Title: What Mainstream Economists Won’t Tell You About Neoliberal Globalization.
Abstract: What I remember most about the demonstrations against the World Trade Org a n i z a t i o n in Seattle in the winter of 1999 was the exhilaration of knowing by sundown of the first day that veterans of the 1960s like myself would not be condemned to live out the rest of our days never again to be part of a living movement for radical social change in our own country. But since I did not read a newspaper or watch a television for four days while in Seattle, I had no idea how the rest of the country was viewing “The Battle for Seattle.” I had only the mouse’s eye view until I returned home to Washington DC and opened five days of newspapers sitting outside my apartment. To my surprise I discovered that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe h a d finally conceded that someone other than a crackpot or spokesperson for a “special interest” might have legitimate grounds for questioning the merits of neoliberal globalization. What was only a moderate sized demonstration by my standards had, to my surprise, succeeded in moving the issue of globalization from a back to a front burner in the United States.