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recently returned
from five days in Quebec City, a quaint and picturesque town on
the St. Lawrence River,
which will
heretofore be known as "de gaz lacrymogène du monde;"
the "tear gas capital of the world." I traveled there
hoping to get inside the head of the anti-globalization, anti-trade
movement. Trouble is, there was no head to be found. I saw heart
in great abundance — in-your-face public displays of compassion
were the order of the day — but clear thinking was conspicuously
scarce. If you're going to embrace ignorance, I guess you might
as well do it with gusto.
The respectable
reason to be in Quebec was for the Summit of the Americas, a gathering
of 34 heads of state from across the western hemisphere. The most
important business at their meeting was the ongoing effort to negotiate
a Free Trade Area of the Americas — a trade barrier-free zone stretching
from Alaska to Argentina. In other words, a real snooze-a-thon.
I, on the other
hand, went to Quebec for the real show: the "People's Summit,"
an alternative event organized ostensibly to represent — what else?
— the "people's views." (I had assumed that the elected
leaders at the Summit were there for that purpose, but who am I
to question "the people"?). The Hemispheric Social Alliance,
a coalition of ideological and economic interest groups that are
opposed to free trade, had invited fringe groups, from the far-left
to the farther-left, to a "carnival against capitalism"
in a big white tent alongside the river. Gracious to a fault, the
Canadian government (i.e., Canadian taxpayers) funded the event
and paid for Latin American activists to attend.
My first encounter
with these folks was at the Auberge du Paix (or Inn of Peace) youth
hostel, where I stayed for the weekend. The idea was to observe
and engage protesters in a relaxed social setting, and where better
to meet young activists than in a youth hostel, right?
As it turned
out, youth hostels aren't necessarily full of young people. The
Inn of Peace was instead the makeshift headquarters of the League
for the Revolutionary Party, or LRP, whose members seemed to be
mostly bitter, middle-aged union guys from New York.
One such fellow,
a chain-smoking, Yankee-hating, Mets fan whom I'll call Joe, was
a regular in the hostel common room. He explained to me what his
group was all about. "The LRP," he began, handing me a
Xeroxed pamphlet, "and our comrades in the Communist Organization
for the Fourth International, are fighting against the FTAA because
free trade equals imperialism and corporate exploitation of workers
around the world." Asked to give some examples, Joe told me
that the exploitation was so obvious that he didn't know where to
begin, and so he didn't. Joe then groused about his frustration
with the Stalinists and Trotskyist International Socialists, who
were apparently in bed with the mainstream labor union bosses and
not committed to taking the "necessary action" to shut
down international trade meetings. Sounds like purgin' time.
Joe might not
have been the pretty coed I had hoped for, but he was definitely
a card-carrying member of the "lunatic fringe." After
listening to him ramble on about how capitalists will always abuse
their employees, I asked him what he thought about the idea of pension
privatization, which would allow workers to invest the money they
currently pay to Social Security into private markets. "If,
as you say, the capitalists are getting rich while everyone else
is getting poorer," I asked, "isn't the answer to make
everyone into a capitalist?" Joe looked at me in horror, shook
his head, and left the room.
Taking my cue
from Joe, I decided to turn in for the evening. For those readers
who've never experienced the joys of hostelling, I note that the
problem with sleeping ten to a room is that more than one in ten
people snore. Thus, only rarely does one get an undisturbed night's
sleep; occasionally, you find yourself in a 3:00 a.m. hell of snorting,
choking, and vibrating uvulas. My room at Auberge du Paix was somewhere
in between, and I was more than eager to escape the hostel and head
down to the People's Summit early the next morning.
The "carnival
against capitalism" lived up to its name. There were clowns,
puppets, cheerleaders, dancers, actors, "Raging Grannies"
(a real group of not-so-aged women who hate big business), and even
a giant green floating condom ("Practice safe trade!").
My favorite was a troupe of dancers in blue who chanted and worshiped
a large paper-maché water goddess. Yet beyond the spectacle,
there wasn't much in the way of serious discourse, either in the
streets or at the various organized "teach-ins."
Still, I made
a heartfelt effort to understand what the summit attendees were
all about. I interviewed dozens of people, focusing on those with
fewer than ten piercings. I was "questioned" for nearly
two hours by protesters at a Canadian version of a town hall meeting
— not that anyone was interested in my opinion. I read all the commie
literature I could get my hands on. Yet throughout it all, not once
did I hear a reasonable case against free trade. It was surreal,
actually, to be lectured by people who hadn't bothered to familiarize
themselves with the most rudimentary principles of supply and demand,
yet who professed an unassailable knowledge about how to best organize
the international economy.
