ANTI-GLOBALISATION PROTEST

Anti-Globalisation Protest



Anti-Globalisation Protest

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Exaggerating the perils of globalization4

Different aspects of globalization4

Globalization today: different from yesterday4

A trilogy of discontents4

Anti-capitalism4

Anti-globalization4

Anti-corporation attitudes4

References4

Bibliography4

Anti-Globalisation Protest

Introduction

Globalization first became a buzzword. Davos and the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman celebrated its virtues, its inevitability. But then came the anti -globalizers. Globalization then became a more conventional four-letter word. The Ruckus Society and the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proclaimed its vices, its vincibility.

As this dialectic has unfolded, it is tempting to think that there is a primeval curse on the phenomenon. After all, if you care to count, globalization is in fact a thirteen-letter word. It has become by now a phenomenon that is doomed to unending controversy, the focal point of always hostile passions and sometimes violent protests. It is surely a defining issue as we move further into the new century (Wolf, 2002). The reasons this has happened cry out for comprehension. Without such understanding, and then informed refutation of the fears and follies that animate the anti -globalizers, we cannot adequately defend the globalization that many of us seek to sustain, even deepen.

What is the globalization that is in contention? Globalization can mean many things. Here, however, I plan to focus exclusively on economic globalization; indeed, that is what I shall mean when I simply say “ globalization ” throughout this book. Economic globalization constitutes integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity generally, and flows of technology: phenomena defined and treated more fully below.

Economic globalization is the favored target of many of the critics of globalization. It is distinct from other aspects of globalization, such as cultural globalization (which is affected by economic globalization) and communications (which is among the factors that cause the deepening of economic globalization) .

Second, however, there are the critics of globalization whose discontents are well within the parameters of mainstream dissent and discourse. In their essence, these discontents translate into the arguments that economic globalization is the cause of several social ills today, such as poverty in poor countries and deterioration of the environment worldwide. These critiques, which amount in my view to a gigantic non sequitur, are of a very different order from the hard-core criticisms, which reflect implacable hostility to globalization. The former are susceptible to, indeed invite, reasoned engagement. These critiques need an extended and careful response. I provide that by demonstrating that, in fact, the various social causes that we all embrace, such as advancement of gender equality and reduction of poverty, are advanced, not set back, by globalization.

In particular, the average industrial protection in the poor countries is still significantly higher than in the rich countries and why protection in the rich countries has not been reduced more on labor-intensive industrial products have nothing to do with hypocrisy. In agriculture, there are extensive tariffs in the importing poor countries as well. Moreover, significant subsidies, often through heavily subsidized inputs such as water ...