Hypocrisy is how we should describe Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's unalloyed endorsement of street demos. Street demos could serve as a wake-up call, he told the United Nations Trade and Development conference in Bangkok on Saturday. After all, he banned reformasi rallies in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and these, unlike those in Seattle and Davos, were peaceful.

That aside, Mahathir is right about the need for Third World countries to band together against the predatory power of unfettered global capitalism. That, however, is easier said than done. Third World solidarity only goes as far as national interests allow. Beyond that, it is back to the dog-eat-dog world.

Worse still, most, if not all, governments are very much captivated by the seductive power of capitalism, chiefly because the elites who control the levers of government stand to gain most from it.

Development, so they say, is about increasing growth in our production, and thus consumption. And as the economy grows, market forces will ensure that some will trickle down to those who do not directly get a share of the booty. Sooner or later, everybody will be better off.

That's the theory. The reality, however, is very different.

Indeed, the theory bandied by the economic gurus contradicts what we see around us. We are facing stupendous disparities between not only rich and poor countries, but also between rich and poor people, between urban and rural areas, between the landed and the dispossessed, between men and women. We are also facing the colossal challenge posed by the limits of energy supplies, resources, pollution, wastes and the destruction to the ecosystems.

Despite five decades of post-war development, people in many parts of the Third World are worse off than before. They can forget about catching up with the rich world.

Don't take our word for it. Ask the experts.

"Even if the growth rate of the poor countries doubled, only seven would close the gap with the rich nations in 100 years. Only another nine would reach our level in 1,000 years," said former World Bank president Robert McNamara.

Two centuries ago, rich countries were about 1.5 times richer than poor countries. Today, rich countries are 60 times wealthier. No wonder, the members of the poor countries' club - those worse off than before - increased from 25 in 1971 to 48 today.

Clearly, growth does not trickle down. It gushes up.

Today the lives of billions of people are being controlled, deformed and destroyed by decisions made by their governments, by multinational corporations, by agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and by big power summits like World Trade Organisation.

Herein lies the message for Mahathir. If he wants Third World countries to fight against big powers' domination of the world, then he should be better advised to bring genuine democracy in Malaysia. After all, Malaysians cannot be expected to organise against the forces of imperialism when they are not allowed to organise themselves.

But one thing is certain. Governments cannot be relied upon to save us from the mess that they put us in the first place. It is the transborder political actions of the people resisting the power of global capitalism, and building an "economy of enough" based on grassroot democracy, economic decentralisation, and regional self-sufficiency, that will produce the necessary changes.

In that, the demonstrators in Seattle, Davos and Bangkok - foreign rabble rousers much feted by Mahathir - are showing the way.