Multinational Corporations and Their Impact on World Poverty:
Maintaining Wealth and/or Eradicating Poverty by Any Means Necessary
1. Are corporations responsible for creating and maintaining varying conditions of world poverty? Does capitalistic imperialism attribute to the state of modern world poverty? Explain. (Imperialism-Do the benefits of economic development and poverty reduction, no matter how minute or temporary, including all of its exploits mitigate the human and environ-mental suffering that often ensues? Who decides? What may be the various points of view?)
2. Did the internationalization of trade affect the economy and lead to poverty and extreme poverty both in the past and in modern day developing and undeveloped nations?
3. Are we our brother’s keeper? Are corporations that employ large numbers of world citizens responsible for providing adequate pay and benefits to those citizens?
4. What institutions exist to insure that citizen workers are treated fairly?
5. In a democratic free market economy, is it possible and just to regulate the fiscal responsibilities of corporations? Why or why not? What are current practices in our nation and other nations of the world?
6. What is America’s economic system? What is its origin (feudalism, mercantile system)? What are its advantages and disadvantages? What groups had input in its development?
7. Does the nature and structure of capitalism dictate exploitation, domination and subordination of the poor and undeveloped societies? (Are values and desires for earning profits are prioritized above fairness and benefits for masses of people?)
8. In what ways was our economic system created by those who continued to wield power in the past, and how is it maintained by those who act in their own best interest in modern times?
9. What aspects of capitalism might possibly lead the wealthy to believe that it is necessary to exploit, dominate and subordinate the poor?
10. Is it just for some segments of society to profit at the expense of others? Should democratic free world citizens tackle social injustices of the world?
11. Should governments and tax payers take on the responsibility of supporting the costs of welfare benefits for the employees of large corporations?
12. What value is there in challenging the political elite as well as political status quo?
13. Which firms monopolized business and trade in the 18th century? What are some of the major corporations today?
14. What would qualify as a just world economy? Do changes in the modern world, i.e. increasing population, decreasing middle class, growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, and limited world resources, dictate innovations and modifications to our economic practices and system? (Should raw materials be taken from poorest least developed nations without giving citizens of those nations opportunities to benefit from their harvest?)
15. In what ways can IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Trade Organization, and World Bank address the issue of multinational corporations and the impact they have on world poverty?
16. The 191 member nations of the United Nations have agreed to meet a set of goals called the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. Critically analyze each goal and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of attempting to achieve each goal.
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
· Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
· Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
· Increase the amount of food for those who suffer from hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
· Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
· Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
· Eliminate genders disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
- Decrease child mortality
· Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.
- Improve maternal health
· Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
· Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
· Halt and begin to reverse the incidences of malaria and other diseases.
- Ensure environmental sustainability
· Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
· Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
· Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
- Develop a global partnership for development
· Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally.
· Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
· Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
· Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.
· In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.
· In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
· In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies—especially information and communications technologies.
17. Should the corporations of OECD (Organization for Economic Co-orperation and Development) nations play any role in achieving the Millenium Development Goals? Why or why not?
18. Are there other models or innovations to traditional capitalism?
19. What can citizens do to assist in bringing an end to the destructive nature of corporate domination of our economy?