Page 145 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

packaging in China. Actually the firm in China is really a subsidiary of a
German company that relocated to Mississippi, attracted by low taxes,
the lax labor code and the non-existent environmental regulations. It says
it imports its raw material from Malaya but there is good reason to
believe that it is really smuggled in from Indonesia by a company which
has violently fended off investigations from Greenpeace for years. The
British firm, which is participating wittingly or unwittingly in this complex
web, wants to use French engineering services and a suave Italian mar-
keting firm. It even seeks to use immigrant labor from Jamaica, promis-
ing, hypocritically of course, to observe the labor code and to pay high
wages. It needs to practise the dreaded ‘long-distance’ trade. But this is a
no-no. The local authorities simply refuse to permit it on both economic
and cultural grounds. It must stay as it is, and plod on with ‘local’ raw
materials, services, equipment and labor. It must confine its horizons to
the local community. But local demand is not large enough to support
such a firm. Under the circumstances it must wither and eventually die.
This will have not only serious economic consequences. It will also create
a political crisis.
Supporters of the IFG position could well retort that this is an overly
gloomy picture of the economic prospects of firms in a local economy.
After all, there will still be a regional and a national economy to appeal
to for assistance. It is even envisaged that there would still be a
European Union, euro and all, and perhaps even a European Central
Bank, perhaps no longer housed in an elegant futuristic skyscraper.
There would still be a London and a Paris and a Frankfurt; and, of
course, a Brussels (the French would insist on the preservation of the EU
bureaucracy). We could do without Geneva (away with the WTO) but
not Zurich (everyone would insist on the preservation of the Swiss
banks). There would also still be a New York, because, although we
won’t need the abominations of Wall Street, Times Square and Madison
Avenue, we want to keep the UN! But would these ‘spaces’ be so easily
converted into ‘places’ as the localizers imagine? Let us follow the logic
of the argument.
What causes these huge modern cities to exist? What is the source of
their size and complexity? It is hardly news that this is due to their role
in a centuries-old global division of labor, including the regulation of
global production, finance, trade and communication and global gover-
nance, such as it is. 19 London in particular is a city that developed very
early as a city of merchants and financiers and of the governance of the
domestic and overseas empire. Think of a man like Martin Noell who
founded the Bank of England and who, along with others, egged Cromwell

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