Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement is an international campaign that opposes corporate globalization and the institutions that facilitate it, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Activists within this movement argue that corporate globalization concentrates power among multinational corporations and financial institutions, leading to erosion of democracy, loss of national sovereignty, environmental degradation, and growing income inequality. The movement encompasses a diverse coalition of groups and individuals who share concerns about neoliberal economic policies, which they believe exacerbate exploitation and inequality.
While commonly associated with protests at major summits and events, like the "Battle in Seattle" in 1999, the roots of anti-globalization activism can be traced back to earlier events, including the Zapatista uprising in Mexico and the protests against the Vietnam War. Participants generally advocate for a redefinition of globalization that emphasizes equitable wealth distribution and social justice, rather than outright opposition to international integration. However, there is no unified ideology among them, leading to various interpretations of how best to address the issues they highlight. Additionally, some analysts caution that elements of the anti-globalization narrative may be co-opted by political agendas or elites, complicating the movement's authenticity and objectives.
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Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement is a loosely organized international campaign that opposes corporate globalization and the institutions that facilitate it. In this context, corporate globalization broadly refers to economic development furthered by international financial institutions and the private interests of large multinational companies. Antiglobalists contend that such activities concentrate disproportionate amounts of power in the hands of corporations and banks, while eroding democracy, undermining the sovereignty of nations, degrading natural environments, and fueling increased levels of wealth and income inequality.
Political analysts are divided as to whether the anti-globalization movement can properly be considered a single campaign or whether it is more accurately defined as a vague coalition of activist groups with similar ends and objectives. Commentators note that antiglobalists come from a diverse range of social and political backgrounds and do not have a unified ideology or a consensus view on what an alternative approach to global development should look like.
Background
In 1944, delegates representing forty-four countries convened in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. This symposium, widely known as the Bretton Woods Conference, is often cited as the origin of twentieth-century globalism.
The objective of the Bretton Woods Conference was to reach an international consensus on the structure of a global economic system for the postwar world. At the time, World War II (1939–1945) was ending, and international leaders perceived the need for a new and stable global economic order. The delegates agreed that shared access to open markets provided the clearest route to universal prosperity.
To achieve this, the Bretton Woods Conference built on key points expressed in the 1941 Atlantic Charter, a policy statement developed by the United States and the United Kingdom and ratified by the Allied bloc of nations that opposed Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II. According to the fourth point of the Atlantic Charter, all nations should be able to have equal access to trade and to natural resources needed to thrive economically. The charter's fifth point noted the need for all nations to economically advance while improving labor standards and social security. It was in this spirit that the Bretton Woods Conference concluded with the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The IMF was tasked with preserving an exchange rate system that tied the values of currencies and commodities to gold and the US dollar. The IBRD took charge of financing the rebuilding of nations devastated by the World Wars and accelerating economic growth in developing countries.
Supported by an ever-widening institutional and bureaucratic framework championed by the United Nations and the United States, the globalist vision endorsed by the Bretton Woods Conference gained increasing momentum during the second half of the twentieth century. This led to a far-reaching embrace of a brand of international economics known as neoliberalism, which drew inspiration from the laissez-faire economic philosophies of the nineteenth century. Neoliberalist policies support market competition, industrial privatization, foreign investment, the reduction of trade barriers, and the open movement of capital. By the late twentieth century, a highly integrated global economy had emerged. Globalization had reached maturity, bringing with it the issues that preoccupy that anti-globalization movement.
Overview
While the anti-globalist worldview encompasses a diverse range of opinions regarding the negative aspects of globalism, the emergent movement generally contends that neoliberalism has directly contributed to problems such as labor and resource exploitation, environmental degradation, and a widening income gap between the rich and the poor. Antiglobalists tend to be highly critical of United Nations–backed institutions and organizations, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, IMF, and the Group of Eight (G8) and Group of Twenty (G20) political-economic forums. The cultural and economic dominance of the United States is also considered a major driver of the globalist agenda, and, as such, it is among the anti-globalization movement's favored targets.
One of the first high-profile incidents involving an organized faction of anti-globalist activists took place in 1999 in Seattle, Washington, when demonstrators violently clashed with police during that year's WTO Ministerial Conference. Widely known as the "Battle in Seattle," the event earned widespread media coverage. Yet, a common refrain in the anti-globalist community is that "it didn't start in Seattle." Previous events involving Mexico's Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) are often cited anti-globalization manifestations. On New Year's Day, 1994—the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect—the EZLN launched an armed uprising against the Mexican Army. Two years later, the EZLN convened a summit known as the International Encounter for Humanity against Neoliberalism, which was attended by about 5,000 people representing 40 countries. Some analysts even classify activist opposition to the Vietnam War (1955–1975) during the 1960s as an early chapter in anti-globalist history.
Since 1999, the WTO, World Bank, IMF, G8, and G20 have routinely drawn the attention of large, organized protest groups during their official meetings and summits. Such events have occurred in cities around the world, including Washington, DC; Prague, Czech Republic; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and others. The Occupy movement, which began in New York in 2011 and subsequently spread to more than 1,500 other cities, is also associated with antiglobalization activism. Its original incarnation, Occupy Wall Street, claims on its official website to fight against the 1 percent of people who control the majority of the world's wealth and who help define the economic rules that make the global system unfair for everyone else.
Mostly, members of the anti-globalization movement are not opposed in principle to international economic and cultural integration. Rather, they seek to renegotiate the terms of globalization to prevent exploitative practices and facilitate the more equitable distribution of wealth. However, there is currently no universally accepted, unified vision of how this might be achieved.
Anti-globalist sentiment has, on occasion, been appropriated to further specific agendas. In 2015, The Moscow Times reported that a Moscow conference of anti-globalist separatists had the unofficial backing of the Russian government, presumably due to antiglobalism's strategic value as a cultural weapon against American political and economic hegemony. Other commentators have written about the phenomenon of "manufacturing dissent," a concept that invokes the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, cowritten by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Some adherents of the manufacturing dissent viewpoint contend that the anti-globalization movement actually draws material support from the very elites it claims to fight, with the elites offering this support to generate a tangible, concrete picture of the extent of organized opposition to their control of global resources.
Bibliography
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