Editorial Page / Wall Street Journal
By Gregg Easterbrook, a senior editor of the New Republic and author of "Beside Still Waters: Searching for Meaning in an Age of Doubt" (Quill, 1999).
An awful lot is going on with this week's antiglobalization demonstrations in Washington, though no one is quite sure what. The protests thus mirror the nature of globalization itself: An awful lot is going on, but what?
At the deepest level, much of what inspires the foes of globalization is that world economic changes are occurring so fast that they can't keep up. They're not alone: Nobody understands globalization, including, events suggest, the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Frustrating though that fact may be, it might also be the proper way to proceed.
Fear of Change
Historically, it was conservatism that most feared economic change. Conservative writers of the late 19th century were aghast at the factories of England and New England. Soot was fouling the air, while the plants were drawing workers away from traditional agrarian communities and toward city centers. Conservatives feared that by separating workers from small-town life, the new industrial order would change women's roles, family structure, sexual mores and many other aspects of society. As recently as the 1950s writing of Russell Kirk, modern economics was seen by classical conservatives as a terrifying force, guaranteeing constant upheaval and change.
Today it is the left that fears the spread of economic change. And it is no coincidence that one of the complaints of the antiglobalization crowd is that modern economics is drawing developing world citizens away from traditional agrarian communities and toward city centers. The anti-World Trade Organization side may have some valid points. But first let's consider the new fear of globalization itself.
Antiglobalization sentiment stems in part from romanticized notions that the developing world would be better off if left untouched by the West. Only those who have lived favored lives in affluent nations could imagine this. Western contact with developing nations causes all kinds of problems, but as someone who has lived in the developing world (Pakistan), I can attest that roughly 99.9% of the earth's non-Western population yearns for the living standards, education and democracy of the West. Contact with the West may hardly be ideal -- our culture, corporations and governments all have many faults. But interactions with the West are simply the developing world's best hope, and so must go forward.
Next, some fear of globalization stems from the realization that no one is in charge, particularly government -- it's just happening! Lori Wallace, a leader of the anti-WTO movement, says in the current issue of Foreign Policy that she is just as worried about big government as about big business.
But this statement rings hollow. Surely her true objection is that most governments believe globalization should follow its present unplanned course. If there were multinational bureaucracies running the globalization show (instead of just granting license, as the WTO does), the left might feel very differently, since then it could lobby the agencies and attempt to dictate events. Instead, the show is running itself.
Yet having no one in charge is the nature of true, free economics -- a sign of success (the ultimate decentralization), though not necessarily of calm nerves. And the sense that no one is in charge is sure to increase. There are six billion people in the world, and that sum is rising. Communication is getting easier and cheaper globally, and consumer demand is rising everywhere. The amalgamation of more people wanting more things and having more ideas more easily communicated creates a chaotic situation in which it's simply impossible for anyone to be sure what's going on, let alone predict what will happen next. We should make our peace with this, because global change -- good change and bad -- is here to stay, so long as political and economic freedom is sustained.
The changes wrought by globalization may be stressful and confusing, but so far, they are largely pro-people. Incomes and longevity are rising almost everywhere in the world, including for most of the world's poor; food production continues to rise faster than population, staving off predicted Malthusian famines and saving the lives of billions (it's easy to take food for granted in the U.S., but in India, high-yield agriculture is the greatest benefit ever extended to the typical person); literacy rates and education levels are rising globally, with the biggest gains among the worst off; communications technology is eroding dictatorships and empowering typical people throughout the world, including, of course, those people opposing the WTO.
Suppose opponents of globalization managed to stop or severely restrict the chaotic, decentralized process of globalized economics and technology. The outcome would be almost certainly be negative for everyone; it would be worst for the world's working class.
Circumstances for the majority of working people have improved in the U.S. in the seven years since the North American Free Trade Agreement, one of the first recent globalization experiments. Unemployment is near the postwar low, standards of living are rising and national growth is steady. (Recessions hit the working class much harder than the elites.) Consider that in the postwar era, those developing nations with WTO-style trade policies have achieved three times the economic growth of nations with restricted trade regimes.
Economic growth is no cure-all -- it may bring pollution, inequity, overpaid chief executives, excessive materialism and other ills. But a simple glance at the globe tells you that on balance, market economics and free trade maximize a nation's net well-being. And the national net well-being matters much more to the typical person than to elites, who can look after themselves.
In turn, if your complaint against international economics is inequitable results -- such as CEOs making 420 times as much as hourly workers -- handicapping world commerce will only result in driving the worker's share down. Extremes of inequality, a troubling problem of market economics, need to be addressed by some mechanism other than trade barriers.
Nevertheless the protesters in Washington are not without points that demand immediate hearing. They, including the AFL-CIO contingent, seem right to say that more labor protections should be included in trade accords -- especially health and safety standards and living-wage minimums for workers in the developing world.
The U.S. Model
There is a shining, irrefutable argument that worker organizing and labor protection can go hand in hand with free-market prosperity, corporate profits and rising freedom and material standards for everyone. That argument is the 20th-century U.S. The need for unions may be declining here, but that is because during the period of U.S. industrial development, labor organizing moderated the excesses of the market and established the principle that every worker deserves a safe workplace and a living wage. Developing nations will benefit if they, too, evolve an ethic that considers everyone worthy of a decent life. As we offer our economics, culture, technology and standard of endless infuriating change to the rest of the world, we should offer our philosophy of labor protection, too.:
