Opponents of globalisation get a lot of air time despite their lack of a coherent alternative. Some, like George Monbiot, who writes for the British newspaper The Guardian , have convinced themselves of an elaborate plot in which the rich fiendishly impose a system of world order that keeps the rest of the world poor. Others still labour under the Marxist fallacy that as capitalism grows in strength, poverty and inequality will rise.

These claims are far-fetched and incorrect. But they need to be countered because otherwise fantasy claims about the ‘evils of globalisation’, the ‘errors of neo-liberal policies’ and the ‘depredations of big business’ get so much attention that they have turn into folklore.

The highly respected British writer Bill Emmott took up this challenge in a lecture to the Institute of Economic Affairs in London last month.

Emmott has the credentials to put forward a solid case. The editor of The Economist, he is also the author of three books on Japan – in 1989 he predicted that country’s economic ascent would falter. Recently he has focused on the lessons we can take from the 20th century to project what forces will shape the 21st – the resulting book, 20:21 Vision , has just been published.

In his speech to the IEA, he explored how supporters of free and open markets might respond to the “many different groups and pressures, with wholly different and even incompatible aims that may nevertheless overlap with one another in such a way as to bring about a retreat from liberalism”.

The propaganda of protectionists, extreme environmentalists, the self-proclaimed ‘global justice’ movement, and the many other groups aligned against the free enterprise system would have us believe that globalisation has failed the poor. Yet this is simply not true.

“Far from rising, global inequality has actually been falling substantially,” Emmott says. He cites research showing the proportion of the world’s population in poverty dropped from 56 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 2000. Because of population growth, the absolute number of people in that category remains large: more than 1.1 billion today. But that is still fewer than in 1990 (1.7 billion) and 1980 (1.9 billion). “Before 1980, the absolute numbers were rising. That date roughly coincides with the spread of trade and internal-market liberalisation to many poor countries.”

More broadly, liberty “has had a fantastic period of advance on all fronts,” Emmott argues. Since 1980, 81 countries have taken “significant” steps towards democracy, with 33 military regimes replaced by civilian governments. Of the world’s nearly 200 countries, 140 hold multi-party elections.

Looking at capitalism’s recent “scandals” in the United States , Emmott notes that the gap between the pay of ordinary workers and top executives in that country widened in the 1990s from around 20 or 30 to one, to 100s or even 1000s to one. In New Zealand , with few exceptions, the range has stayed within earlier US norms. Trends in the US and Britain , he warns, risk “discrediting capitalism in the eyes of the electorate as well as the workforce,” and hand “a ready-made and convincing argument to the critics of both capitalism and of globalisation: the idea that it is all a scam, all a matter of greedy plunder”.

Emmott is hopeful that the campaign for free trade in food and other agricultural produce – which would naturally benefit New Zealand – will continue with greater success. Farm protection in Europe , the US and Japan costs citizens of those countries hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Emmott says supporters of greater economic freedom could form a tactical alliance with the loose coalition of non-governmental organisations that is opposed to globalisation and capitalism yet has come to argue for liberalisation “through gritted teeth” because farm protection in the West holds back economic development in Africa , Latin America and elsewhere. He quotes James Wilson, the founder of The Economist , who wrote in 1843: “We hope to see the day when it will be as difficult to understand how an act of parliament could have been made to restrict the food and employment of the people, as it is now to conceive how… poor, old, wretched women with a little eccentricity were burned by our forefathers for witchcraft.”

Emmott’s defence of an open world economy and the role of business exercised in an honest and responsible way is refreshing. He argues that we should look forward to the future with “paranoid optimism”. Giving cause for more confidence were the results of a Pew Research Centre poll last month, which asked people in poor countries their view of capitalism and globalisation. Overwhelmingly, they wanted more of both. No doubt, reflecting these opinions, “developing countries still seem to want to liberalise their economies”, Emmott concluded.

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