I became increasingly
irritated as the day wore on. Hour after tedious hour, I stood in
the sun listening to bandana-clad adolescents whining, loudly, about
how they deserved to be on the other side of the 2.5-mile security
fence that ringed the town center where the delegates were meeting.
They wanted — no, they deserved — seats at the negotiating
table.
Perhaps it
was the hot sun or the ever-present stench of tear gas, but after
a time I began think, "Hell, why not? Let's assign all
important international negotiations to first-year sociology majors."
We wouldn't get comprehensible documents, but darn it, our treaties
would be crafted with love. I for one would have thrilled to see
a few brave souls scale the security fence and storm the speaker's
podium. What would they have said? "Gentlemen, if you'll just
take a look at this regression I have wadded up in my pocket, you'll
see a clear inverse relation between trade and the size of the Canadian
marijuana crop … oh, wait, wrong paper."
Then again,
citing data is far too onerous for the young professional activist.
You have to, like, go to class for years and stuff, which cuts into
valuable protesting time. Much easier to base one's case on slogans
and the kind of mushy-headed leftist pabulum that college students
so often regurgitate. Consider the following actual exchange I had
with a startlingly well-fed young activist (who wore, naturally,
imported jeans and sneakers). As she shook her flabby fist at me,
a comrade filmed the exchange with a Japanese video camera that
easily cost more than a year's salary for the average Latin American.
"People
before profits!" she shouted, inches from my face.
"Okay,
that sounds good," I said, stepping back a pace, "What
exactly does it mean?"
"It means
we need to elevate people above profits."
"Right,
I got that, but what specifically does it mean? What are
the policy implications?"
"We want
policies," she replied, exasperated, "that consider people
before corporate profits."
And on (and
on) it went. If the woman had a deeper message, I couldn't coax
it out her. Yet it's undoubtedly only a matter of time until the
"People before Profits Act" hits Congress. If only someone
had thought of this sooner! On the other hand, given that profits
are really just a measure of the wealth created by entrepreneurs
above their costs, living in a profitless society might not be so
people-friendly after all. Think North Korea.
Such inanities
weren't limited to the fringe's fringe; I heard them everywhere.
One teenage do-gooder told me that Latin Americans would be better
off living as hunter-gatherers, because "hunter-gatherers eat
well every day." I guess it depends on what she meant by "well."
A unionized garment worker, whose job likely depends on making sure
no one is allowed to buy shirts made in Honduras, straight-facedly
hoisted a sign reading "Free trade equals corporate welfare."
Huh? If that's true, then it's curious that so many industries,
like textile manufacturers and steel plants, cling desperately to
tariffs and subsidies.
These arguments
would be laughed out of any economics department in the world. Even
faculty at the University of Havana would have trouble keeping a
straight face. And speaking of Cuba, that island prison was touted
as the "Only truly free country in the Americas" by several
summit attendees. At one point, an older man dressed as Castro handed
me my own Cuban flag to wave.
Like some nutty
Japanese soldier isolated on a Pacific island, the people on the
streets of Quebec didn't realize that the war over the effects of
trade was over; the free traders have won. Hundreds of studies,
and even casual observation, show us that misery eventually falls
wherever markets expand. Countries that are open to international
trade and investment tend to grow faster than those countries that
seal themselves off from the global economy, more than twice as
fast according to conservative calculations by the OECD. What's
more, the wealth created by trade leads to higher living standards
all across the income spectrum. Millions upon millions of people
have been lifted out of conditions of abject poverty ever since
developing countries began to voluntarily open their markets two
decades ago — a feat unmatched at any time in history. Yet the protesters
see none of that, choosing to make themselves the enemies of the
downtrodden by denying poor countries the tools of development,
arguing that capitalism and free trade cause poverty. Such ignorance
is criminal.
But inconvenient
facts didn't bother the anti-trade activists, many of whom were
just there to party. Self-pitying horror stories of police brutality
— unprovoked, naturally — were narrated with great bravado in the
hostels and bars at night. An arrest was touted as a badge of honor.
Speaker-trucks blasted music throughout the evening while ecstasy
and other drugs circulated freely. I spent much of Saturday night
under a bridge, watching thousands of teen- and twenty-somethings
vandalize traffic signs, dance jubilantly around bonfires, and bang
rocks on metal guardrails. The mood ranged from primal to euphoric,
but it was never dull.
All the while,
little of import happened in Quebec, on either side of the fence.
And judging by the media coverage, I'm not the only one who thinks
that the protest scene is getting stale. I mean, everyone knows
that thousands of these people — usually the same people — are going
to show up wherever politicians meet in large numbers to discuss
international issues.
