Inequality Threatens the World Economy - speech by Yashwant Sinha, India's Minister of Finance - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 2000

Protests against economic globalization are becoming increasingly prominent around the world and should be a cause of concern for people who believe in and profit from the "globalized economy," Yashwant Sinha, India's minister of finance, warned in a speech at Stanford (Calif.) University. "Global social stability is at least as important as global financial stability," he argued.

Sinha complained that developed countries are erecting barriers to open trade regimes that penalize poorer Third World nations and threaten to undermine the globalized economy. "The world trading system is more open than ever before and traditional barriers are falling, but these new nontariff barriers are coming up with an adverse impact on the poorer developing countries. [They] put our craftsmen and artisans at a disadvantage for competing in markets."

There is need for "a basic change in the mindset of decisionmakers and those who influence these decisions. Despite our global commitments and conventions, life seems to be becoming difficult for the common man and protests against globalization are becoming more pronounced," he said, referring to protests by a variety of groups that took place in 1999 outside the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, as well as to protests in 2000 outside meetings of World Bank leaders in Washington, D.C., and the Asian Development Bank in Thailand.

"The social challenge of growth and development goes beyond economic deprivation. It includes attacking other aspects of human deprivation such as illiteracy, malnutrition, drinking water, sanitation, and a safe environment.... The challenge of handling the former set of issues is dimensionally different from the latter."