To the Editors.

Short & sweet

The unsigned "Et Cetera," "Message in a Bottle" [June 16], is a literary gem.

HELEN M. HARVEY
Brooklyn, N.Y.

The working poor

Three cheers for your editorial on the working poor [June 16]. Your parting line says, "Building on what already works is the best way to include the poor in the prosperity enjoyed by the majority of their fellow citizens." How true! Unfortunately, good steps pending in Congress are in danger of being lost to end-of-the-year budget haggling. A $1 increase in the minimum wage would immediately help more working families put food on the table. The bipartisan Hunger Relief Act would remove some outdated and unreasonable barriers to the food stamp program. Neither piece of legislation would come close to breaking the bank. In this booming economy, it's unthinkable that we should not lend a helping hand. If not now, when?

AIMEE MOISO
Silver Spring, Md.

The writer works for Bread for the World, a Christian antihunger lobbying organization.

A better idea

Thank you for your editorial ["Something New," June 2] drawing attention to the projected Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies[IACS]; its foundation needs to be given wide attention and support. For some years I tried to sell the idea of a national high-level Catholic "think tank"; for several reasons it did not sell. Now I am glad that it did not, for the IACS is a better idea. If it succeeds it can help realize much of what Christopher Ruddy and his sympathetic critics [see same issue] agree on as the goal of Catholic intellectual life in this country.

As someone who has worked in the area of Catholic theology for some time, I hope the new institute can catalyze creation of a genuine theology of culture that can bridge the gulf between an educated grasp of Christian faith and so much of the secular and alienated intellectual world of our day. If it is able to accomplish this, the institute can truly create common ground within the church and between the church and "the world." IACS can also be a valuable resource for encountering positively the challenges of a church opening up to the non-European parts of the globe. Another hope: that such high-level reflection on Christian thought can be alert to the richness of Latino and Latin American theology, which is only beginning to touch theological activity in the United States.

Finally, I could not agree more with your remarks that the kind of research and reflection envisaged for the institute must embrace such things as the arts, literature, and the professions; without this interaction, theology itself cannot flourish.

BERNARD COOKE
San Diego, Calif.

Globalization & the poor

As a long-time reader of Commonweal, I found the feature article by Jay R. Mandle ["Trading Up," June 2] a great disappointment--especially the headline on the front cover, "Why Globalization Is Good for the Poor." I am not opposed to globalization, which I believe is an inexorable process driven by the determination of capital to maximize profit. Profit itself, of course, is not sinful. But to subordinate everything else to it may well approach the "structures of sin" so often decried by Pope John Paul II and others.

Mandle concedes that globalization entails social and environmental costs, but subordinates these to the apparently overriding values he sees in international trade. He finds the "left-leaning critics of globalization" like William Greider, Lori Wallach, and Ralph Nader as unpersuasive as I find his selective economic data table. I think he misreads the intent of the anti-World Trade Organization demonstrators in Seattle and the anti-International Monetary Fund/World Bank demonstrators in Washington. They would indeed like to close down the WTO, and perhaps the Bank and the Fund as well, not so much because of what these institutions do, but because of how they do it, who benefits, and who decides.

Another point. Mandle's comments about "unrestrained activity of financial managers" suggest that global finance, rather than the traditional production-consumption relation (and surely not demand), drives the market. But there is no discussion of the dominant power of capital or of managing capital flows in terms of the common good. Similarly, there is a note that "disruptions must be managed in order not to burden those least able to adjust." But why not try to prevent these disruptions in the first place? The article says that the world's poor should not be asked "to wait for new global rules to be adopted," but it does not deal with the reasons why such rules cannot be adopted faster.

Finally, the article appears to identify "improvements in overall human well-being" with economic growth. Neither I nor the protesters nor a lot of other people would agree with that view. I was also saddened not to find the word "justice" anywhere in the text. All this having been said, it occurs to me that you should offer an open forum on the issue of globalization in the light of Catholic social teaching.

MARTIN MCLAUGHLIN
Washington, D.C.

Trading up?

In his article on globalization and the poor, Jay R. Mandle acknowledges that those who demonstrated against the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank last November and April were diverse. But he immediately oversimplifies their positions, making it easy for him to criticize their supposed views.

Along with this oversimplification, Mandle commits several other errors. His argument on poverty relies on questionable assumptions, and he conflates arguments against corporate globalization with antiglobalization in general. In the process, he fails to address the demonstrators' real targets, the IMF and the WTO. Curiously, his arguments end up being nearly as critical of free trade as those of the so-called "antiglobalizers."

Mandle's argument that free trade is good for the poor rests on a table that correlates higher per capita GNP and HDI (Human Development Indicator) with higher per capita exports. The problem is that while both per capita GNP and the HDI are good for assessing the average level of development in a society, they are not adequate for determining the real level of poverty in a particular country. That is, the HDI (and per capita GNP) of a country can appear higher than it is if the upper and middle classes are larger or doing better than the upper and middle class of a comparably poor country. What is masked by these statistics is the growing disparity between rich and poor in these countries, and in the world. While the ratio between the incomes of the world's richest 20 percent and of the world's poorest 20 percent was 30:1 in 1960, that ratio increased to over 70:1 by 1995. Furthermore, according to the World Bank itself, the worldwide poverty rate has held steady in the past ten years, even though trade has steadily increased. More subjective World Bank data, based on 60,000 interviews with poor people in sixty developing countries, state that the poor generally feel that they are worse off now than they were before.

Mandle does not provide any proof that high exports caused the higher GNP and HDI. Perhaps it was the other way around. Or, perhaps there are other more important intervening variables, ones that have to do with circumstances of culture, geography, and/or history. Finally, not all international trade is necessarily free. The most successful exporting countries, such as Japan, China, and the "Asian tigers" have had tremendous success with international trade without it being "free" since they extensively protected their own markets.