Globalization's
more eloquent critics, such as Naomi Klein, Canadian author of the
internationally best-selling anti-globalization screed, No Logo,
bemoan the clownishness of these gatherings. But who are they kidding?
Does anyone seriously believe that Klein's book would have been
successful without the spectacle that such protests provide? She
couldn't buy better publicity at any price, and now her book is
the protester's bible.
Whatever
it takes
What disturbs me most about the fringe groups that embrace these
views is how they threaten civilized democratic discourse. Rhetoric
notwithstanding, the fringe Left has abandoned the notion of loyal
opposition when it comes to globalization. Lacking the skill or
wit (or both) to persuade most people of the worth of their cause,
its zealots seek to intimidate and bully their way to power. And
when these groups decide that they are exempt from the basic rules
of the game, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Consider this
post-mortem from a prominent activist:
We were [in
Quebec] to do a job, and that job was to stop or disrupt the summit
by any means necessary. This was a meeting where the lives and
futures of everyone in North and South America are being sold
down the river wholesale — what was done in Quebec City was an
act of collective self defense. There is no room for discussion
and there is no room for debate on that…I certainly haven't
the slightest interest in debating it.
That last line
is the most telling. Most protesters, anarcho-protectionists, radical
environmentalists, and unionists have no interest in open debate
or democracy. And those who do, by their silence, endorse the reprehensible
terror tactics of the majority. Their mission is so pure, so self-righteously
self-evident, that it matters not a jot what other members of society
think or want. It matters not that the people behind the fence were
elected and the protesters were not.
That position
is particularly hard to swallow when one remembers that no fundamental
liberties are at stake. Whatever the people in the streets of Quebec
are, they certainly aren't civil-rights marchers. It's absurd to
elevate the "right to tariffs and subsidies" to the same
level as the right to vote. "Ban the bomb" has been reincarnated
as "ban Brazilian steel."
"Those
implementing corporate globalization are having to resort to secret
agreements, water cannons and massive tear gas," complained
Kevin Danaher, co-director of Global Exchange and co-author of Globalize
This! The Battle Against the World Trade Organization and Corporate
Rule. That sounds like a mugger complaining that his mark resorted
to "guns and violence" when confronted in an alley at
night. How dare the police resist!
Ironically,
the protesters may end up the victims of their own tactics, because,
ultimately, the fate of globalization doesn't rest with agreements
like the FTAA. It's nonsense to believe that globalization has been
driven by international meetings. The expansion of economic freedom
had been going on for years, in all parts of the world, before anyone
ever head of the North American Free Trade Agreement or the World
Trade Organization. Since the mid-1980s, 60 developing countries
have unilaterally lowered their barriers to trade. Even more have
flocked to the WTO. Today more than three-quarters of that body's
members are developing countries, with 20 others seeking desperately
to join.
In short, free
trade hasn't been imposed from the top down; it has broiled from
the bottom up. The process of economic liberalization began as a
direct response to the abject failure of protectionist, state-dominated
development strategies, and it continues today for the same reason.
It will continue to spread regardless of the fate of the FTAA. So
if street violence eventually succeeds in shutting down the multilateral
institutions that govern trade, the anarchists of tomorrow soon
may find that they have fewer targets to firebomb and less publicity
to steal, but globalization will move forward regardless.
If nothing
else, my time in Quebec dispelled any lingering doubts about whether
the fringe groups have anything new to offer poor countries. Their
issues may be new — human rights, environmental protection, and
cultural diversity — but their prescription is as stale as ever:
trade barriers and redistributive socialism. Never mind that those
policies have failed time and again; anti-trade activists can abide
anything, it seems, except choice and freedom. Their promise of
government-sponsored prosperity is illusory. Countries that have
heeded such advice — Cuba, North Korea, and those throughout much
of Africa — have made little progress in raising living standards,
while those that have embraced free markets — Taiwan, South Korea,
Chile, Singapore, and others — have seen real improvements in the
lives of average people.
There is no
palatable alternative to free economies and free trade. A market
economy isn't simply a place where people provide goods and services
in the pursuit of profits — not that there's anything wrong with
that. Market competition is also a discovery process; it is a way
of learning things we wouldn't otherwise know. It is that knowledge
that makes us more productive, wealthier, healthier, and better
able to protect our world. The ability to reason and innovate is
mankind's greatest gift. Yet the only way to realize that potential,
to get at the knowledge that improves our lives, is through an open-market
system where people are allowed to compete to satisfy the wants
and needs of others.
The faces and
slogans on the fringe Left may have changed, but the combination
of naked self-interest and mindless idealism remains. The Quebec
protesters cared deeply about many things, but sadly, not about
the truth.
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