REGIS DEBRAY: NOUS SOMMES TOUS AMERICAINS HARPER'S MAGAZINE/MAY 2003 $5.95 1,0 -------_._------ THE ECONOMICS OF EMPIRE Notes on the Washington Consensus By William Finnegan -----------. ----------- ROLLTOP MANTRA OF THE OUTER BANKS Creepy but Tranquil in North Carolina By Mark Richard OUR ESSAYS, OURSELVES In Defense of the Big Idea By Cristina Nehring ROMAN BERMAN, MASSAGE THERAPIST A story by David Bezmozgis Also: Mark Slouka and Bill O'Reilly -----------. ----------- REP 0 R T THE ECONOMICS OF EMPIRE Notes on the Washington Consensus By William Finnegan In early March, President Bush, on the verge ·lectual connections with" the terrorists. The Sep- of declaring war on Iraq, was asked at a press con- tember 11 attacks were perpetrated, of course, ference why he thought "so many people around by a genocidal death cult, not by unusually de- the world take a different view of the threat that termined proponents of economic democracy. Saddam Hussein poses than you But what the Bush Adminis- and your allies." Mr. Bush replied, tration is signaling in these mud- "I've seen all kinds of protests dIed formulations (and in many since I've been the president. I less muddled statements-and, remember the protests against for that matter, in many major trade. There was a lot of people policy initiatives) is its transcen- who didn't feel like free trade was dent commitment to a set of fixed good for the world. I completely ideas about international trade, fi- disagree. I think free trade is good nance, politics, and economic de- for both wealthy and impover- velopment. These ideas form a ished nations. That didn't change dogma-George Soros calls it my opinion about trade." "market fundamentalism" -that, Mr. Bush's "opinion about as dogmas do, purports to explain trade" tends to pop up in unlike- everything, to fold every event ly places. Shortly after September into itself. 11, 2001, he declared, "The ter- Sometimes known as the rorists attacked the World Trade "PROTEST AGAINST TRADE," GENOA· Washington Consensus, * other Center, and we will defeat them times simply as "free trade," this by expanding and encouraging world trade." This gospel has been the main American ideological was an odd conflation, and the New York Times, reporting his words, felt obliged to flag the pres- * The term was coined in 1989 by John Williamson, of the ident's confusion with a delicate addendum- Institute for International Economics, to describe the con- "seeming to imply that trade was among the con- ventional wisdom at the U.S. Treasury Department, the cerns of terrorists who brought down the towers." World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund on pol- The United States trade representative, Robert icy reforms that would aid development in Latin America. Williamson later expressed dismay at the "populist defini- B. Zoellick, was less delicate when he suggested tion, "as he called it, of the term that had taken hold in pub- in a speech around the same time that opponents lic debaie, where the Washington Consensus became syn- of corporate-led globalization might have "intel- onymous with market fundamentalism, globally applied. \Villiam Finnegan is the author of Cold New World. This article elaborates on ideas in an essay that will appear in The Fight Is for Democracy, a collection of original essays by nine writers to be published by HarperColiins in September. Photograph © AP IWide World Photos REPORT 41 export since anti-Communism (to which it is re- able to buy it. This is real freedom, the freedom lated) lost strategic relevance. It ispromulgated di- for a person-or a nation-to make a living." rectly through U.S. foreign policy and indirectly This formulation makes vulgar Marxism look through multilateral institutions such as the World subtle and humane. The only "real freedom" is Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the commercial freedom. Free speech, a free press, World Trade Organization. Its core tenets are religious freedom, political freedom-all these deregulation, privatization, "openness" (to for- are secondary at best. There is a lockstep logic eign investment, to imports), unrestricted move- here, an airbrushed history, that suggest a closed ment of capital, and lower taxes. Presented with intellectual system-the capitalist equivalent, special force to developing countries as a formu- perhaps, of Maoism or Wahhabism. la for economic management, it is also, in its full- But beyond the triumphalist theory-and cap- ness, a theory ofhow the world should be run, un- italism obviously has much to be triumphal der American supervision. Attacking America is, about-there is the practice. The Washington therefore, attacking the theory, and attacking the Consensus has been around long enough now theory is attacking America. that results are in from many countries, including The possibility that the Marines and high- from'some of the most diligent followersof its.pol- altitude bombers might need to be involved in icy prescriptions. These