December 13, 1999, U.S. Edition

After the Storm Passes
The protesters didn't have their facts right, and may hurt the very causes they claim to care about. Why good drama can make bad history.
By Fareed Zakaria

At least one Clinton official has a sense of humor about the fiasco in Seattle. The White House, he says, accomplished one of its key goals last week: raising the profile of the World Trade Organization. In fact, Washington must now wish it had proposed that the trade talks be held somewhere else--say, Outer Mongolia.

What happened in Seattle was an unmitigated disaster. Little was actually accomplished at the talks. Political support for free trade might have been damaged, which is bad for workers everywhere--whether in poor Third World countries as they try to escape poverty or in rich ones like America, where they seek good jobs. Beyond all that, the spectacle was simply embarrassing. Even with months of warnings about potential violence and disruptions, the authorities in America's City of the Future were appallingly unprepared.

While the talks drew a disparate and motley crew of protesters, they had common complaints. The WTO... doesn't respond to the needs of the environment, labor, the poor, women or indigenous people, said Alli Starr, a dancer in the radical performing group Art and Revolution.

It's a familiar plea for the downtrodden of the world. There's just one problem: the downtrodden beg to differ. Representatives of developing nations at the meetings angrily pointed out that the demonstrators were seeking to protect the jobs and benefits of Western workers, who are rich and privileged by any standard. In fact, if the demonstrators' demands were met, the effect would be to crush the hopes of much poorer Third World workers--the original indigenous people. Citizens of developing countries have only one possible path out of the horrifying levels of poverty, malnutrition and disease in which they live: economic growth. And every country in history that has raised its living standards--including the United States--has done so by hitching its wagon to the world economy.

Nor would the demonstrators' demands be good for America. During the past 40 years, the world has seen a massive reduction in trade barriers--and consequently the biggest and longest economic boom in history. Between 1950 and 1998, world exports of manufactured goods multiplied 34-fold and world economic output increased eighteenfold. All this has meant rising standards of living for people around the globe, but most especially those in the West and the United States. The idea that American workers will gain from slowing down, shutting off or further regulating trade has no basis in history, economic theory or common sense. It is simply a frightened reaction to change.

The more thoughtful of the Seattle brigades argue that they do not want to slow world trade but merely make it contingent on certain environmental, social and political standards. These concerns are important. But the purpose of trade agreements is to reduce trade barriers and thus expand economic growth. Period. They do not exist to make the environment safe, give workers health care or make countries democratic. There are other methods, treaties and organizations aimed at pursuing these worthwhile goals. If every issue, no matter how remote, becomes a trade issue, the WTO will lose its ability to do the one thing it alone can do: reduce trade barriers.

The demonstrators claimed to be acting in the name of democracy. A protester, Brooke Lehman, called the WTO an undemocratic, illegitimate power. Almost all of the 500-odd groups in Seattle similarly criticized the WTO's lack of accountability. But, of course, not one of these organizations is in any way accountable to anyone. Most of them represent small and narrow interests that have been unable to build mainstream support for their demands. Most of the key governments that belong to the WTO, on the other hand, are elected by broad majorities. The truth is that labor unions, environmentalists and other activists are trying to impose regulations through the WTO that they were unable to persuade the United States Congress to support.

What we saw in Seattle is the rise of a new kind of politics. Disparate groups, organized through the Internet and other easy means of communication, pursue at the supranational level what they cannot accomplish at the national level. Alas, the new tactics seem to be working. In Seattle, faced with a challenge to one of his major accomplishments, the WTO, President Clinton bizarrely sided with the demonstrators--and presumably against his own officials who were the targets of the protests. In statements reminiscent of his famous squiggle on the gulf war--I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made--the president explained that he supported the protesters but didn't want to hobble free trade.

The expansion of free trade has been one of Washington's most remarkable acts of global leadership this century--benefiting hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of people across the world. To now watch an American president retreat from that commitment because of the carnival tactics of a small but effective minority is sad. It might make for good short-term politics but it will make for very bad history.