Sir James Michael Goldsmith, Anglo-French financier and corporate raider of the 1980s, is most infamous for taking over Goodyear Tires and restructuring it, thereby putting its many employees out of work.

In this deeply prophetic interview with Charlie Rose in 1994 he discusses his book about globalization, The Trap, and displays a more humane side of his complex intelligence.

In the earlier part of the interview (not shown here), Goldsmith gets into a heated debate with Clinton economic honcho Laura Tyson over the benefits of NAFTA and GATT in which Tyson comes off as both naive and uninformed.

In another part, Goldsmith calls Indian physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva “remarkable” and asks why it is that global “free” trade, supposedly so beneficial to developing countries, was protested widely and vigorously by huge numbers of people in India.

Take away points from the interview:

*This (globalization) is the establishment against the rest of society

*I am for big business until it devours society

*Big business loves total access to unlimited give-away labor

*In every developing nation you have a handful of people who control everything, the oligarchs

*This (globalization) is the poor in rich countries subsidizing the rich in the poor countries
(Lila: I’d add that the poor in poor countries are also subsidizing the rich in rich countries)

*Free trade within homogeneous regions is to be preferred to global trade
(Lila: This coincides with something I’ve advocated for a while, on the principle of subsidiarity)

*The European parliament is a force for pseudo-democratic institutions

*It’s already fixed by the two main parties, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists

*The people have a right to vote on the single most important economic decision of their life times

*Here in the USA we’ve had no debate on it (GATT) while we’ve had a huge debate about NAFTA which was a pimple

*GATT is going through because business wants it
*It’s a fix here (the US), as it is in Europe

*We’ve allowed instruments that are supposed to serve us to become our masters

*GATT is an example of how an economic doctrine is going to destabilize our society

*Nuclear is another example. Here in Europe, we’ve not been allowed to discuss this disastrous form of energy, disastrous in terms both of economics and in terms of security

*Corporate agriculture is a third example of how we are destroying our societies

*The ruling machinery of government power in Europe is imposing this (GATT) without a debate