market shall make you free, The

Spectator, The, Jun 24, 2000 by Michlethwait, John, Wooldridge, Adrian

More fundamentally, the basic act of globalisation -breaking down barriers - is essential for culture. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, even modern English fiction have all gained from the promiscuous mixing of cultures. It was Sparta, not Athens, that tried to preserve its culture from alien corruption. Milton called cities the `mansion houses of liberty' precisely because they were the places where ideas and people mixed. Globalisation simply helps that happen on a, well, global scale.

It might seem a little pretentious to bandy around the word `liberty' in a debate normally dominated by the dry, etiolated language of economics - by charts showing exports as a proportion of GDP and current-account deficits. That in itself is a sign of how far the idea of globalisation has slipped. At one time arguments about free trade, free expression and the free movement of people marched hand in hand. In the battle against the Corn Laws, opponents invoked not just liberal economists, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, but liberal philosophers such as Mill and Locke. It is time to give that some air again.

Globalisation is not a perfect process. It throws up awkward problems - be they desperate immigrants, ridiculous films or those greedy people at Goldman Sachs. It subjects us all to perhaps unwelcome competition. But compare it with its alternative - culture ministries subsidising films on Morris Dancing or bigots vilifying people just because they want to come here and work - and you realise that even Mission Impossible 2 is a small price to pay for freedom.

The authors work for the Economist. Their book, A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation, is published on 6 July by William Heinemann.