One is tempted to say, " A spectre is haunting global capitalism...."
Whatever critique anyone wants to make the "ant-globalism," the scope and
sustained nature of this protest movement is remarkable. The Washington
Post reports this morning that a nine foot high fence will be erected around
the perimeter of the Word Bank - IMF meeting.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Murray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:15 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Lbo-Talk@Lists. Panix. Com
Subject: [PEN-L:15964] A long way to go still.......
[Financial Times]
[Contact info at the bottom...]
A poor case for globalisation
The world's leaders are failing to address legitimate questions raised
by protesters about the effects of global capitalism
Published: August 16 2001 18:46GMT | Last Updated: August 16 2001
18:53GMT
The protesters are winning. They are winning on the streets. Before
too long they will be winning the argument. Globalisation is fast
becoming a cause without credible champions.
This week we saw the Washington consensus make way for Washington's
retreat. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are
scaling back the annual jamboree at their headquarters in the US
capital. It seems that the US has had its fill of angry protests a few
blocks from the White House.
It's a nice irony. The US can count itself author, architect and
principal beneficiary of globalisation. Guided by the US Treasury, the
IMF sets the rules of the multilateral game. Now both are bowing
before the critics of liberal capitalism.
Sure, no great harm will come of the IMF's decision to meet over two
days rather than a week. The opulence of the event has always jarred.
Happily, a tight timetable should deflate a few egos and shorten the
speeches. We shall not miss the save-the-world rhetoric of all those
finance ministers. Who cares if the champagne stays corked, the
canapes uneaten?
It is, though, more serious than that. The organised uproar and
violence that the anti-globalisation protests brought to Seattle back
in the autumn of 1999 have now become a permanent backdrop. The
numbers of protesters have swollen. Italy has still to recover from
the - albeit mostly self-inflicted - wounds of the Group of Eight
summit in Genoa. Belgium, the current president of the European Union,
fears similar chaos at December's Laaken summit of EU leaders. The
political kudos that once came with playing host to such gatherings
has been replaced by the fear that all they bring now is a bad press.
Yet the response to the protests has been largely one of spluttering
indignation. Instead of listening, even learning, the politicians have
lectured. The knee-jerk response has been to tar all the critics with
the brush of thuggery. The tone is hectoring. Liberal markets are good
for us, all of us. Anyone who says otherwise is a subversive or a
fool. Free trade is an unalloyed blessing, for poor countries as well
as rich. The multinational behemoths bring precious investment to
developing nations.
There are important truths in all these propositions. It is obvious,
too, that the counter case is often shot through with confusions and
contradictions. These are people, after all, who are waging a global
war against globalisation. The anarchists have no need of consistency.
But the broader coalition often seems just as inchoate.
Non-governmental organisations want the multinationals tamed.
Governments must reclaim the sovereignty lost to unaccountable and
unscrupulous business executives. The IMF, the World Trade
Organisation and the rest are agents of a new imperialism. And yet
then we hear the protesters call for new global rules to protect the
environment and prevent exploitation of labour. Self-interested trade
unions stand with self-proclaimed idealists in demanding that rich
nations protect jobs by imposing their own labour standards on poor
ones. Somewhere in all this there is a cry for a different set of
values. It is often hard to find.
But it is there. And it explains why the protesters are winning. Their
constituency stretches well beyond the mostly young activists we see
on the streets. Many who abhor their tactics share their unease.
Globalisation is unsettling, for the comfortable middle classes as
much as for the politically disaffected. The threats, real and
imagined, to national and local cultures are widely felt. So, too, are
the unnerving shifts in the boundaries between governments, business
and multilateral institutions. As consumers we are stronger; as
citizens, weaker.
International economic integration does generate wealth. It also
redistributes it. There are losers as well as winners. In good times,
unfettered capital markets funnel rich-nation finance to the poor
countries that need it. In bad times they carry the curse of
contagion. Shareholder value is a fine concept for those who own those
giant corporations. But what of those who merely toil for them? As
Stanley Fischer, the thoughtful, though soon-to-depart, deputy
managing director of the IMF, has said, free trade can indeed make
everyone better off. But that does not mean that everyone is made
better off.
What it does mean is that it is not enough for political leaders to
dust off the economic textbooks, recite a few mantras about
comparative advantage and the division of labour and expect the rest
of us to applaud. The case for liberal markets is not self-evident.
What is required from advanced nations is a mixture of humility and
leadership. (These two, incidentally, are not mutually exclusive.) A
starting-point would be an admission that they have often got it
wrong. The afore-mentioned Washington consensus imposed on developing
nations the liberal economic orthodoxy of the times. These
one-size-fits-all adjustment programmes ruined more fragile economies
than they repaired. But they bailed out the west's banks. Governments
caught up in the financial brush fires of the 1990s were told to slash
spending on health and education. Such policies were as economically
foolish as they were socially destabilising. But US banks got their
money back.
Western politicians may also admit that trade liberalisation has been
skewed to their advantage. Developing nations have been pressured to
open their markets. Rich ones have kept the doors slammed shut to
their agricultural products and textiles.
There is only one ground on which these politicians can successfully
engage with the protesters. Globalisation, they should shout from
every rooftop, is a means. There is no intrinsic merit in capitalism
without frontiers. The purpose is to raise everyone's living
standards.
Global capitalism, they should then proclaim, requires civilising
rules. It must be seen to be fairer. Poor countries cannot pay rich
nations' wages - but the weakest must be helped and multinational
corporations must observe basic standards of human decency. Advanced
economies must lead by example and open up their markets. And yes, we
all benefit from strong international institutions - as long as they
represent a mutual not a single interest.
The champions of liberal markets are in full retreat. There is only
one way they can make themselves heard again over the angry shouts of
the protesters. They must stop making the case for globalisation - and
start fighting the cause of better globalisation.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
