Who will re/define democracy?

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

>From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private
ownership
of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as
private
ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or
even
all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the
owners of
the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like
boni
patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in
an
improved condition.
< http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch46.htm >



< http://www.foreignaffairs.org >
Globalization's Democratic Deficit: How to Make International
Institutions More Accountable
By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
>From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2001


Joseph S. Nye, Jr., is Dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government. This article draws on his address to the March 2001
meeting of the Trilateral Commission in London and on his work with
Robert O. Keohane in the recent book Governance in a Globalizing
World.

Seattle; Washington, D.C.; Prague; Quebec City. It is becoming
difficult for international economic organizations to meet without
attracting crowds of protesters decrying globalization. These
protesters are a diverse lot, coming mainly from rich countries, and
their coalition has not always been internally consistent. They have
included trade unionists worried about losing jobs and students who
want to help the underdeveloped world gain them, environmentalists
concerned about ecological degradation and anarchists who object to
all forms of international regulation. Some protesters claim to
represent poor countries but simultaneously defend agricultural
protectionism in wealthy countries. Some reject corporate capitalism,
whereas others accept the benefits of international markets but worry
that globalization is destroying democracy.

Of all their complaints, this last concern is key. Protest organizers
such as Lori Wallach attributed half the success of the Seattle
coalition to "the notion that the democracy deficit in the global
economy is neither necessary nor acceptable." For globalization's
supporters, accordingly, finding some way to address its perceived
democratic deficit should become a high priority.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD

Globalization, defined as networks of interdependence at worldwide
distances, is not new. Nor is it just economic. Markets have spread
and tied people together, but environmental, military, social, and
political interdependence have also increased. If the current
political backlash against globalization were to lead to a rash of
protectionist policies, it might slow or even reverse the world's
economic integration -- as has happened at times in the past -- even
as global warming or the spread of the aids virus continued apace. It
would be ironic if current protests curtailed the positive aspects of
globalization while leaving the negative dimensions untouched.

Markets have unequal effects, and the inequality they produce can have
powerful political consequences. But the cliche that markets always
make the rich richer and the poor poorer is simply not true.
Globalization, for example, has improved the lot of hundreds of
millions of poor people around the world. Poverty can be reduced even
when inequality increases. And in some cases inequality can even
decrease. The economic gap between South Korea and industrialized
countries, for example, has diminished in part because of global
markets. No poor country, meanwhile, has ever become rich by isolating
itself from global markets, although North Korea and Myanmar have
impoverished themselves by doing so. Economic globalization, in short,
may be a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for combating
poverty.
[snip]