Sir, - In George Bush's immortal words: "We know what works. The free market works!" Ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall, as your series on Eastern Europe has demonstrated, many Eastern Europeans do not share his assurance.
The free market is making remarkable strides and the world economy is booming. As Mr Tom Kitt has said in the Dail: "Since 1951, global trade has grown 17-fold, world production has more than quadrupled, and world per capita income has doubled." This is why Ireland supports the common European position in the next round of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation which is about to open in Seattle. Indeed, the Minister assured the Dail that Ireland had participated fully in the preparation of EU positions.
In Seattle, the EU will be arguing for a comprehensive trade round, involving a broad range of issues: trade, investment, services (including health and education), government procurements: everything should be on the table. This will be the Millennium Round, the triumph of the free market.
Yet we should bear in mind that while the free market economy has given obscene wealth to some, it has also obscenely increased the gap between rich and poor countries and the gap between the rich and the poor within even the richest countries.
In 1998, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that the wealth of the three most well-to-do individuals exceeded the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries.
In Ireland, your recent MRBI poll shows that many people prefer social inclusion to the divided world which market forces engender when left to their own devices. We know only too well that the rising tide does not lift all boats and that a level playingfield serves only to further favour the strongest players. - Yours, etc.,
Claudine Gaidoni, Ailesbury Grove, Dundrum, Dublin 16.