Activists at the annual countercultural gathering against the World Economic Forum under way at the Swiss ski resort of Davos said the meltdown proves the business titans attending the economic forum shouldn't be permitted to help reshape the global economy.
About 30,000 people attended the 10th annual social forum over the last five days in this city near the border with Uruguay, some 500 of whom braved a sweltering conference room to close the event Friday.
They railed against unfettered capitalism they claimed is responsible for corporate greed that saps natural resources and destroys the environment while virtually enslaving the poor in developing nations.
The social forum "projects another vision of the world, not the Washington consensus or the Davos view that free markets are the solution," said Leonardo Dahmer, a member of Brazil's governing Workers Party and a city councilman in the city of Esteio near Porto Alegre. "Even Davos didn't predict the crisis, but we have to be careful because the capitalist system can reorganize itself quickly."
Leftists also said the failure of world leaders to forge a plan to prevent global warming in Copenhagen last month shows they are unable to come up with a solution to save the environment and protect the poor from climate swings that some experts fear could devastate the planet and subsistence farmers.
Instead, they said, the world's most powerful nations are still subject to too much influence by large companies.
"We're in the midst of a crisis caused by capitalism," said Claudia Prates, a Brazilian coordinator for the World March of Women feminist group. "Capitalism treats us like merchandise."
