El derrumbe de los globalifóbicos

El movimiento internacional que se opone a la globalización --el mismo que organizó las masivas y violentas protestas en Seattle y Génoa--está en vías de la extinción. The Scotsman publicó ayer un artículo (se requiere registro gratuito) que describe las causas de este bienvenido declive.

Por un lado, menciona que muchos de los activistas perdieron interés en este tema, enfocando sus energías en el movimiento en contra de la guerra en Irak. Pero lo más alentador es que muchos están abandonando la causa porque se están dando cuenta de cuán absurda es la posición de los globalifóbicos. Pero mejor cito la nota:

"A number of factors are at work - and the most important is a battle of ideas which is now raging but did not exist during the "Battle of Seattle". Then, the required text was the bestselling No Logo, by Naomi Klein, a Canadian journalist who argued that big companies and their brands were exploiting the world’s poor by introducing sweatshop labour...... "

"....And opposing Klein’s interpretation was - no-one. It became received wisdom that globalisation meant exploitation and that multinational companies were profiting on child labour, aided and abetted by the World Bank etc. ....."

"....The turning point came in Paris last year, when a 21-year-old activist led a protest of 80,000 in praise of "liberty" - and by liberty, they meant capitalism. They had come to "take back the streets" from the strikers then blocking the Paris traffic...... "

"....But the main force in the pro-globalisation battle comes from an even more unlikely quarter: Sweden. The country with the highest taxes in Europe has produced Johan Norberg, 30, a former anarchist who has scored an international success with his book, In Defence of Globalisation.

Hailed as a 21st century manifesto of individual liberty and international development, his book has been translated into English and is selling worldwide - praised as the most powerful work ever written about globalisation.

Unlike No Logo, it is entirely based on facts - drawing from the United Nations’ own data to show that the overseas low-wage factories have made more progress against world poverty in the last 50 years than in the last 500.

The facts he produces speak for themselves: when UN inspectors visited a town where a Nike sweatshop had been closed after protests from the United States, it found that former employees were working as prostitutes."

Amén.