Global Policy Forum

By Iqbal Latif

The Anti-globalization debate will shift to the Middle East as Qatar has been selected as the venue by the World Trade Organization. After the violent global scenes in World Trade Organization's last conference in Seattle in 1999 and at the World Bank meeting in Washington, DC, in April 2000, it seems Qatar will be the center of global anti-capitalism activists as WTO Trade officials say Qatar has promised to allow all WTO critics who desire to attend.

For residents of Arabian Gulf, an understanding to know what the issues related to this new movement of anti-capitalism are, might be helpful.

The balance of global economic power has shifted from governments to corporate boardrooms. According to a new study by the Institute for Policy Studies, 51 of the largest 100 economies in the world are corporations, not countries. Put in economic terms, this means that General Motors Corporation is now bigger than Denmark, IBM is bigger than Singapore and Sony is bigger than Pakistan.

The report, entitled "Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power," cautions that growing corporate power has enormous economic and political consequences. This echoes concerns expressed by protesters at the World Trade Organization's conference in Seattle in 1999 and at the World Bank meeting in Washington, DC, in April 2000. World Trade Organization finally has found a country willing to host its next big meeting: Qatar. The WTO formally accepted Qatar's offer to host the follow-up to the 1999 Seattle meeting.

WTO Director-General Michael Moore said the event, which may launch a round of trade talks, would be held in Doha, Qatar's capital, November 5-9. Though, the head of the World Trade Organization, Mike Moore, considered as one of the architect of the 'globalization' recently lambasted anti-globalization protesters, saying that they made him want to be sick. A new global free trade round was a moral imperative in the face of an impending slowdown in America, Moore said. "The people that stand outside and say they work in the interests of the poorest people ... they make me want to vomit. Because the poorest people on our planet, they are the ones that need us the most."

Police and demonstrators fought street battles in cities around the world in the early part of this month as many May Day marches turned into violent protests against globalization, capitalism and political corruption. At the core of the protests is the transformation of economic clout of big corporations into political power, hence undermining democracy and freedom. The recent troubles between the architects of globalization and the anti-globalization movement are on the increase. The globalization architects are clearly worried, not so much by the protesters in the street, but the new ideas emerging from dozens of citizens' movements from all over the world. The comfort once found in old ideas is crumbling, so is their rhetoric of growth, markets, liberalization and competition.

Under this backdrop and testing circumstances, where fever of anti-globalization is growing, the World Trade Organization finally has found a country willing to host its next big meeting: Qatar. Last time, the WTO's big meeting blew up in spectacular fashion, as Seattle police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and canisters of tear gas at protesters. Some 30,000 free-trade foes closed down the meetings for a day, forcing the mayor to declare martial law for almost a week. After that experience, other countries have not been lining up to host the next meeting. Indeed, WTO officials at first spurned Qatar's offer, saying the tiny Arabian Gulf Emirate did not have enough hotel rooms. But with no other viable alternatives, trade officials worked out a compromise: Delegates will stay on cruise ships in the harbor. The free-trade foes that disrupted the Seattle meeting, are openly skeptical, however, pointing to the difficulties in organizing a potent protest in Qatar on lines of Seattle.

The core globalization phenomenon that protestors attack is the control of the mega-corporations over global affairs. The corporations in the top 200 list reflect current global economic trends. Reforms made by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have eroded the dominance of manufacturing and natural resource-based companies. There is a sense that globalization is in trouble, and the "board of directors of the forces of globalization" was neither asking the right questions nor had a clue what to do. How are the ecological limits of a finite planet to be respected in the face of policies designed to promote never-ending growth? The critics of globalization point to the stealthy corporate take over of the global GDP under the garb of globalization. How is the widening gap between rich and poor to be closed when many of the signals that companies respond to, are designed to reward greed? How can the needs of the 10 billion people who may inhabit this world in 2050, be met without drastic changes to consumption patterns?

Between 1983 and 1999, the share of total sales made up by service companies has increased from 33.8% to 46.7%. Gains were particularly evident in financial services and telecommunications sectors, thanks to a global trend toward deregulation. In 1999, more than half of the sales of the Top 200 corporations were in one of four economic sectors: financial services (14.5 percent), motor vehicles and parts (12.7 percent), insurance (12.4 percent) and retail (11.3 percent). Overall, sales for the top 200 corporations are growing faster than overall economic activity. Between 1983 and 1999, combined corporate sales grew from 25 percent to 27.5 percent of the world's GDP.

One corporation, Wal-Mart, experienced meteoric growth. Sales went from $ 4.7 billion in 1983 to $ 166.8 billion in 1999, making it the second largest corporation in the world. Wal-Mart's work force of 1,140,000 employees makes it the world's largest private employer.

Despite their market share and continuing growth, the top 200 corporations employ only a fraction of the world's workers. In 1999, they employed 0.78 percent of the world's work force, compared with their 27 percent share of world economic activity. And while corporate profits grew 362.4 percent between 1983 and 1999, the number of people employed by these same companies only increased by 14.4 percent.

The IMPS study concludes that the threat posed by the top 200 corporations should become a major political issue in the United States and for other countries throughout the world.

Top 50 economies. Countries and corporations. GM is the 23rd largest economy.

United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, China, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Mexico, India, Korea, Australia, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Argentina, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Turkey, General Motors, Denmark, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor, Daimler Chrysler, Poland, Norway, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Greece, Thailand, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Toyota Motor, General Electric, Itochu, Portugal, Royal Dutch/Shell, Venezuela, Iran, Israel, Sumitomo, Nippon Tel & Tel, Egypt and Marubeni.

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