Global governance glitch
– Part 1

Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts of Henry Lamb’s commentary explaining the relationship of the political left and the political right to global governance efforts. Click here to read Part 2.

While the national media is preoccupied with anthrax and Afghanistan, the wheels of global governance continue to roll. Two important, but unreported, events have occurred since the Sept. 11 tragedy: a Preparatory Committee meeting of the High Level Panel on Financing for Development at the U.N. in New York, and the 9th negotiating session of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Financing for Development group is working on a document to be adopted next March, at a world conference in Monterey, Mexico, which will pave the way for the United Nations to impose its own tax, and create a new Global Taxing Authority and a new Economic Security Council. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas group is working on a document that will essentially expand NAFTA to all 34 “democracies” in the Western hemisphere by no later than 2005.

Both of these initiatives are squarely in the crosshairs of the protesters who disrupted the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, the G7 meetings in Genoa and a variety of other meetings that focus on world trade and high finance. Ironically, these vocal, often riotous, protesters come from both the political left and right. How often is Pat Buchanan on the same side of an issue with the Rainforest Action Network and the Foundation for Deep Ecology?

Both the left and the right oppose the goals of the World Trade Organization, and so-called “free trade,” but for very different reasons. The left sees these initiatives as capitalist-driven mechanisms to further divide the haves from the have-nots, while the right sees these initiatives as an impediment to commerce, and a threat to national sovereignty.

At the risk of over-simplification, here’s the problem. Suppose you want to buy a new chair. Sears has what you want, priced at $100. Wal-Mart has an equally acceptable chair priced at $75. You, of course, are free to choose where you will buy the chair, presumably at Wal-Mart.

Some people call this price difference competition. Others call it unfair, because the manufacturer of the Wal-Mart chair paid its workers less than was paid to the workers who manufactured the Sears’ chair. Therefore, government is asked to step in and force the manufacturers to pay the same wages, resulting in “justice” for the workers, and an “equitable” price to the consumer.

At the level of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, 34 governments are creating a bureaucracy to enforce a broad range of measures that will force an “equitable” price on all goods traded throughout the region. At the World Trade Organization, and the Financing for Development (international) level, the United Nations is creating a new “global economic system” that will regulate the flow of both goods and money around the world. One of the first guiding principles of the FTAA, is to produce an agreement that is “consistent with the rules of the WTO.”

It is easy to see why the political right opposes the U.N. meddling in international trade and, certainly, the efforts to regulate international trade and force global taxation. Why the left opposes these initiatives is less clear.

Remember, the left sees these international monetary mechanisms as being driven by capitalism, particularly by the United States. This view is reflected by the non-governmental organizations who protest so aggressively.

It is their belief that the price of your chair should include what they consider to be a “decent” wage for the workers, as well as the cost of environmental “externalities,” and the “social justice” costs required to bring the “have-nots” of the world to economic par with the “haves.”

(Externalities: The tree that was cut to make the frame for your chair can no longer absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which causes global warming to increase. The societal costs of increased global warming should be reflected in the cost of your chair.)

Capitalism – free markets – do not require social and environmental equity as an element of price. This is why the non-governmental organizations on the political left oppose the direction and goals of the World Trade Organization, G7, and other capitalist-driven measures to broaden world trade.

The leftist NGOs do not oppose globalization, or global trade – they oppose capitalist-driven globalism. They avidly support globalization and global trade regulation that incorporates their social and environmental agenda. Sergio Bontempelli, was quoted by the Washington Post during the protests in Genoa: “We don’t like to be called anti-global. We’re just the opposite. We’re pro-global: globalization of human rights, of opportunity, of free movement for everyone.”

The demands made by these groups include as a high priority, NGO presence in the decision process of international financial institutions. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and others, have resisted NGO participation. Almost all other international organizations and agencies, have opened their doors and provided a red carpet to selected NGOs.

The NGOs on the outside of the international financial decision-making process are the ones organizing the protests. They are the NGOs who are now targeting the FTAA and the Financing for Development as these two important initiatives near completion.

Part 2 will examine some of these NGOs, and their targets.