People who starve in the midst of plenty

used in recent days on the streets of Jakarta were British-made. The aircraft he used to strafe the native people of Timor were British-made. In a very real sense Suharto was American and British-made. He's a man they could do business with, and did. Foreign corporations took over and dominated the economy. Before doing so they would ask, what about the trade unions? Don't worry, Suharto will take care of them. What about laws and regulations that might hinder us making a billion bucks or so? Suharto will sort them out as well. It was all a kind of Locate in Indonesia project.

Now the Indonesian economy has gone down the plug hole. There is a political as well as an economic crisis. Suharto is an embarrassment, not because he's a bloodthirsty swine, he always has been. He's an embarrassment because he can no longer contain his people. A dictator who can't dictate is a dead loss. He has to go to make way for someone who can. Though the Indonesian people might have something to say about that. The clincher came when the poor took to the streets. Parading students throwing stones is one thing, but the poor from the lower depths had a different agenda. They marched on the shopping malls and plundered them. They smashed any symbol of a regime that put plenty on display and then told them: hands off. These goodies are not for you. As they and their families starved in the ghettos, the city teemed with food and riches. Theirs was not

the hunger of drought and natural disaster. It was man-made. They starved in the midst of plenty.

Indonesia today embodies the failure of the global economy in the Third World. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America there is social and ecological disintegration. Economic output has soared since the 1950s. Far outstripping population growth. Yet millions more are starving. Still the cry goes out, economic growth is the way forward. I heard this when I was a teenager. Don`t fight for a redistribution of the cake. Let's work together to make a bigger cake and all our shares will be bigger. It was to be easy. A piece of cake. We've got a bigger cake. A much bigger cake. The poor are just as poor, and there are more of them. There are more billionaires, too.

We've had almost 50 years of economic growth in Western Europe and North America, and we have more poverty, higher unemployment, greater inequality, crime has escalated, and our living environment has been degraded. Many people are stressed out. Depression is widespread. Fear of the future is greater today than I've ever known it. Drugs are widely taken. Our prisons are full. More prisons are being built. A holiday camp for an earlier generation of British workers is being turned into a prison for the current generation. Kids are subject to curfew. Some vigilante groups are on the prowl. We can't swim in our offshore polluted waters. It might not even be safe to sit on the beaches. Our beef is suspect. Blood from British donors is not sent abroad because it may be contaminated. Methinks the concept of continuous economic growth as the solution to all the manifest problems of society has been

overstated.

But, the argument goes, we have no say in the matter. The global market is unstoppable so we will just have to lie down and take what's coming to us. What an inspiring message. A real confidence booster. Surrender as the best line of defence. To some extent there's been a global market for at least 100 years. In recent years technology, as in all things, has speeded up the process. I have no quarrel with the global market, but what they're really saying is that the global market will be controlled by global corporations. These corporations will be controlled by a small unaccountable elite whose sole aim will be short-term financial gain. Communities will die by their say so. They will exploit natural resources for short-term gains. Democracy will die through disuse as real power on this planet will be in the hands of this unelected elite.

The plight of human beings will not feature in the criteria of their

decision-making. They will colonise the world's resources. They have more or less done this already. They are robber barons on the grand scale. That such power over the lives of billions should be ceded to this tiny handful is nightmarish and an affront to humanity.

People should be at the centre of all mega-economic decisions or people will be diminished and miniaturised. That's the choice we face. Nations working together must regulate the global markets or the global corporations will take over the world. It's that stark. In this context the European Union is a godsend.

Europe acting as one is financially and politically strong. It's collective population exceeds that of the US. Europe can define the terms under which global corporations will be allowed to operate within Europe's boundaries. They must not be allowed to play off one European nation against another. Their adherence to a firm ecological policy should be a precondition of their involvement with Europe along with their committed respect for the labour and commercial laws of the Union. In other words, we have to regulate the global market as it affects us.

Here we have a problem. Tony Blair has embraced the global market without constraint or qualification. He is going round Europe urging nations to follow Britain's, ie Thatcher's, example, and deregulate markets in preparation for the global market. This would be good for Rupert Murdoch but a disaster for all the nations within the United Kingdom. It will be a surrender to the global market, and all that entails. People will have no say. Our democratic rights will erode. Inequalities will grow, alongside a deepening poverty. Frustrations will turn to anger. The dispossessed will forsake their ghettos and march. In a society wracked with consumerism they will be demanding a piece of the action. Their political impotence will further enrage them.

Where will it all end? Who knows? People already feel that political parties have let them down. That governments have let them down. That God has let them down. Nobody will let them up. Fewer will go to the polling stations. Fewer to churches. Where are those pills? That fix? That bottle of cheap wine? And in the absence of leadership there is a blind rage. In East Germany alienated youth are turning to the Nazis. In America to screwball religions. It's the anguish of people who despair of the future. Money-centred social structures have no place for those at the bottom of the heap. They have no time for anyone except those at the top. You know where I stand. Markets not tempered by humanity are abominations. The global market untouched by human compassion will simply be a bigger abomination. Let me quote you something from a book called When Corporations Rule the World by an American called

David G Korten. ''Even in the world's most affluent countries, high levels of unemployment, corporate downsizing, falling real wages, greater dependence on part-time and temporary jobs without benefits, and the weakening of unions are creating a growing sense of economic insecurity. The employed find themselves working longer hours and having less real income. Many among the young - especially of minority races - have little hope of ever finding jobs adequate to provide them with basic necessities, let alone financial security. The advanced degrees and technical skills of many of those who have seen their jobs disappear and their income and job security plummet mock the idea that unemployment can be eliminated simply by improving education and job training.''

This is a precise pen picture of Blair's Britain. The prelude to the global corporations' takeover of the world. I'll support any political party that will challenge this strategy, for it is indeed the road to hell.