Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

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• open up space for communities and governments to exercise
democratic control over critical financial issues that affect people’s
lives; this includes the audit of financial debts as a means to identify
illegitimate and odious debts;
• reverse the flow of financial and ecological wealth from the South to
the North by cancelling illegitimate debts and devoting 0.7% of
industrialized countries’ Gross National Income to official development
assistance - not as an act of charity but as restitution for past
exploitation; and
• diminish the volume of speculative financial transactions and also
raise significant revenues for genuine development assistance through
a Currency Transactions Tax on the $1.9 trillion worth of currencies
traded each business day.
At the height of the Asian crisis in 1997, Malaysia defied IMF advice and
introduced a strict regime of capital controls that enabled the Malaysian
government to adopt stimulative policies (including tax cuts), spend on
infrastructure and lower interest rates without worrying about a run on
its currency. In the end, even the IMF conceded that this policy was
successful. At the national level, governments need to regain control over
fiscal, monetary and taxation policies in order to deter excessive
speculation, stop capital flight to offshore tax havens, and ensure that
foreign investment is fairly taxed to provide for basic human and social
needs. Governments should have the full autonomy to use the currency
of their own choice. National governments need to move away from the
neo-liberal ideology of lowering taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
Tax reduction aims to provide the ideal climate for investment and free
trade that limits the country’s ability to generate revenue to fund social
development. Fair and just taxes include those taxes that promote
ecological justice and reduce disparities in wealth, such as taxes on carbon
emissions.
4.5 Support for alternative financing at local levels
The informal sector –the myriad activities taking place at the margin of
the modern market economy– provides income for a majority of people in
the South. It is in families and small enterprises that most people make
their livelihoods. People working in one-to-five-person enterprises hold
about half of the paid jobs in the world, and in some places, the percentage
is even higher. Yet, the informal sector should not be romanticized, and
micro enterprises are not a panacea for human development. They have a
mixed record of success and failure, and working conditions are often
appalling. A major constraint is their lack of access to productive assets,
notably land and capital.