Hey y'all,
Barring my report a few weeks ago on a "Frankenfoods" forum in Halifax,
the last time I presented an update on biotechnology issues was in March,
I believe. Given the incredible pace at which developments are taking
place in this field it would not be feasible for me to attempt a
comprehensive survey of the elapsed period. Instead I shall concentrate on
the subtext of my previous screeds on agricultural biotechnology : its
potential for transforming international relations.
International relations falls into the second of two categories of
liability associated with genetic engineering : physical and "moral" - to
hijack a preferred term of the American New Right - hazards. The immediate
corporeal dangers associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
have thus far tended to dominate the debate, as is quite understandable.
Evidence of harmful effects has already emerged - the 'Lancet' published
research on May 09/98 linking recombinant bovine growth hormone to cancer
in humans; Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland
found that GM potatoes damaged the immune systems of laboratory rats - and
warned that analogous problems could be extrapolated to humans.
The full spectrum of risk associated with genetic engineering cannot be
properly ascertained (because - given the number of variables involved -
it approaches infinity) but the potential perils which have been shown to
exist are frightening indeed. For one : "Monsanto...has admitted that GM
crops can cross-breed with native plants, creating hybrids resistant to
some weedkillers" (1). Another, more
cataclysmic, risk is that ingestion of GMOs may transmit plague-like
viruses/bacteria across species barriers - a possibility borne out earlier
this year in a controlled experiment by Dutch researchers (2). Then, too - as British geneticist Mae-Wan
Ho has observed - genetic engineering is an uniquely perilous enterprise
because its products are self-replicating.
Clearly, the foregoing (and allied) considerations are reason enough to
resist the agbiotechnology agenda with main strength. However, another
aspect of this matter exists which, if less concrete, is no less
significant. This dimension - moral hazard, as I have denoted it above -
has several constituent elements including (at least) : questions about
intellectual property rights; the sanctity of life; and relations of
power. Each of these aspects deserves significant attention but in the
present review I wish to concentrate on the third.
The United States government and the agbiotech industry alike have divined
the enormous leverage to be had from the widespread adoption of GMOs. In
the case of corporations it is mostly a matter of securing markets :
farmers who plant modified crops become dependent on the original vendor
through mechanisms such as "traitor" technology (a modification which
prevents the germination of seeds not treated with chemicals manufactured
by the seed supplier.) Official US interest seems to be based on the
recognition that the substitution of GM crops for natural ones presents an
opportunity to control most of the world's food supply - and given that
comestibles are one of the most fundamental requirements for sustaining
life this affords extraordinary opportunities for global domination.
Still, for all that GMOs offer unprecedented vistas of expansion for
transnational corporations and American imperialism, they may yet prove an
Achilles heel to these same forces. In previous AntWire bulletins I have
commented on the lack of attention agbiotech has received from mainstream
Canadian newsmedia, and the consequently distorted impression within this
country of international opinion on the topic. No doubt this has changed
somewhat given the significant CBC Radio coverage of GMOs last week but I
suspect nonetheless that most Canadians are still unaware that the lack of
mobilization on this issue by our populace is quite anomalous
internationally.
GMOs have met popular resistance in any number of nations, prompting
administrations in Australia, Brazil, Egypt, India, New Zealand and many
African and European countries to enact measures against GMOs. Most
significant though (given the buying power of their consumers and the
political clout of their governments), Japan and the European Union are
taking an increasingly dim view of GMOs.
In the EU particularly anti-GMO actions have come from all sectors of
society and have involved both demotic and official undertakings. A
complete catalogue of steps taken is beyond the scope of this review but
to provide some conception of what has transpired :
This means a showdown is likely. Foreseeing the dangers of such a
confrontation Willy De Greef, a top executive of Swiss life sciences giant
Novartis, last month counselled Monsanto and its backers on Capitol Hill
to adopt a more conciliatory approach - e.g., allowing labelling of
genetically altered foodstuffs (3). However,
as I have previously argued (4), it is
probably safe to assume that the Americans will redouble, not mitigate,
their aggression.
For one thing, whatever the long-term strategic desirability of converting
Third World agriculture to production of GMOs, in the present these
countries are too impoverished to serve as adequate markets. In the wake
of its major campaign of corporate acquisitions last year Monsanto is
quite heavily leveraged. This leaves the company little choice but to
forge ahead with expansion in the developed countries if the cambists are
not to draw out their knives and savage it on the stock exchange; and - as
American biotech's bellwether and the darling of the White House - what
Monsanto wants, Monsanto generally gets. Another consideration is that it
would simply be uncharacteristic of the monstrous hubris that the US has
displayed since the end of the Cold War for Washington not to attempt to
impose its will.
Indications of intransigence have already materialized. For instance,
James Hershey, a senior officer of the America Soybean Association, told
an audience at the Canada Grains Council's 30th annual conference last
month that demands for labelling of GMOs are "significant regulatory
threats" (5). Interestingly he also called
for the US to put biotechnology on the agenda at the proposed "Millenium
Round" of talks at the World Trade Organization...and - wouldn't you know
it? - the US and Canada announced last week that they were doing just
that. Lest there be any doubt, the gist of Hershey's scheme, and of the
US/Canada Millenium plan, is to enact WTO disciplines which would sharply
circumscribe national government's ability to regulate GMOs.
On the other side the European Union also looks likely to stay the course.
Sentiment is already running high as a result of the recent dispute with
the US over bananas, where the EU was forced by the WTO to abandon its
preferential treatment of former colonies - and was hit with an indemnity
into the bargain. Undeterred by this reversal - indeed, undoubtedly
spurred on by it - the EU has chosen to ignore a WTO ruling which requires
the Union to accept US and Canadian beef which has been treated with
synthetic hormones. This case is obviously of great moment in a region
where "mad cow disease" is a matter of recent memory.
