,’’ who should be kept far away from corridors of power in developing countries. Agreeing in his book ‘Empire,’ Nail Ferguson could only see today neoliberal globalization the same way he always sees Britain’s forcing of first globalization on weaker countries through colonialism and unequal treaties to have ‘’benefited everyone,’’ even though Britain and other Europeans countries maintained high tariffs among themselves.
Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University called neoliberal globalisation a ‘’historic transition.’’ In his book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” the New York Times journalist, Thomas Friedman, described globalisation as ‘Golden Straitjacket,’ insisting that in order for developing countries not miss this globalisation train, they should ‘’liberalise trade, deregulate foreign investment and capital markets, and privatise state-owned enterprises, as well as make local currency convertible as well as maintain low inflation and balance budgets.’’
The truth is that the same protectionist policies they are denying us to industrialise Britain adopted in 1489, the US in 1791, Germany in 1841, Japan in 1868, South Korea in 1962, China in 1978, and India in 1989. In other words, the same protective tariffs and import bans, subsidies, key raw material export bans, export rebates, regulation of foreign investment in capital markets, currency devaluation, interest rate lowering, and deficit spending, were used to get them where they are today.
While the absence of protective measures allows foreign multinational monopolies to raid and plunder our economy, local neoliberal technocrats acting as co-conspirators with their foreign counterparts, continue to bombard us with their own version of economic growth driven by one of the world’s lowest investment rates, its high interest rates alongside an overvalued naira, which as they price out the country’s real sector firms, unemployment and poverty reign. That is why as easy as cooking up economic growth figures is, cooking up employment figures remains difficult since such figures are easily verifiable. In the meantime, political and corporate elites continue swapping roles, creating a merger of the state and industry.
No matter how alarmed we’re, it is human nature that those who are at the top would always do everything to scuttle potential competitors’ rise. Or, shouldn’t it be damn absurd of the West to allow us adopt the same winning strategies that catapulted them to their present economic stardom. Not kicking away the same ladder they used in climbing up should have amounted to shooting themselves in the foot.
We are to blame for being the victim of our premature exposure to the WTO which as a sovereign nation, no one forced us to join. It is our fault for failing to adopt the same protectionist policy measures to kick-start our own economic industrialisation. That we allowed themselves to accept the rewriting of history of industrialisation that now underplays protectionist policies that shielded their infant industries from undue foreign adult industrial competition, makes no one else to blame accept ourselves. That as a result of controlling our media and scholars these fascist globalists succeeded in bombarding us with ‘’rose-colored spin, hype, and disinformation’’ and brainwashing the Nigerian people remains our blame.
We’re to blame for allowing top World Bank and Rockefeller Foundation officials now run our economy simply because they’re born here notwithstanding that in most of nations for fear of infiltration by foreign interest pushers, citizens with over five years sojourn denies such citizen close access to national corridors of power. This South Korean born economist, Ha-Joon Chang, calls ‘’local solutions that increasingly resemble the solutions provided by the Bretton Woods Institutions.’’ Our political and business leaders are to blame for being afraid of a foreign power ‘’so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, and so unforgiving that they better not above their breath when speaking in condemnation of it for fear of exposing the skeletons in their cupboards.
With the WTO exited we can make meaningfully macroeconomic policy maneuvering, including imposing high tariffs and bans, devaluation of the naira so as to increase liquidity and reduce interest rates as well as make imported goods more expensive and locally made goods cheaper. By denying them dumping of the goods, not to lose the country’s 170 million consumer market will trigger mass foreign factory relocation to Nigeria to in an effort.
Exiting WTO will also mean regulating foreign multinational operation in Nigeria including mandated them to join the Nigerian Stock Exchange and having their shares publicly traded. Also to be regulated is foreign investment in ways to benefit Nigeria both in long-term and short-term. By law, no foreign construction firm or indigenous company with more than five per cent foreign ownership and foreign workforce should be awarded contract paid with public tax money. No foreign company operating in Nigeria should have less than 80 per cent of inputs and less than 90 per cent of workforce, locally sourced. Also, no foreigner engaging in commerce in Nigeria should have less than 51 per cent owned by Nigerians and less than 80 per cent of the goods sourced locally and trading their shares on NSE. Finally, to exit the WTO is to free Nigeria from western economic imperialism.