Tired of globalisation
Despite the spectacular rise in living standards that has occurred as barriers between nations have fallen, and despite the resulting escape from poverty by hundreds of millions of people in those places that have joined the world economy, it is still hard to convince publics and politicians of the merits of openness. Whatever the protesters may say, a clear majority in all the region’s countries favour a market economy rather than a closed, state-directed one. This is, however, a difficult moment for the market economy and for relations between rich countries and poorer ones, for the Doha round of trade-liberalisation talks under the World Trade Organisation is in trouble. When it began in 2001, the round was billed as a big effort to boost growth in poor countries, and the lowering of barriers to food trade was placed at its centre. In the past few weeks, however, a fairly bold American proposal for reducing its farm protection has been greeted by a much weaker response from the European Union and none at all from Japan. The last time leaders gathered for such a crucial meeting was in September 2003 in Canc?n, and the result was a shambles. There was a bitter row between rich countries and poor ones, and the meeting broke up in acrimony. At that stage, however, there was still plenty of time to repair the damage. The previous talks, known as the Uruguay round, went through lots of brinkmanship and delays before they were completed. The result was still disappointing in many ways, especially to developing countries, and yet since the round’s completion in 1993 the world economy has grown lustily. The missed opportunity is that Doha has offered the first proper chance to involve developing countries in trade negotiations—they now make up two-thirds of the WTO members—but also thereby to use a full exchange of agricultural, industrial and service liberalisations to make a big advance in free trade that could benefit a wide range of countries. But if the rich world could gird itself to be more ambitious on agriculture the gains would be even greater: help for the poorest countries, making the rich look generous; better access to the biggest and richest developing countries for western companies. The risk is that failure to agree on a new wave of openness during a period (the past two years) in which the world economy has been growing at its fastest for three decades, with more countries sharing in that growth than ever before, will set a sour political note for what may well be tougher times ahead. A turn away from trade liberalisation just ahead of an American recession, say, or a Chinese economic slowdown, could open up a chance not just for a slowdown in progress but for a rollback. (Economist.com)
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"Tired of globalisation"