Advocates describe globalization as a panacea for society's ills. But 50 years after the birth of modern free trade, the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. The clearest result of economic globalization has been the transfer of economic and political power away from citizens, toward global corporations and the bureaucracies that serve them, most importantly, the World Trade Organization. The central principle of globalization and the WTO is that any obstacles to the expansion of global corporate activity should be suppressed, including laws and standards crafted on behalf of labor, the environment, human rights, consumers, culture, national sovereignty and democracy.
Free traders like to say the two value systems are compatible.
But after five years of the WTO and a half-century of accelerated global trade, results are dismal. Two months ago, the United Nations reported that the gap between the world's rich and poor is now at a high point. The U.N. blames inequities built into the global trade system. Independent research confirms that a tiny number of people, CEOs of global corporations, are the only significant beneficiaries of this growth. Meanwhile, environmental devastation is unprecedented.