Mobilizing for Global Justice
Today
(April 16, 2000)
IN Washington this weekend, a disparate gathering of protesters will be rallying against what they view as the malign forces of economic globalization.
The dissidents message is sometimes confused and misplaced, especially in wanting to dismantle essential institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.
But the protesters, who call themselves the Mobilization for Global Justice, also represent a popular response - misguided but heartfelt - to a ethic transformation that is not fully comprehended even by the experts. To be sure, some interest groups are trying to manipulate public concern for their own advantage. But it would be dangerous to ignore a growing popular unease over these trends and the need for broader educational efforts.
Despite the dramatic stock market decline on Friday the fact remains that the United States has on balance benefited from the unbridled flow of capital, goods, people and information that is called globalization.
The dislocations felt by American workers have been far outweighed by the benefits of cheap imports, low inflation and expanding opportunities for American businesses overseas. Abroad, the poor immunities benefiting from expanded markets out-number those hurt by them.
Nevertheless the new World order has created hardship in declining or newly uncompetitive industries. Some nations see globalization as a code word for American domination. Many fear that the World Bank, IMF and WTO are pursuing the interests of an American-led elite, to the detriment of the poor and the environment. Critics on both the left and right have begun to question whether the world would be better off without these institutions.
Certainly the institutions that manage the world economy must be more sensitive ad transparent. But their real challenges is to help everyone understand that there are no realistic - or beneficial - way to reverse or even slow the forces that are driving the world economy.
Just as American businesses have begun to discovered that in the world of an Internet-driven economy the old rules have to be scrapped or adjusted, so countries around the world will have to learn to adjust to the new market forces if they want to harness them to their advantage. Underdeveloped countries hive to team capital is voluntary and does not flow to countries do not obey its rules.
Since the end of the Cold War, there have been at least four major currency crises that threatened to destabilize regional economies in Europe in 1992-93, Mexico in 1994-95, East Asia in 1,997 and Russia and Brazil in 1998. Each had the potential for spiraling out of control
The critics descending on Washington argue that the IMF and the World Bank sometimes made these crises worse, while their defenders assert that without the difficulties inflicted, the crises would have grown worse. One thing is certain. There will be more crises to come in the years ahead. The institutions that handle them need to be reformed, not weakened.
The anti globalization protesters invoke the tactics and styles of the 1960s. But a closer analogy may be early struggles over the burgeoning of capitalism in the 19th century. It was then that disputes between owners and workers and about public costs and Private gain led to an age of ideological conflict.
Today's struggle has the added element of changing definitions of nations sovereignty. In added poor countries are not the only worries. Europeans are also increasingly wary of American demands to open their economics to American products. As boundaries become more economically irrelevant, one question is whether people will seek refuge in their national identities or on the familiar if transitory comforts of placard, chants and street theater place like Washington.
Yet today's global economic drama is deeply familiar to
students of American history -- how to reconcile the demands of economic growth
and opportunity with the need to preserve fairness, stability and the health and
welfare of the country's citizens. It is today a challenge without borders.
Meeting it calls for more, sophisticated international institutions, not a
retreat into nostalgia and economic nationalism.
The New York Times