WTO Backlash

The WTO backlash has begun.  I forward you this
commentary from the International Herald Tribune, to
give a taste of what many in the corporate world
now seem to be thinking. There is an email at the
bottom, to which you may respond.
Bruce Podobnik
Lewis and Clark College
podobnik@lclark.edu

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In Seattle, Ignorance and Bunkum
By Reginald Dale
International Herald Tribune
Financial Section
Dec. 7, 1999

WASHINGTON - Whatever else it may or may not have
achieved, the ministerial meeting of the World Trade
Organization in Seattle last week in one way set a new
record. It is hard to think of another international meeting
that has been surrounded by such a fog of intellectual
dishonesty and so much plain nonsense.
   Much of the false propaganda swirling around Seattle
was put about by the demonstrators who tried to stop the
talks from taking place. Some came from farther afield.
Throughout the week, stale, long-discredited cliches
about trade kept finding their way into American newspapers
and onto TV screens.
   One such was the frequent assertion that the WTO, in
league with multinational corporations, is promoting a
''race to the bottom,'' in which developing countries are
competing to lower labor and environmental standards to
attract foreign investment, an allegation for which economists
have found not a shred of evidence.
   Another was the derisory refrain that devotees of free
markets believe all social ills can be cured by free trade,
a proposition in which it is difficult to find a single believer,
even in the most conservative circles in the United States.
   One of the most far-fetched assertions, however, was the
claim by some of the protesters that they had stopped the
Seattle meeting from beginning a new round of multilateral
trade negotiations. According to Lori Wallach, of the Public
Citizen pressure group, ''The allegedly inevitable force of
globalization has met the immovable object of grass-roots
democracy.''
   It is hard to decide which part of that statement is more
ludicrous - the claim that the protests in Seattle had stopped
the progress of globalization, or the idea that the protesters
somehow represented the forces of democracy.
   One of the striking features of Seattle was the way in which
protesters against the allegedly undemocratic WTO apparently
thought they could prove their point by shutting down the
meeting - thus suppressing any view contrary to their own -
while WTO officials bent over backward to try to give the
demonstrators a hearing.
   Seattle, in fact, showed more clearly than ever that
intolerance of other people's views is a far more typical
characteristic of people who demonstrate against globalization
than of those who support it. So is ignorance.
   Many of the demonstrators who accused the WTO of
tyrannical, even murderous, behavior seemed to have little
idea of how the organization actually works. It is not a group
of conspirators secretly devising new rules to make the world
safe for business and oppress the poor.
  As a small and still fragile international bureaucracy, the WTO
can do no more or less than what its members ask it to do. It can
only enforce the rules they set. Its members are not faceless
officials but for the most part democratically elected governments
responsible to parliaments and voters - unlike the demonstrators
protesting in Seattle.
   That distinction was unfortunately blurred by President Bill
Clinton, who said, for instance, ''I strongly, strongly believe
that we should open the process up to all those people who
are now demonstrating on the outside. They ought to be part of it.''
   That is a highly ambiguous statement. It could mean little more
than that governments should pay greater attention to the more
reasonable points made by serious nongovernmental organizations,
a perfectly sound recommendation. Or, more likely, it could mean
that the protesters should actually be given a seat at the negotiating
table, which would be profoundly undemocratic.
   These, however, were not the issues on which the talks foundered.
The failure to start a new multilateral round was due to a combination
of intractable differences on traditional problems, such as agriculture
and anti-dumping measures, and a lack of fully committed U.S.
leadership. By pandering to the demonstrators, Mr. Clinton merely
weakened that leadership further.
   With more and more participants - soon to include China - and
increasingly complex subject matter, multilateral trade negotiations
are becoming more difficult than ever, especially as decisions
continue to be made by consensus.
   Mr. Clinton was badly prepared for Seattle and more interested
in domestic politics. In offering to be the host for the talks, he bit
off more than he could chew. If trade liberalization is to continue,
the next U.S. president must assert more decisive international
leadership and be more effective in countering false anti-trade
propaganda at home.

E-mail address: thinkahead@iht.com