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From: secr(MG!) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 7:00 PM
Subject: [mobilize-globally] Financial Times on Globalization
Subject:
Financial Times on Globalization
Date:
Mon, 30 Oct 2000 08:18:18 -0600
From:
"Mark Ritchie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
WTO Info ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Posted: 10/30/2000 By [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London)
October 30, 2000, Monday London Edition 1
SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 27
LENGTH: 823 words
HEADLINE: COMMENT & ANALYSIS: A worldwide web of discontent: Businesses
should begin a dialogue with the network of protesters that has grown out
of globalisation, says John Gray
BYLINE: By JOHN GRAY
BODY:
Globalisation is not having the effects that many people had hoped for -
and that many had feared. Its critics and supporters once saw it as leading
to a world of diminished national governments and enhanced corporate power.
The reality is quite different. Power is flowing away from transnational
institutions, corporations and governments, and to an inchoate but
increasingly vigorous global civil society.
As businesses and governments are beginning to learn, globalisation and
stability do not go together. Transnational companies have become
increasingly subject to the power of globally networked pressure groups.
The World Trade Organisation and similar bodies face continuing disruption
from anti-capitalist protesters. More significantly, a popular backlash is
gathering force. The result of the Danish referendum on the euro was not
only a judgment on the merits of the single currency. It was an early
warning that the limits of democratic consent to globalisation are being
breached.
In a broad historical perspective these developments are not surprising. It
is a mistake to identify globalis-ation with the freeing of markets that
has taken place over the past decade. Properly understood, it is only
another phase in a technological revolution that has been gathering speed
ever since Europe and the US were linked by submarine telegraph cables in
the 1870s. Its momentum comes from new, distance-abolishing technologies,
which make information available at low cost worldwide.
There was never any reason to think that globalisation would be a smooth,
orderly affair. On the contrary, just as earlier phases of
industrialisation produced a powerful backlash of radical movements, so
today new technologies are being used to challenge the current framework of
global markets.
The events that took place in Seattle and Prague are signs of a disquiet
regarding the current global framework that extends well beyond the
activists who assembled there. The rise of far-right, anti-immigrant
parties and the fuel protests of a few weeks ago are equally symptomatic.
Globalisation is not compelling a convergence on the political centre
ground. In some countries it is producing new, sometimes dangerous
varieties of radicalism.
It is also bringing about a new vulnerability in transnational companies.
Consumer power and shareholder activism are no longer purely national in
scope. With ever wider access to the internet they are increasingly
borderless. The activities of global businesses are monitored continuously
by pressure groups. If they fall short of widely accepted ethical standards
retribution follows swiftly. Almost overnight, companies' share prices may
collapse and their markets disappear.
Global markets are empowering pressure groups, enfranchising consumers and
shareholders and fuelling a new politics of direct action. What can
businesses and governments do in response to these challenges? First, they
must avoid a bunker mentality. The aims of the anti-capitalist
demonstrators and the fuel protesters in Europe are different, indeed
opposed, but they express a similar frustration. Rightly, they believe the
risks and costs of globalisation are being neglected or underestimated.
Large sections of the public agree.
Anti-globalisation protesters may express many conflicting interests, some
muddled, but they voice concerns felt by many others, including consumers
and shareholders. In this new environment, businesses must reach out to
initiate dialogue with the protesters. They cannot avoid being proactive.
Business has a vital interest in understanding the values and goals of the
critics of globalisation for two reasons. First, pressure groups articulate
and shape the public mind more pervasively and effectively than any
political party and they have a leverage on events that is often greater
that that of government. If business ignores these realities it will pay a
big price.
Second, the power of protesters is considerable but it is to a large extent
the power of veto. As things are, they may have the ability to prevent
businesses implementing their strategies. They have few opportunities for
more constructive interaction. If, however, the problems of globalisation
are ever to be tackled, this can only be in a collaborative effort that
encompasses business and pressure groups as well as government.
Only a few years ago, globalisation seemed to have an unstoppable momentum.
In the long run, that is still true. As new technologies appear, they will
transform all our lives. But a formidable backlash is building up. The risk
to governments of failing to engage with the fears that anti-globalisation
movements express is that, as in Denmark, they overreach the limits of
popular consent. The risk for businesses is that they will end up among
globalisation's casualties.
The writer is professor of European thought at the London School of Economics
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2000
Mark Ritchie, President
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
2105 First Ave. South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404 USA
612-870-3400 (phone) 612-870-4846 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.iatp.org
http://www.wtowatch.org
http://www.sustain.org/biotech
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