In the current dispute, limited as it is to one commodity, there is a
possibility that a deal can be brokered which would see the EU accede to
compensatory US and Canadian tariffs on goods of their choosing in return
for the privilege of blocking hormone-treated beef. However, such a
compact would run directly counter to the free trade motif which is the
sine qua non of the WTO. This would set a very awkward precedent and thus
could only be contemplated as a last resort.
If intead the US (and Canada) continue to press the Europeans on this
point, and on agbiotech generally, I would wager that the EU will grow
ever more obdurate on the subject. Greece has called for a complete
moratorium on GMOs throughout the Union and the chances of such a ban only
increase with each new attempt by Monsanto's team to force GMOs down
throats (as it were); and should the EU bring down such an interdiction
there can be no question that the US will challenge the moratorium before
the WTO.
Opinions are divided on what verdict the WTO would render in the event of
a dispute of this sort. The trade body's past record - notably the
aforementioned beef cattle suit - strongly suggests a finding in favor of
GMO producers, but Jean Halloran of the Consumers Union, a prominent US
non-governmental group, has argued that World Health Organization
guidelines could be used to successfully defend a ban (6).
As I see it, if the EU indeed brought in a moratorium, and if it was
challenged at the WTO, there could be no bad result for opponents of GMOs.
If the WTO were to uphold a ban this would break the monomaniacal "free
trade" orientation of the institution, opening the way for a saner and
more balanced approach to international relations. Should the WTO rule
against the ban even commentators from the biotech industry (such as Willy
de Greef of Novartis) agree that public opinion in the EU is so firmly
anti-GMO that these products would be embargoed nonetheless. The
diminished prestige of the WTO consequent upon such an outcome would
presumably enlarge the ambit of policymakers in, at any rate, the more
powerful countries. While a return to an expanded role for national
governments may in itself be no cause for rejoicing (given the abysmal
records of many of the same) here, too, one might hope that the spectacle
of politicians favoring (however cynically) health and environmental
concerns over corporate interests might inaugurate a shift away from the
neoliberal credo that "if you free up trade, wellbeing will follow."
The new world order is premised on a philosophy of growth without limits;
as John McMurtry of the University of Guelph has admonished, this is the
way of the cancer cell (7). In the body
politic, as in a living body, cancer is a mortal peril : accordingly, the
overthrow of this ideology is both a moral imperative and a naked question
of survival.
If it is accepted that this creed (whether it be known as neoliberalism,
globalisation, laissez-faire or what-have-you) must be undone, the obvious
question becomes "how?". Such is the ubiquity of this world-view that any
success in opposing its specific effects is inevitably counterpoised by
some new, virulent outbreak. Not only are the institutional resources at
the service of this ideology of Olympian magnitude but the creed itself
has become so pervasive that even its detractors are often at a loss to
imagine any other system.
Yet, without in the least wishing to dispute the scope of the challenge
which confronts us, I would suggest that opponents of neoliberalism have
too often compounded the task by pursuing unfruitful strategies. In
particular I believe that it is feckless to champion a competing economic
program as an alternative to the oligopoly capitalism which now rules the
world. I say this not only because the intellectual hegemony of
neoliberalism is too great to be overcome in the foreseeable future
(failures of the system are repeatedly ascribed to an insufficiently
rigourous application of the neoliberal model, thus precluding effective
criticism) but also because the idea of subordinating all social relations
to the economic sphere is barbaric and - at this stage of industrial
development - frankly suicidal. Wealth was once conceived of as a means of
securing personal welfare but in the affluent nations, and within the
elites in developing countries, it has long since become an end in itself.
If life itself is not to be extinguished in the next century this must
cease.
Wealth creation ought not to be seen as an end in itself - one to which
concern for all other aspects of culture and for the natural world can
only be permitted to the extent that such desiderata do not impinge on
commerce - but as a possible means to the ends of sustaining and enhancing
life. As such it is not reformation or even replacement of an economic
system which is needed but rather the broad rejection of the centrality of
economics in policymaking, and its replacement by an ethic of care.
Needless to say this is an enormous project which many would dismiss out
of hand as utterly impracticable. I can only say that without such a
sea-change I believe that the present is an outrage and the future is
without hope.
In my estimation the best chance to break the death-grip of greed is for
the forces of globalisation to meet a major reversal apodicticly
occasioned by concern for life-affirming values. If I am correct in my
assessment the imposition of a moratorium on GMOS in the EU could meet
these criteria. This would at once "degrade the offensive capabilities"
(as NATO generals are wont to put it) of the institutional apparatus of
the new world order and at the same time make manifest that economics need
not be the end - in more senses than one - of human societies.
---Antoni
(1) 'Monsanto admits superweed danger,' by Marie Woolf,
The Independent, April 25/99.
(2) 'Gut
reaction,' by Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, Jan.30/99.
(3) 'Novartis urges U.S. caution on GMO sales,' Reuters
[Washington], April 19/99.
(4) "'The Next "MAI
Campaign"?'.
(5) 'ASA director urges pressure for EU acceptance of
GMOs,' Resource News International [Winnipeg], April 14/99.
(6) 'US, Canada call for GMO trade on WTO agenda,' BRIDGES
Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 3, Number 18, 10 May, 1999.
(7) 'The Cancer Stage Of
Capitalism,' by John McMurtry, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Monitor, July/August 1996; Unequal Freedoms, John McMurtry,
Garamond Press 1998.