tariffs imposed by the developed countries on developing countries
are higher than those they impose on other developed countries. This
said, the issue of subsidies is certainly the one that has given rise to
the sharpest debates in North–South trade relations recently. In the
agricultural sector alone, the subsidies granted by the governments
of OECD countries amount to around $330 billion annually.^60 Some
have cynically remarked that a European cow received a daily subsidy
of $2 – more, that is, than the average income of an African citizen.
This abundance of public funds seems all the more unjustifiable in
light of its very doubtful social usefulness: 70 percent of agricultural
subsidies in the developed countries are granted to farmers whose
incomes are above the national average.
Transnational corporations, overwhelmingly based in the developed
countries, are responsible to a large degree for the concentration of
wealth and the exacerbation of international trade imbalances. The
economic power of these firms is due, first, to the fact that they account
for two-thirds of international trade.^61 Many industries, especially
those involved in the production of commodities, are under the
sway of a very small number of corporations. Three companies control
65 percent of the banana market; in the aluminum and copper
industries ten corporations control, respectively, 60 percent and 58.5
percent of world production.^62 What is more, transnational corpo-
rations possess resources that dwarf those of many states: fifty-one
transnationals are among the hundred top economic units in the world.
In 2001, Wal-Mart’s annual sales exceeded the GDP of Indonesia, and
those of Royal Dutch Shell were greater than the GDP of Venezuela.^63
Against this backdrop it is easy to understand why power relations
between transnational corporations and Third World governments
often favour the former to the detriment of the latter.
The operation of the international financial system is another factor
facilitating the globalization of inequalities. Whereas it would be
logical for capital to be flowing from the rich countries toward the
(^60) World Bank, “Global Poverty Down by Half Since 1981.”
(^61) World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization,A Fair
62 Globalization, p. 32, paragraph 150.
United Nations,Commodity Atlas, New York and Geneva, UNCTAD and
Common Fund for Commodities, 2004, p. 3, 5, and 13.
(^63) CorpWatch, “Corporate Globalization Fact Sheet,” San Francisco,
CorpWatch, 2001 (www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=914).
Two tales of globalization 73