Some of the G8 at Genoa

Almost everyone in the industrialized world has benefited from globalization. The living standards of one-quarter of humanity quadrupled within a generation because of globalization. The economies of the EU or NAFTA countries have advanced to an extraordinary degree. And although national economies have improved, 51% of the largest economies in the world are not national economies but multinational corporations. The gross domestic product of General Motors is bigger than Denmark. Wal-Mart and Ford are bigger than Poland or Norway. The list is long.

This massive productivity, technology, scientific advancement and wealth produced by these multinationals has emphasized the imbalance between rich and poor, particularly rich and poor countries. These poor countries are, for the most part, outside the large trading blocks NAFTA and EU but the anti-globalization activists have tapped in on this perceived imbalance to organize an opposition to this perceived imbalance even though they do not live in the poor countries and know little about them. The rational of these protests does not make sense. It seems as though the activists are bored and have nothing better to do. The protest movement does not seem to moving in any particular direction.

These days there is a tendency for journalists to write long-winded articles about the activists -- a mixture of socialist-communists and misfits who congregate at FTAA, NAFTA, IMF, World Bank, WTO, EU and G8 meetings. The confrontations at the WTO meeting in Seattle 60,000 protesters closed down the meeting. Then in Goteborg, Sweden 25,000 demonstrators at the EU summit clashed with police. The other protests at Quebec, Barcelona, Salzburg, Melbourne, Prague, Genoa and Washington show that these activists are well organized.

Therefore the organizations involved in globalization should take avoiding action.

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