Max Sawicky on the IMF/World Bank protests

If you want a good primer on the issues involved in the ant-globalization movement, you can't do better than MaxSpeak.

MaxSpeak Weblog The dominant trend in the movement is reformist. The labor movement is on the reformist side of the divide. Whether you seek to reform or abolish an institution like the IMF does not bear on the substance of your critique of its policies. Disagreement over remedies does not impeach the validity of the critique.

An important focus of all these groups is trade, but it is not the only one. The interest is in what is called 'fair' trade, not no trade. Fair trade could mean different things. An analogy is regulations in the U.S. against child labor. The movement seeks similar regulations applying to child labor in other countries. Since no world government exists to implement such regulations, the recourse is to include such stipulations in trade agreements. If you think it is legitimate for the U.S. to promulgate a regulation against child labor, what could be wrong with two nations' governments agreeing to do the same?

A principal interest is to include "social clauses" in trade agreements. Such clauses would be aimed at safeguarding basic human rights, and at upholding minimum standards for labor and environment.

Outside the trade area are demands aimed at promoting economic development in the world's poor countries. A reflection of the impact of the movement is that one such demand -- debt relief -- has gone mainstream. Making such a policy real is another matter. But the principle has been established. The debate has been won. The only issue now, not a minor one, is to see that it is implemented in a serious way.