Trojan horse at the feast of globalisation

Noreena Hertz was dressed for her role in New York. But she had some home truths for the World Economic Forum
The globalisation debate - Observer special
Observer Worldview

Sunday February 10, 2002
The Observer

Last year I stood with the protesters in the snow outside the World Economic Forum. Last week I stood within the hallowed ground of the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
It had been a dilemma whether to accept my nomination as one of their 'Global Leaders of Tomorrow' and I had been planning to go to Porto Alegre to the alternative World Social Forum instead. But the opportunity to challenge the corporate face of globalisation from within was far too tempting. Trojan horse, rather than co-optee, was how I saw it.

And an angry horse at that. Armed with my list of 'unacceptable facts': the 34,000 children under five who die each day from poverty-related causes, the fact that four-fifths of the world's wealth is in the hands of one-fifth of its population; the fact that while the UN struggles to find its $1.25 billion annual budget, Americans spend $29bn each year on confectionery products, and so on.

I determined to use the forum to provoke debate, to ensure that the voices of the voiceless were heard and to get across the key issue at stake, namely that globalisation, in its current configuration, does not work for most of the world's population.

Others used the opportunity of being there in similar ways. From Bono to Kofi Annan, from Professor David Held of the London School of Economics to Global Legacy's Craig Cohon, those of us within who espoused progressive views made sure our voices were heard. To be fair, several business leaders who were there also talked of social injustice and inequality.

That was the good news. The bad news was that although such issues were being aired and heard, I left unconvinced that the business leaders in attendance are really willing to turn their caring rhetoric into any actionable reality.

As Bono put it: 'The Davos grouping has yet to convince that it is anything other than a talking shop.' Trade-offs are required if we are to achieve greater equity, reduce poverty and protect the environment and human rights.

Corporations will have to give up some of their rights and freedoms, accept a higher tax burden, support the strengthening of international institutions other than those that promote trade and be willing to contemplate greater global regulation on the environment or human rights.

At the very least there has to be an acceptance that government has a clear role to play in fettering the excesses of the market beyond the protection of property rights. On the whole, these propositions were too often dismissed.

Instead, I heard talk of essentially a market-based response to the world's ills: philanthropy, self-regulation, corporate social responsibility and voluntary codes of conduct. The belief persisted that deregulated markets would deliver what blatantly over the past 20 years they have not.

And, worryingly, there was an almost complete rejection of government as the appropriate conduit for the distribution of justice, social or economic.

As Richard Parsons, head of Time AOL, said: 'Once the church determined our lives, then the state and now it's corporations.' While he didn't dwell on whether he thought this acceptable, I felt the sense among many in the room was that this was how it should be.

But there are important splits in the Davos grouping itself which need to be recognised - splits between corporate America, which tends to take positions close to George W. Bush's world view, and the many representatives from countries within Europe whose views align more closely with their colleagues from the developing world.

When I asked Louis Schweitzer, the president of Renault, whether he could support global regulation on the environment or ethics, he gave a resounding yes. A Latin American Minister lamented, off the record, the disconnection between US unilateralism and issues of global concern.

I am not convinced that the progressive grouping within the forum can succeed in its quest to establish a new agenda that seeks to make globalisation work for the many. This is why I continue to support wholeheartedly the efforts of those who beavered away at the World Social Forum in Brazil. For those who can only observe the economic forum from the outside (ie, the vast majority) it's hard to see that such a gathering could generate anything positive at all, given the unashamed glitz of the whole occasion.

Even I had to give some thought as to how to present myself in a way that would be taken seriously in this social whirl. And I certainly looked as if I belonged there in my white, Bianca Jaggeresque trouser suit designed by the British design duo, Boudicca. Few who complimented me on my attire, of course, got the irony. Boudicca prides itself on being fashion's first anti-capitalist label.