Unlikely allies: Oxfam & globalization. (Of Several Minds).

Kudos to Oxfam International. Last April, the England-based humanitarian and advocacy network issued a massive report on the global trading system and its impact--real and potential--on the world's poor. The thrust of its message is devastatingly simple: rich countries are hypocritical when they push poor countries to open up their economies to international trade yet keep their own markets (particularly in agricultural and other primary goods) closed, protected, or heavily subsidized. "World trade has the potential to act as a powerful motor for the reduction of poverty, as well as for economic growth," declares Oxfam, "but that potential is being lost. The problem is not that international trade is inherently opposed to the needs and interests of poor people," explains the report (available at www.marketradefair.com), but that the rules tend to favor rich nations. Titled Rigged Rules and Double Standards, the document accurately portrays the current anti- and protrade debates as next to useless: "Both worldviews fly in the face of the evidence--and neither offers any hope for the future."

The Oxfam report is far from perfect. Its manipulation of trade projections is unconventional, to put it mildly, and some of its recommendations (such as the creation of a new global institution to oversee international commodities markets) feel unworkable and even contradict the free-trade impulse that seems to underlie the document. Yet the report's main message is valid and--coming from a brand-name nonprofit group traditionally linked to antiglobalization activism--unprecedented. Unfortunately, the response by free traders and antiglobalizers alike has been disappointing in the extreme. Rather than praise Oxfam for its courage in seeking common ground, both sides have been sharply critical of the report, distorting its message to fit their own needs and seizing on the report's admitted flaws and inconsistencies to dismiss the entire exercise.

Antiglobalization activists have quickly branded Oxfam a traitor to their amorphous "cause"--an unexpected reaction in a movement usually seeking to present at least a veneer of consensus despite the wildly divergent views and motivations of its members. Walden Bello, executive director of the Bangkok-based nonprofit Focus on the Global South, blasts the report for buying into "the paradigm of export-oriented growth" that the World Trade Organization peddles to poor countries. Meanwhile, the Institute for Food and Development Policy laments that Oxfam "has chosen to undermine the demands of social movements and think tanks in the developing South." (The institute, by the way, is based in Oakland, California.)

Oxfam's report doesn't find many adherents in the protrade camp either. Philip Bowring of the International Herald Tribune argues that the report will only "increase opposition to freer trade," especially among rich nations, and will "strengthen those who do the most damage to developing countries: Western critics of globalization." Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf highlights the document's rhetorical devices (such as calling for "fair trade") to conclude that Oxfam is "playing directly into the hands of Northern protectionists" and that Oxfam's search for a middle ground merely produces a wishy-washy "intellectual swamp."

The result is an almost comic display of paranoia and misdirection. Free traders accuse Oxfam of closet globophobia, while antiglobalists decry Oxfam's traitorous defection to the free-trade camp. This feedback only confirms Oxfam's dim view of the current globalization standoff. The globophobes refuse to budge on their antitrade stance, even if the trade reforms Oxfam calls for would help poor citizens in low-income countries--ostensibly the goal of antiglobalization activists. Meanwhile, the free traders refuse to acknowledge the widespread shortcomings and contradictions of the current system, even if some of Oxfam's proposed reforms would move the world toward a system of truly "free" and open commerce--ostensibly the goal of the proglobalization orthodoxy.

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies," wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in his Human, All Too Human. In this case, the convictions (and self-interest) of antiglobalization activists and the proglobalization establishment threaten to obscure the important message that Oxfam has courageously put forward. At the same time, both sides are missing a rare opportunity that the Oxfam report has provided--the chance to join forces in pursuit of common goals. Carlos Lozada is senior editor of Foreign Policy magazine.