Those needs, as per national trade aspirations, are incompatible. The poor are asking their government to change their condition through economic measures, and these pressures were well presented by labor and environmental lobbyists during the WTO meet in Seattle. The rich, on the other hand, are banking on the WTO to do away with government interference in business. The WTO, therefore, should not have to bother with environmental conditions and labor laws, but deal strictly in the forces of demand and supply, production and marketing, freely, without any government interference, direction or regulation. But the poor need government.
Governments form the buffer between the rich and the poor.
They have the mandate to legislate to protect the weak and the impoverished from the motives of the strong and the rich. Trade, investment, production, wages, pricing, tariff's, quotas, taxes, regulations are all put into actions by governments looking to secure the interests of their poor constituencies through legislation. It is, therefore, recommended that - Third World countries participate in WTO negotiations. It is better to oppose from within and be heard, than to protest from the outside and be ignored. Third World countries protect their economies first and foremost and design these protections around areas of special benefit to the backward and economically weaker sections of their societies.