What the globalization protesters oppose is the special rights and privileges accorded to corporations that ordinary citizens do not have, such as the ability to move to any part of the globe, to invest irresponsibly, to demand access without suffering the restrictions of local laws governing the environment, workplace safety, or rights. In short, what they oppose is the globalization of corporations on the corporations' own terms.

It is the IMF and the WTO that are driving this form of corporate globalization, by making sure that third-world governments implement "neoliberalism" as their guiding social and economic policy. That is why they have become the primary objects of criticism for the protesters. Mandle fails to respond to their critique. Instead, he criticizes environmentalists and labor unions for linking regulation with free trade. In actuality, international trade and financial institutions have already made this linkage by trying to dismantle most domestic regulations.

Certainly those who protest corporate globalization are critical of free trade, but, as Mandle himself suggests, there is merit to these criticisms. For example, he mentions the need for governments to aid workers in making transitions as countries develop economically; the need for global capital market regulation; and the need for international agreements in environmental protection and worker rights.

If the defenders of corporate globalization would only pay more careful attention to what its critics are actually saying, perhaps we could have a real debate on the issue.

GREGORY WILPERT
New York, N.Y.

The author replies:

I thank Gregory Wilpert and Martin McLaughlin for their stimulating responses to my article.

My paper acknowledged that the people who demonstrated in Seattle did not speak with one voice. Wilpert maintains that I oversimplify the position of the Seattle anti-WTO demonstrators, but I continue to believe that "one element that links these groups is the belief that international trade is injurious to the poor and of benefit primarily to the wealthy." As I read them, both Wilpert and McLaughlin share this attitude.

My view is that international trade is good for the poor because it promotes growth, and that growth in turn is the only way to tackle the injustice of mass poverty in the third world. Trade raises a society's income, permitting increased wages for workers. Rather than a threat, globalization should be seen as a weapon in the fight against impoverishment.

I also called for policies to reduce currency and financial market speculation, to support workers who are dislocated as industry takes root in the third world, and to negotiate labor and environmental standards. But this should be done without holding trade hostage to those talks. My point is that defending trade does not make it necessary to be a neoliberal defender of unregulated markets.

I support job retraining and a system of income maintenance for workers who are dislocated by expanding trade for the same reason that I support such programs for workers who lose their jobs because of advances in technology. Society as a whole--in the case of trade, the global society--benefits from both advancing productivity and increased global sales. Both make available more goods and services than would be the case in their absence. Each, however, is also disruptive, creating innocent victims. Technological change creates new opportunities, but shuts down others. Trade means more jobs in industries that successfully export, but reduced employment in others. I don't think there is any way to avoid these realities, but I do think that the costs should be borne by the entire community, not by its most vulnerable members.

Wilpert claims that World Bank data show that the "worldwide poverty rate has held steady in the past ten years." I have in front of me the most recent World Bank study on the subject. It shows a reduction in the poverty rate in East Asia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East/North Africa between 1990 and 1998. Only in countries in transition from communism did the rate increase. Interestingly, the reduction in poverty was greatest in East Asia, where trade growth was the most dramatic. Similar studies reject the argument that globalization is associated with increased income inequality. Readers interested in looking at the figures for themselves can find them in "Assessing Globalization" at the World Bank's web site, http://www.worldbank.org. At the site, click on "briefing papers."

What disturbs me is that leading spokespersons in the antiglobalization movement advocate a shift to greater self-sufficiency, although both economic theory and empirical experience point in the opposite direction. In doing this they at best are risking the well-being of those in desperate need, and at worst are supplying cover for protectionists in the United States intent on shielding themselves from competition in order to earn monopolistic profits.

JAY R. MANDLE

Gays & the scouts

Having read both the May 19 editorial ["Scout's Honor"] and the June 16 editorial comment in the Correspondence section on the case of James Dale and the Boy Scouts of America, we have to make a brief comment. The whole question of James Dale's qualifications to be a scout leader seems to boil down to his ability to perform in view of his homosexual orientation. Nowhere in the initial editorial or in the editorial reply was there any mention of the Catholic church's teaching: "They [homosexuals] must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." We are, of course, quoting from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2358.

GEORGE AND ELLEN CURRAN
Glen Mills, Pa.

Leahy's reading list

Dennis O'Brien's article, "Vermont's Leahy" [June 16], was very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am sixty-four years old and have lived twenty-seven years in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Because of the latter, I suppose, I have always followed politics closely. The number of politicians I have truly admired could be counted on both hands. Senator Leahy is one. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo is another. I learned from reading O'Brien's article that Leahy, like Cuomo, has a passion for Teilhard de Chardin. The article says that Leahy is a voracious reader, was a close friend of Henri Nouwen, and has read The Phenomenon of Man many times. I heard Cuomo once state that he kept a copy of Teilhard's The Divine Milieu on his desk and reread it frequently.

As Joseph Brodsky once said, "If we chose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth."

EARL REICHERT
Burke, Va.

Prep schools & God

As a former private school and current Jesuit school teacher, I must respond to Michael McGough's article "God and Man at Prep School" [May 19]. In my experience, private nondenominational schools exist simply to educate the wealthy while offering little coherent moral guidance. If there is a vision, it is an afterthought. The mission statements so popular among these schools are generally bland and indistinct and composed in response to criticism about the schools' vacuous elitism. Some faculty members may bring their own values to the school, but, if the institution does not elicit a common vision from its faculty, it will not convey that vision to its students. If Catholic schools cherish the values of faith, hope, and love, and public schools adhere to the values of democracy and citizenship, what values do independent schools invoke?

MARTIN KILBRIDGE
Rochester, N.Y.