"J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote:
> This will be a brief appearance on lbo-talk
> (very busy), but for those of you who saw my act
> on pen-l, you know what is coming. I am going to
> present a list of rather contrary observations and
> questions regarding what went on in Seattle and
> the nature of the protests against the WTO
Barkeley,
The specific demands raised by street demonstraters are usually rather irrelevant. (We've gone round on this once re comparison of anti-war activity and Seattle, and I suppose neither of us has had any mind change.) For immediate purposes, appearances count here rather more than reality. The WTO appeared (and I think this appearance gestured at least in the direction of reality) as a unified face of world capitalism, and as such it attracted a good deal of inchoate resentment. Some of that resentment is so misdirected as to be vicious. Some of it was not real resentment but an attempt to channel the resentment of others. (This is how I mostly see the participation of the AFL-CIO bureauocracy.)
And of course it is only one battle (and not all that crucial a one) in a much more complex war -- and the actual and potential benefits of tha battle are desirable even if one were to accept without demur every single one of your statements in defense of WTO and in criticism of the demonstraters. (And every one of *my* criticisms of the demonsters) Your arguments are simply not relevant outside the classroom, the econ journal, or the inner circles of the WTO if we are unable to nix it.
The crucial thing about Seattle is that several tens of thousands of people with inchoate politics (serious anarchists, marxist grouplets, and left-liberal field marshalls are always with us like the weather and need not be attended to) participated in it, forcing them in retrospect to sharpen their reasons for what they did (mostly) with little reason, to discuss those reasons with others, and to begin to explore how the experience can be repeated and expanded. Those 10s of thousands are (or soon will be) back in their local communities. Willy-nilly they will be a bunch of little lenins and luxemburgs and hos.
*That* is the victory. Like all victories in battles its usefulness can only be determined in the future -- it may of course (as many actual military victories do) turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. It won't be the first or the last one.
But all this yattering about the technical details of international trade and ILO and this modification or that modifcation of trade agreements or what is good or bad for this corporation or that particular city etc etc etc is so much froth. I would love to share a living room with you and 5 or 10 of the people who for the first time in their lives actively participated in a political event of such magnitude. You would talk your economics and I would ask them how the logistics went and did they have any idea about how to take more people from the locality to the next demonstration. You would be invisible. In debates like this ears are a far more valuable organ than a tongue (or a 1000 pages of technical economics). That is why maillist debates are so misleading: ears are irrelevant on the internet.
Carrol