The 2009 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum ended yesterday having come up with few solutions to the global economic crisis. One thing mos t everyone seemed to agree on was an urgent plea to resist responding to the crisis with protectionism. The problem is that the poorest people in the world are not being protected by globalization, so the logical response for these people and their governments is protectionism.
British Prime Minister Gordan Brown voiced the central plea of the World Economic Forum: "If we don't act, protectionist tendencies will become paramount and we will have failed in this first stage of building a new global era." On the other hand, even at this year's forum, the poor had to take a backseat to the economic crisis. The BBC states: "The Davos organisers tried hard to ensure that the crisis of the financial system did not take away all the attention from the fight against poverty, but it was difficult." Although, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sited the fight against poverty as one of Germany's five priorities for its international response to the financial crisis and said that Germany would be increasing its overseas development aid "significantly."
An article in TIME, Potholes on the Pathways to Prosperity - World Economic Forum, pointed out that the poor countries that grew the most during the height of globalization such as China and India, are struggling the most now with the global fincial crisis. When countries rely completely on exports, they are extremely susceptible to the buying trends of the West. Globalization is failing these people. However, this is not the first time globalization has failed the poor. The TIME article points out that many of the poorest of the poor, even in the countries that grew the most due to globalization, have been left out in this growth. This is because governments of poor countries have been so determined to get a piece of the rampant growth that they invest only in export industries that never help the rural population. Instead of investing in a safety net for their people, these governments catered to the desires of the West. And now people are suffering more than ever as the promises of the West are found hollow.
Recognizing that the poor were being left out of the economic system, the World Social Forum was created as a protest to the World Economic Forum. So while all the world's most powerful political leaders and corporate executives met in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the crisis, about 100,000 activists, indeginous peoples, environmentalists and community organizers met in Belem, Brazil to come up with alternative solutions.
I have struggled for a while now on the balance between capitalism and socialism, globalization and protectionism. At an event tonight that Karyn and I attended, Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History of the U.S., summarized my frustrations. He said, "Markets don't give a damn about people." And that's true. No, people care about people and I want people making decisions, not markets.
Karyn and I decided that we liked the idea of a fair market system instead of a free market system. This would be a system that is based off of the well-being of all people and the environment. Justice would be at the forefront of economic growth. Maybe it is too socialist? Maybe it is not enough? All that I know is that we need a change, because we've seen what happens when global markets that were never supposed to fall this far, fall. And we've seen how many people are hurt.
-Stephen Donahoe
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