Here's a nice extract from an interview in today's paper by Michael Moore,
the head of the World Trade Organisation. Not, as the interviewer Jeremy
Paxman put it, the presenter of Video Nation - if he was head of the WTO,
the world would be getting really interesting! He is desperately trying to
appear a friend of the environment and Third World in advance of the latest
carve-up / riot in Seattle at the weekend.
"Reflecting the feeling in the capitals of many developing countries, he
said that attempts to write labour and environmental standards into trade
deals amounted to cultural imperialism and back door protectionism.
'What it really means is people in the West saying 'You must accept our
values, our norms.' It is very superficial and western to say all of us must
lower our living standards. That's easy to say when you are on $100,000 a
year [How many of the protesters are??], not so easy when you are on $100 a
year.'"
Starvation is part of the culture? Or perhaps child labour? Funny how this
happens to coincide with the interests of the multinationals.
No further comment is necessary, except to say that there might be grounds
for an interesting coalition between Moore and some of the more extreme
cultural relativists.
Bruce Robinson