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Copyright 2003 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London,England)

September 1, 2003 Monday
London Edition 1

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 261 words

HEADLINE: Globalisation is inevitable but the way we make trade rules must be more democratic

BYLINE: By ADAM HERSH

BODY:

From Mr Adam Hersh.

Sir, Economists who wax eloquent on the thousands-of-years-old tradition of globalisation ("Globalisation means we share jobs as well as goods" August 27) often overlook the fact that powerful nations used cannons and bayonets to set the conditions of global exchange in their favour. The question now is not whether countries should integrate their economies, but under what rules.

In the past, raw force established the rules of trade and investment. Today, they are made behind closed doors at the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other multilateral institutions far removed from democratic accountability, transparency, and participation by people whose lives are impacted, where asymmetric power ensures the rules are similarly skewed.

It is entirely reasonable to believe both that trade is valuable and that the rules and the process for making rules inadequately serve the goal of widely shared prosperity.

The rules of today's world economy make global interests such as human and labour rights, national sovereignty, environmental protection and public safety subordinate to the interests of international financiers.

While profitable for investors, the results for the rest of us have been slower growth, frequent economic crises, increasing inequality between and within countries, and persistent world poverty.

The answer is not to close our borders but to open the rule-making process to broad public debate and popular participation.

Adam Hersh, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC 20036, US

LOAD-DATE: August 31, 2003