G.P. replies: Troy is currently in Mexico, so we are holding a longer and more substantive letter critiquing his article (and more specific to Argentina) for a response. This one, however, was so novel, and dumb, we just couldn't wait to print it. If I understand Mr. Bjornson correctly, all those anarchists who hate the WTO and IMF should be celebrating them, because they abolish laws. And anyone he doesn't like is a socialist who pines for the good ol' days in Moscow. Please.

We dignify this with a response only to make a point routinely missed by people who believe that "Eat the State!" refers, and that we think all societal problems flow, from the traditional nation-state government. Were we in such an idyllic world. Those problems are bad enough--but they have in many ways been superceded in the last 30 years by the corporate state model, wherein economic elites increasingly control public policy (and opinion) in a way that frequently both crosses national borders and trumps what feeble concessions to true democracy the already problematic national governments allow.

To vastly oversimplify: the reason all those window-breaking anarchists hate the WTO is that it, and all those other neoliberal institutions, are A BIGGER GOVERNMENT. One that is just as intent as all other governments on expanding its own power, and one that is even more completely unaccountable to you or I. We live in a real world that is now carved into territories and legal codes, and institutions like the WTO, IMF, etc. are not abolishing that structure--they are amending it, by abolishing some features and creating others, to advance their private interests, and to the detriment, many of us believe, of the freedom and economic well-being of most people, for the enrichment of the powerful few. That model has been inflicted on developed and underdeveloped economies alike, and the result, invariably, is that a few people (allies of the rulemakers) get much richer, and most of us get somewhat poorer, or work harder to stay in place. And the gap is rapidly widening.

To note only one simple example that has nothing to do with tariffs: why is it that corporations can (essentially) freely cross borders, but labor forces cannot? In a truly free market, Mr. Bjornson, when the Argentinian peso is decoupled from the US dollar and plummets in value, all those desperate Argentinians would be free to come here for better pay. Why is it the US has a big wall from San Diego to Brownsville instead?