*{The Opposition Is the People: Activists Discuss Globalization and Its Discontents [http://www.weforum.org/site/knowledgenavigator.nsf/Content/The%20Opposition%20Is%20the%20People%3A%20Activists%20Discuss%20Globalization%20and%20Its%20Discontents?open&topic_id=300250000&theme_id=300]

            26.01.2001

            Annual Meeting 2001}

            Protests about global economic integration moved from the streets to the halls of Davos, as a panel of activists presented their case against the World Trade Organization, the multilateral lending agencies and the world’s business leaders. Participants heard a radical--and at times heated--critique of the existing international power structure, one that stressed the need to curb corporate power, promote labour and consumer rights, and place debt relief and environment protection higher on the global policy agenda.

            Moderator Thomas L. Friedman, Foreign Affairs Columnist for The New York Times, described the session as a look at the future of protest in an age of globalization. He cautioned that while corporate and financial leaders may disagree with globalization’s critics, they should recognize that the protest movement has been effective at publicizing--and promoting--its message. "I don’t think there’s any question that the opposition to the globalization movement has been more innovative and entrepreneurial than the movement itself," Friedman observed.

            Alejandro Toledo, Founder of the political movement Peru Posible, and a candidate in Peru’s presidential election last year, opened the discussion by describing his movement’s struggle against former president Alberto Fujimori, who resigned in disgrace last year. Fujimori, he said, represented something new in Latin America’s long history of tyranny--a dictatorship that sought to "cloak itself by preserving a democratic space." This facade, he said, enabled Fujimori to obtain critical support from global investors and from international institutions such as the IMF. Toledo’s message to the corporate community: "You cannot divorce democratic freedom and human dignity from business. It is more profitable to make business in a democratic context than in a dictatorship."

            Ed Mayo, Executive Director of Britain’s New Economics Foundation, asserted that past protest movements not only contributed to the protection of civil rights and the promotion of social justice, but furthered economic development as well. Efforts to end racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination in the industrialized countries, he said, helped create a culture conducive to wealth creation and capital formation, Mayo argued. Many economic theorists, he noted, have cited such cultural factors as being the key ingredients of national economic success. "I would argue that the corporations in a sense have been skimming off the top of the wealth created by society-at-large as a result of these changes," Mayo stated. "I think there certainly is room for them to put some of that wealth back."

            If Mayo challenged participants intellectually, the next panellist confronted them emotionally. Jay Mazur, President of UNITE, the US Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, argued passionately that recent protests, such as the unrest that disrupted the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, are symptoms of an economic system "gone terribly wrong." He disputed the view that unions in the industrialized world are only interested in protecting jobs at the expense of the developing countries. The labour movement, he said, "will not turn its back on the emerging world’s struggle against poverty." But, Mazur argued, without a "global New Deal" the benefits of globalization will be reaped by corporations, not the poor. "The idea that the rules of the global economy must protect more than just corporate profits is an idea whose time has come," he concluded.

            Lori M. Wallach, Director of Global Trade Watch, a US public interest group, also rejected the notion that globalization--in its current form--holds the key to alleviating poverty and underdevelopment. She cited World Bank statistics that show per capita GDP in many emerging economic regions, such as Latin America and Africa, rose more quickly between 1960 and 1980--before the trade liberalizations of the Uruguay Round--than in the subsequent two decades. The existing multilateral trade rules, Wallach asserted, "are not working, are not accountable and are not TINA (There Is No Alternative). And people finally are beginning to get that." The protest movement, she added, has won a moral victory of sorts by forcing its opponents to adopt stringent security measures at their international meetings. "Turning Davos into something close to a near police state creates a wonderful press opportunity for us," she said. "It demonstrates the lack of legitimacy of the globalization elite."                 

                  *{Contributors:       Friedman Thomas L.
                  Mayo Ed
                  Mazur Jay
                  Toledo Alejandro
                  Wallach Lori M.}