Poor Man's Hero

Controversial writer Johan Norberg champions globalization as the best hope for the developing world.

Nick Gillespie from the December 2003 issue

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Reason: The WTO is meeting in Cancun as we're talking. What do you think of the WTO, which is a major target both of anti-globalizers and many free market advocates?

Norberg: It's a good thing that it exists, but it's rightly
been called the free traders' deal with the devil. The best solution for all of us would be unilateral free trade: Just open our borders. We don't need protection from cheap goods; they're exactly what we want!

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, and in that case I think that the WTO is important for two reasons. One is that it's hard to combat the special interests that are against opening up market access for other countries. But if we do it in multilateral negotiations, we can face the special interests and say: "OK, we might lose jobs in those sectors that we open up to competition. But in exchange we get access to new markets over here." That helps convince people in the export business. It helps get, say, unions on our side for free trade, and that's a good thing. The other reason that the WTO is important is that helps create a rule of law in the international trade system. We lock in free trade reform so that politicians can't backtrack every time there's a failure or a downturn in their national or local economy.

Those are reasons the WTO is important, but it really is a deal with the devil, if only because it gives the impression constantly that when we open up markets, when we give ourselves the opportunity to buy a wider variety of goods at better prices, we are giving up something. I think that's one of the reasons why we have a backlash against free trade. The president of the U.S. and everybody else always act as if free trade is some sort of concession.

Reason: In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the rationale offered for them by bin Laden, many observers in the West suggested that there was something intrinsic to the Arab world and Islam that makes them particularly uncomfortable with the creative destruction that accompanies what you've called "global capitalism." What do you think?

Norberg: There's something problematic when any religion is taken literally and when people try to impose it on others. It was true for Christianity and Europeans, who historically were happy to go the Holy Land and slaughter religious infidels there. Just 400 years ago in Europe, we had wars on religious grounds. The key was that Europe figured out ways of having different beliefs without slaughtering one another. It was secularization that saved the West, and the same thing has to happen with Islam. People don't have to give up religion, but they have to confine it to a private sphere and not try to impose it via force.

I think it will be both easier and harder for Islamic countries to go through the sort of secularization that Christian ones did. It's easier because in its basic teachings, Islam is much more pro-capitalist and pro-material wealth than Christianity ever was. Jesus was walking around telling people that rich people are evil and that they'll have a tough time getting to heaven. Muhammad, in contrast, was a trader. He was a capitalist himself, and he praises trade in many passages of the Koran. But it's also much more difficult because Muhammad was also a state builder. He saw religion and state as one and the same. The big challenge in the Arab Muslim countries is to bypass the injunction to theocracy and to confine Islam to private life.

Although I'm glad Saddam has been toppled -- it's a good day whenever a tyrant is dethroned -- I don't think that war and occupation are the way to do this. The best way is through globalization, through the introduction of new ideas, of Western influences, into these countries. You can see that happening even in Iran. You can see it happening in Jordan and Qatar and in many other countries that have more access to Western goods and media.

Because of globalization, it's easier for people to watch and read about Western societies, and more and more do. As we mentioned, Arab women see that Western women have the same rights and opportunities as men. That sort of contact is a great source of inspiration. The same thing happens when they see that we can express our own beliefs in a general way, in culture and in music. That's the big hope, I think, for the region. But we have to be very patient because it's going to take a long time. It took a long time for Japan to turn into a peaceful, productive country; it took nearly 50 years for South Korea to become something like a liberal democracy.

But I see the rise of fundamentalist forces in the Middle East not as a sign of the strength of their ideas. It's more a sign that they are terrified of the globalization that is already occurring. The fundamentalists can see that there's a new middle class growing in these countries and that these people are interested more in living the good life, in choosing their own lives, and not in following the literal teachings of the Koran. Critics of globalization worry about the Disneyfication or McDonaldization of culture, of standardization replacing "authentic" traditions. But it's more correct to say that no single culture is becoming dominant. Instead, it's pluralism, the freedom to choose among many different paths and destinations, that is gaining ground due to globalization and greater exchange.