Letter: WTO backers, foes aren’t so far apart

Sunday, Dec. 19, 1999 | 10:10 a.m.

Casual observers, whose perceptions of the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 summit were filtered through the media's spin apparatus, may find it difficult to believe that a harmony of purpose existed between the protesters and WTO ministers. However, as was noted by neoconservative academic Francis Fukuyama, an unabashed proponent of globalism, the leftist street radicals and the WTO elitists were pursuing exactly the same ends.

Writing in the Dec. 1 Wall Street Journal -- which has been among the strongest supporters of the WTO -- Fukuyama explained that the left should be grateful for the WTO. "The WTO is the only international organization that stands any chance of evolving into an institution of global governance, setting rules not only for how countries will trade and invest with one another, but also for how they will deal with issues like labor standards and the environment."

In other words, Fukuyama -- a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission -- acknowledged that the WTO will not promote free trade, but rather advance bureaucratic regulation of trade in order to advance the cause of "global governance." This shared ambition united the street denizens with their supposed elitist adversaries, the former providing "pressure from below" to complement the "pressure from above" provided by the latter.

FRANK M. PELTESON