IN DEFENCE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM

Policymakers need to find a constructive response to the anti-market prejudice displayed on the streets of Seattle. The protesters are, by their lights, right. The WTO is at once a set of agreements to open markets and an institution able to determine whether these have been violated. The opposition to it thus throws into relief two fundamental fault-lines in 21st century politics: between supporters and opponents of the global market, and between supporters and opponents of potent international institutions. Indeed, the WTO is the only global institution that even the US and the EU are supposed to obey. Other institutions - the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - have influence only over weak developing countries. That, the activists believe, is as it should always be. They wish to protect US or EU environmental law from question, but be able to impose sanctions on imports from developing countries that are produced by allegedly exploited labour, or in supposedly environmentally damaging ways. Any organisation that limits their ability to do so is anathema.