Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:04:29 -0500
Subject: Anti-globalisation movement grinds to a halt




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Subject: [no2wef] FW: WEF: Corporate Challengers' Last Stand?
   Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:50:14 EST
   From: christinekaratnytsky-AT-juno.com
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 [Asshole alert:  Gresser worked for Charlene Barshefky.--ck] The
Straits Times
Friday, January 18, 2002

Anti-globalisation movement grinds to a halt

By EDWARD GRESSER

AMERICA'S once-proud anti-globalisation movement seems about to make its
last
stand at the end of this month in New York.

As recently as last spring, it could bring tens of thousands of marchers
into
the streets, winning press interest and some public sympathy with its
flair
for political theatre.

Today, lacking an agenda and splintered by the war on terrorism, it
seems
destined for irrelevance.

How has this happened? And what will the movement leave behind?

Three points - the circumstances in which the movement rose and fell,
its
policy legacy and the very old questions it raised - are especially
instructive.

First, the anti-globalisation movement was a temporary phenomenon of the

1990s, rather than a new but lasting feature of the American political
landscape.

Its growth was inseparable from the unique conditions of the last
decade; its
demise as a political force was inevitable after Sept 11.

Most people assume the movement was born at the 1999 World Trade
Organisation
(WTO) ministerial conference in Seattle.

But its career really began seven years earlier, as the Cold War faded
into
history and Congress opened debate over the North American Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta).

At that moment, two distinct critiques of American policy merged.

One was a leftist criticism of foreign policy, based on a view of the
United
States as an overly powerful and assertive nation.

As Cold War-era conflicts in South-east Asia and Central America eased,
this
group looked for a new cause.

Suspicious of markets, and tempted to view business as inherently
exploitative, they found their cause in trade - in particular, trade
with the
developing world.

For different reasons, more traditional American trade sceptics were
shifting
away from fears of trade with Japan to poorer countries and lower-wage
workers.

Led by the American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial
Organisations' (AFL-CIO) industrial unions, this group also included the

shreds and patches of Republican protectionism in the textile industry
and
the cultural right.

The trade agreement with Mexico led both groups to make trade with the
developing countries a central concern.

SEPT 11 SPELT THE END

SUCH a coincidence of views would have been impossible during the Cold
War -
the American labour movement, for example, has a tradition of support
for
foreign-policy activism as long as its record of concern about trade
liberalisation.

But in the 1990s, with security threats remote, economic affairs claimed
the
central place in foreign-policy debates.

So, disciples of consumer advocate Ralph Nader could see common cause
with
textile lobbyists, elderly union presidents with student activists, and
cultural nationalists like Mr Pat Buchanan with left-wing academics.

While this coalition never made up a majority, its breadth made it
stronger
than most previous challenges to American economic internationalism.

Within hours after Sept 11, however, Cold War divisions among trade
sceptics
re-emerged.

The AFL-CIO's response, through president John Sweeney's immediate
statement
that 'we stand fully behind the President and the leadership of our
nation in
this time of national crisis', was to reassert its role as a supporter
of
foreign-policy activism.

Leftist groups likewise returned to earlier posts - the Mobilisation for

Global Justice, for example, was lead organiser of a large demonstration

against the World Bank set for late September; it cancelled the march
and
called instead for 'a community gathering to organise against and
prevent a
violent retaliation by the US government to the Sept 11 attacks'.

Having taken fundamentally different approaches to the central issue
Americans confront today, the movement's leading elements seem very
unlikely
to unite again any time soon.

What legacy do they leave?

One that is a bit heartening for supporters of open trade: The American
system proved able to both reject a misguided assault on basic
principles,
and accept specific and better-founded criticism of particular policies.

On the one hand, anti-globalisation activists could not block
initiatives of
genuine historic import.

All their principal legislative targets - Nafta, the Africa trade
programme,
the granting of permanent normal trade relations for China, and the
creation
of the WTO - passed comfortably.

Less noticed but equally significant, Congress (which in the 1980s voted

regularly to protect American textile mills and car factories) broke
with
such legislation in the 1990s.

Activists could claim some successes - notably a four-year interruption
in
'fast-track' legislative procedures and a two-year hiatus in full-scale
WTO
negotiations after Seattle.

But the success of the Doha Summit and House passage of 'Trade Promotion

Authority' make these seem temporary and phemeral.

On the other hand, the system was able to make some reasonable policy
shifts
when faced with compelling criticism.

Most prominent of these was a promise by the Clinton and Bush
administrations
to give African governments more latitude on patent rights on medicines
during health emergencies.

Others included a commitment to review the environmental impact of trade

agreements; some retrenchment on talks on investment policy; and
provisions
in this year's Trade Promotion Authority Bill giving some consideration
to
labour and environmental concerns in future talks.

Finally, the movement can claim a place in intellectual history.
Anti-globalisation activists, for the first time in many decades, were
able
to appeal to the American public with a fairly coherent vision of a less

materialistic, more ascetic future.

TRUTH IN ANCIENT WISDOM

IN DOING so, they posed for the country a basic question about
government and
human nature.

Students of Chinese culture may find the question familiar - because
nobody
has analysed it more concisely or acutely than the classical historian
Sima
Qian.

Anti-globalisation activists, at their most attractive, stood for
renunciation of wealth and ambition.

In speaking of the future, their literature often unconsciously echoed
the
famous passage from the Tao Te Ching: 'Though states exist side by side,
so
close they can hear the crowing of each other's roosters and the barking
of
each other's dogs, the people of each state will savour their own food,
admire their own clothing, be content with their own customs and delight
in
their own occupations, and will grow old without ever wandering abroad.'

Admitting the inherent appeal of such a vision, Sima Qian found it
unrealistic and ultimately dangerous; and his analysis rings true 18
centuries after the Han dynasty passed into history.

'From ancient times to the present,' he wrote, 'eyes and ears have
longed for
the most beautiful forms and sounds, bodies delighted in pleasure and
luxury,
and hearts swelled with pride at the glory of power and ability.

'So long have these habits been allowed to permeate the lives of the
people,
that even if one were to go from door to door preaching the doctrines of
the
Taoists, he could never succeed in changing them.

'The best government accepts that this is the nature of the people; the
next
best leads them to what is beneficial; the next gives instruction and
orders.
Only the very worst compels them to act against their nature.'

The succeeding years - and, above all, the record of 20th-century
governments
attempting to implement such visions - have only proven him right.

And that is why it is, in the end, a relief to see the
anti-globalisation
movement fade.

This does not mean, of course, that the trade debate itself has ended in
the
US, or that future initiatives will move across entirely smooth waters.

But the larger challenge the anti-globalisation movement seemed to pose
has
clearly lost its force. As theatre, this may be a loss. As policy, it is
the
right result.

The writer is director of the Project on Trade and Global Markets at the

Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think-tank close to
internationalist Democrats. He worked on the US-Singapore Free Trade
Agreement with former US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky. He
contributed this article to The Straits Times.

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