results are less than en- spreading the good news about free trade does couraging. Argentina, for instance, did every- not, in context, seem far-fetched. Consider "The thing it was told to do by Washington throughout National Security Strategy of the United States," the 1990s-privatization, deregulation, trade lib- issued by the White House in September 2002. eralization, tax reform-and found itself a much- Presidents are required to submit a security touted example of the virtues of neoliberalismo strategy periodically to Congress, but the Bush until shortly before its collapse in 2001. Today, edition received an unusual amount of attention Argentina is suffering through the worst eco- because of its unprecedented assertionof an Amer- nomic crisis in its history. Yet even major failures ican right to strike U.S. enemies preemptively, as seem not to shake the faith of the true believers well as its vow to maintain American military in the Bush Administration, who include the supremacy over all rivals indefinitely. Just as no- president. Like other fundamentalisms, market table, however, in another way, was the repeat- fundamentalism seems impervious to argument or ed, incongruous insertion of fundamentalist free- inconvenient facts. Inside the muscular church of trade precepts. The Strategy claims to have laissez-faire, broad-brush ideas-all of them es- discovered "a single sustainable model for na- timable in the abstract-get rolled together tional success"-the Washington Consensus. into a mesmerizing, internally coherent mantra. There is, in its au- But vulgarity and obtuseness should not be mis- thors' view, simply taken for sincerity. Not only is the case for Pres- THAT THE MARINES MIGHT NEED no other way. Histo- ident Bush's "opinion" that "free trade is good for ry has validated this both wealthy and impoverished nations" empir- TO BE INVOLYED IN SPREADING THE messianicvision, and ically feeble; there is plenty of evidence that rich the American role in countries, starting with the United States, have GOOD NEWS ABOUT FREE TRADE leading the world to no intention of playing by the trade rules and DOES NOT SEEM FAR-FETCHED its realization on this strictures they foist on poorer, weaker countries as earth. "We will ac- "a single sustainable model." We practice free tively work to bring trade selectively, which is to say not at all, and, the hope of democracy, development, free mar- when it suits our commercial purposes, we ac- kets, and free trade to every corner of the world," tively prevent poor countries from exploiting their the Strategy avows. It even provides a list of pol- few advantages on the world market. While Pres- .icy particulars, such as "lower marginal tax rates" ident Bush extols a simple, sweeping, unexcep- and "pro-growth legal and regulatory policies" tionable creed at every opportunity, however in- (read: weaker environmental and labor laws), appropriate, his administration, guided by figures that it believes every country should adopt. such as Trade Representative Zoellick, pursues a National-security strategy outlines are written far more complex and sophisticated agenda. Theirs by committee, are full of boilerplate, and can- is not an ideology of freedom or democracy. It is not be expected to withstand close literary in- a system of contro!' It is an economics spection. Still, the Bush strategy's attempt to ar- of empire. ticulate a worldview is worth quoting in full: "The concept of 'free trade' arose as a moral prin- Iwas in Bolivia not long ago, and I noticed ciple even before it became a pillar of econom- how every conversation there seemed to turn, in- ics. If you can make something that others val- exorably, toward the topics of development and ue, you should be able to sell it to them. If others exploitation. Angel Villagomez, a retired state make something that you value, you should be road inspector, told me, "It's very sad. Here in 42 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / MAY 2003 Bolivia we are sitting on a chair of gold-oil, dent. The country's small, white, wealthy politi- gas, minerals-and yet all the wealth goes to cal class seemed to have come to a quiet under- foreigners." Villagomez was sitting outside his standing with the international bankers. The house, a simple adobe structure, on a chair of power of the workers and peasants, once orga- plastic. A vigorous, engaging man, he lives in a nized and formidable, wasclearly broken; all of the dusty barrio marginal near the Andean city of major parties were now business aligned. And so Cochabamba. the parties began to trade the presidency around He was right about Bolivia. Although rich in every election cycle, and their leaders found that natural resources, it is the poorest country in South America. Landlocked and thinly populat- ed, it offers a less operatic example, perhaps, of a country struggling with neoliberalism than its neighbor, Argentina, but, in its deep-running underdevelopment and obscurity, a more typi- cal one.