i used to be a firm believer that globalism is a good thing. i wrote several undergrad papers praising the power telecommunications, the global market, the wealth creation in the developing world. our own industrial developed nations would benefit. standards of living, whether in toronto or dhaka would rise. it is a win-win situation for all!

at the heart of it was the belief the market works. the hand of market forces decide what is efficient, what is not and the consumer/citizen is left with the ultimate choice. this naive thinking was based on the notion private business simply works whereas public corporations lack to profit motive and so have little incentive to become efficient and lean in their delivery.

somehow market forces deliver the goods and businesses never go under.

the writings of daniel yergin were nothing short of the truth. their critical assessment of post WWII keynesian economics seemed to make sense. neoliberalism was the answer and the elite of the 1970s bought onto milton friedman's monetary approach. in the early 21st century, university course still offered this as the worldview. today's professors, a product of the 70s and 80s were probably, introduced to these theories as groundbreaking and offering a progressive worldview that market economics pass theses ideas onto today's students.

economists rushed to draw up models to support this new truth. the beauty of economics is that it is a rhetorical art not subject to any law of nature. somewhere in the chaotic times of the early 70s people signed onto the notion economics can provide all the answers. our faith in rationality seemed to go hand-in-hand with its philosophy. economics is reason; free of any political chains.

the next decade saw the rise of thatcher in the uk, reagan in the US and mulroney in canada. all sold on the notion the market works and the government does not. reagan's famous quote "government is not the solution but government is the problem" became the mantra of this new economic philosophy.

the trend continue into the 1990s. canada's liberal government became praised around the world for its consecutive strings of balanced budgets and eventual surpluses. this was seen as a good thing. a government should be a profitable business. bill clinton and tony blair in britain pondered as to how canada could be run so efficiently. never mind that paul martin slashed social programs and chretien backed down on his promise to eliminate the gst, which partially got him elected in the first place.

and what sort of legacy after we left with since 1979 with the neoliberal agenda first came into office in the UK?

nearly half the world lives on less than $2 dollars a day. the combined gdp of the bottom 48 nations is nearly that of the top three. more than half of the richest bodies are corporations. the US has the widest gap between the rich and poor than any other nation. a small group of the rich own more than 2.5 billion of the world's population. world military spending is $700 billion compared to $6billion for universal basic education. the total spent on cosmetic in europe and united is $13 billion; just about the amount needed to provide basic health & nutrition in developing countries.

on a microlevel in canada: our society is increasingly polarized. the top 10% earners are seeing an income increase whereas the bottom 10% saw only a one percent increase. our goal to eliminate child poverty by 2000 has failed miserably as the situation has gotten worse. in 1989 when the policy was introduced 40 000 children were living in low-income homes, by the 21st century that number was up to 1.2 million.

studies upon studies seem to indicate the positive offshoots from neoliberal global thinking that would come about is not happening. we are actually going the other way.

in daily images of canadian life i was puzzled as to how we are such an efficient country and yet our hospitals face bed shortages, public transportation is crumbling, schools cannot afford to fund anything after 3pm, crisis hotlines have an answering machine after 5pm. and this list goes on. we have no problem allowing cities, school boards, etc carry the debts while provincial and federal pat themselves on the back for its balanced budget. fundamentally, there is something puzzling and odd that is passed off as efficiency and our system works.

other places of the world are onto this. south america, which never really bought into the globalism = paradise mantra, are putting up barriers and instead creating their own smaller version of integration. the west seems puzzled by this and proclaim the continent will collapse and lend itself to extreme political movements. supposedly hugo chavez is a sign of things to come. since winning the venezuelan presidency in 1998, chavez has introduced strings of policies including free health care clinics, adult literacy programs, food & subsidies, and devoting nearly half of the budget to social spending.

for the globalist, these sort of policies are a throwback to early 70s and are doomed to fail. western financial institution warn investors that venezuela is not a favourable environment to put your money into. they isolating themselves and by doing so, only hurting themselves. even our "religious leaders" are calling for his death. but some of us, looking more critically at our own lives, are curious to why hugo chavez is the enemy. for believers of our system, our market outlook has become a dogma and anything else is deplorable, worthy of a death sentence.

that is why, our faith in market economics has to be reanalyzed. ottawa bureaucrats, students of the 70s & 80s thinking, have failed us miserably. ideas die hard when you benefit from them or are to insulated from its actual effects. but on the local level, there is a recognition we can no longer proclaim the virtues of globalism when our daily lives are presented with a contradicting realities. the tensions between theory and practices play themselves out when we think of canada as a rich & developed nation but various reports criticize its weakening social policies. in our lives we feel this tension struggling to get by on wage that seems to be decreasing than increasing. there was time we boasted about UN's declaration canada was the best country to live in. now we question whether these rankings really provide any information as year after year we drop further down.

shifts--albeit minor--are occurring. as they say all politics are local. our provincial government is slowly realizing its predecessors put too much weight onto the cities' shoulders in its own rush to make queen's park profitable. provincial money has gone back into infrastructure, education, health care. perhaps all of this is a good gesture of the looming fall '07 election but liberals won the election on a promise to undue to the damage of the harris revolution. now, their fate lies on whether they can convince the province we elected the right government four years ago.

as the 70s stakeholders--be it the political elite, media, or academy--were sold onto friedman's faith in market economics, we need the same paradigm shift today. the effects of the last 20 years cannot be reversed. worldwide trade, telecommunication and the costs associated with international trade cannot be written off. these structures have become entrenched, whether for better or worse. and many of today's issues are global; climate change & diseases require collective attention of the world's nations. however, theses issues are non-economic and the market ironically offers nothing in the way of solutions.

the school is a good place to start. those of us priviledged to gain a university education and an entry the institutional structure that shapes our nation have the obvious benefit. yes, many professors are children of the friedman era convinced his ideas were truth but today's students are being introduced a new line of thinking that comes out of experience. what were taught and what be actually witness doesn't seem to mesh that well. much of my thinking has shifted after reading john ralston saul's "collapse of globalism" in which he questions globalism going back to the mid 1990s. having heard one of his lectures more recently, his thinking seemed remarkably crystal clear and making some sense of these contradictions around me i couldn't put my finger on it. he himself does not claim to be a saviour of the mess we got ourselves into. he understands ideas are situated in a time and place that seems right at the time. he doesn't offer a solution but at least a critical assessment that what we've accepted as the truth may not actually be it.

and at least that's a start.

each year the good bureaucrats in ottawa are helping to make our lives easier and less stressful. doing taxes can be a daunting each of us leave until the final days of april. worry no more. revenue canada is on your side: