On November 30, 1999, clouds of tear gas drifted through downtown Seattle, and the facade of inevitability surrounding the ascendance of corporate-led globalization was shattered. That week, some 50,000 protesters—union members, environmentalists, family farmers, indigenous rights activists, faith-based groups, and solidarity organizations—had converged on the city to confront global elites attending the ministerial meetings of the World Trade Organization, or WTO. They criticized the organization for overriding public health and environmental protections passed at the local and national level, and they identified it as part of an economic model that trapped workers in a “race to the bottom” as capital moved in search of ever more exploitable labor.
Usually when demonstrators declare their intent to “shut it down,” the rallying cry can be written off as bravado—but not in Seattle. A people’s barricade of the city’s convention center forced a cancellation of the meeting’s opening session. Drawing from British “Reclaim the Streets” actions, the protests surrounded the lockdown with celebratory carnival. Stilt-walkers dressed as butterflies commingled with workers in union jackets. Meanwhile, an anarchist marching band provided musical accompaniment, feminist dance troops performed in blocked intersections, and giant puppets—still novel at the time—stalked the streets.
By the week’s end, amid internal dissent from emboldened delegates from the Global South, the talks collapsed. As a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times put it,”the unruly forces of democracy collided with the elite world of trade policy. And when the meeting ended in failure…the elitists had lost and [the] debate was changed forever.”
To understand Seattle, it is important to remember the dominant political mood. For 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, champions of unfettered capitalism had promoted the idea that the age of ideological contest had ended and that their vision had won. When it came to international economics, they held tight to Margaret Thatcher’s words: “There is no alternative.”