Anti-globalization activists should visit Africa, China, India and Latin America and speak with some of the people on whose behalf they're fighting.
Walk the streets of Nigeria, South Africa and rural China and ask people if free trade is ruining their lives. Or step into a shantytown in Mumbai and see if free trade is keeping villagers down. Chances are, they'll say no.
Experiencing these places firsthand may convince many activists that if free trade and globalization are problems, it's because the parts of the world that need them most aren't getting enough.
The anti-globalization movement, however well intentioned, should turn its energy to extend the benefits of free trade and capital flows to the world's poorest nations.
Chances are you'll find a good number of impoverished and unemployed citizens of New Delhi or Maputo, Mozambique who'd love to have a crack at the US$3 a day jobs the anti-globalization crowd calls a travesty. They're right; it's an abysmal wage -- especially in the US, where an unskilled worker can make US$10 an hour flipping burgers. But for those trying to feed a family, it's welcome money.
Take Africa, where a devastatingly large number of people are dying from AIDS and from illnesses that the West eradicated years ago. The reason? Africa has so little economic growth that its people can't afford basic medicines and treatments. More globalization, not less, could change this. Increased prosperity also provides more resources and time for education and AIDS prevention
programs.
Of course, developed economies also are experiencing the dark side of globalization.
By breaking down barriers to trade, travel and, to a lesser extent, the movement of people from one country to another, countries are more connected and interdependent than other.
This trend has bred new vulnerabilities that terrorists can exploit.
Yet the charge continues. This year's APEC offered few concrete steps towards opening trade. Leaders agreed to cut trade costs by 5 percent in the next five years. They also agreed to start new market-opening talks at the WTO.
Most important, however, was the commitment to maintaining the openness already achieved. There's a united front against letting the events of Sept. 11 scuttle globalizationand to building on the success that's been made. Any nation that chooses isolation over globalization faces "poverty, stagnation and ignorance," US President George W. Bush said in Shanghai.
William Pesek Jr. is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.
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