Delegates to the G-8 summit begin meeting Wednesday in a luxurious German resort on the Baltic coast. We shall know in due time if this annual talking-shop for the world’s eight richest nations, this time joined by delegations from China and India as well as Russia, comes anywhere near the ambitions of its German hosts.

For the moment, attention is focused on events taking place 16 miles away in the port of Rostock where as many as 100,000 anti-globalization protesters are expected to gather by the time the G-8 deliberations get under way. Unfortunately, this demonstration has already been marred by violence. Some of the 13,000 German police deployed in the area have clashed with a fringe of protesters bent on confrontation.

The problem is that there is only one thing that unifies the many disparate political and environmental groups. They come together to protest what they see as the evils of an uncaring and acquisitive capitalist order. Agitators hellbent on stirring up trouble are able to mingle with the vast crowds and wait for a chance to provoke the authorities. At least the German courts have banned a planned counterdemonstration by neo-Nazis that would most certainly have led to violence.

There are those who think that all demonstrations should have been banned. This would have been a mistake. The anti-globalization movement is largely wrong in its analysis of the world’s economic and political ills. Economic growth breeds wealth. The distribution of that wealth may be inequitable but it nevertheless does feed down to the poorest. Prosperity creates jobs and new business opportunities and funds education, health and welfare. That has been the lesson of history. There never was a nirvana of benign vegetarians where everyone lived together in peace and mutual respect. Economic growth has come through the cut and thrust of capitalism.

However, the fact that so many decent people think that international capitalism is wrong deserves to be taken into account. However daft some of the proposed alternatives, they do generally represent a moral stance which the political leaders of the rich West ignore at their peril. Capitalism has its unpleasant aspects, not least when commercial rivalry has led to war. The presence of a vocal minority on the fringes of the G-8 summits is arguably a good thing, because it will help keep the rich First World honest.

Globalization has shrunk the world. Interconnected markets move together and within them multinationals are subjected to increasingly stringent corporate governance. Areas such as labor exploitation or the prohibitive pricing of drugs for the Third World are now regularly highlighted and changed, precisely because of globalization. It is not always ideal. There are injustices. And the opponents of an integrated world economy are only doing us all a service by pinpointing and protesting them. They therefore deserve their platform.