ANTI-GLOBALIZATION

A diverse range of protest movements and actions invoking a common element of opposition to the dominant model of globalization and, by extension, the ideology underlying this opposition.

"The growing trend toward anti-globalization activism is directed, first, against ‘big business'—multinational corporate power—and, second, against ‘big money'—global agreements on economic growth. Allegations of exploitive labour and human-rights abuses reach back to the mid-1990s when a number of corporations producing major brand name products, such as Nike sneakers, Gap jeans, and Starbucks coffee, were accused of union-busting, sweatshop working conditions, and child labour practices on a global scale."
(Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc., Antiglobalization, visited 2009-05-2009)

"The book No Logo represents a bible for anti-corporate, anti-globalization activism. The basic perspective is that multinational corporations have become so big that they have superseded governments and have become the ruling political bodies of our era. Unlike governments, multinational corporations are accountable only to their shareholders and there are no mechanisms in place to make them ‘put people before profits.' According to Naomi Klein, corporate rule has been associated with […] the corporate assault on civic space: the surrender of culture and education to marketing, […] on civil liberties: how the forces of predatory franchising and mergers have reduced cultural choice [and] on employment: how multinationals have been freeing themselves from the burden of having employees."
(Segerstrom, P. S., Naomi Klein and the Anti-Globalization Movement, 2008, visited 2009-05-26)

Anti-globalization encompasses all campaigns concerning labour conditions (including child labour and slave labour), environmental destruction, bio-hazards, animal rights, social justice, Third World development and debt, and politically oppressive regimes.

Anti-globalization focuses on two main actors:

• Multinational corporations, deemed to wield significant political and economic power without being subject to the constraints of democratic accountability;
• International bodies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, which anti-globalization protestors believe sponsor and facilitate this corporate power (their meetings have thus also been the targets of protest).

Anti-globalization promotes three major changes in the global economy:

• The development of an economic system aimed at fulfilling social needs rather than at profit making;
• The application of sustainability principles to economic production, so as to halt the destruction of natural resources;
• An increase in international cooperation through fair trade and democratic global governance, in order to counterbalance private interests.

The term can be seen as a misnomer, as anti-globalization refers to anti-globalization actors and activities as well as those in favour of a different globalization. Some observers differentiate the two trends by using terms such as anti-corporate activism or alter-globalization, but until now anti-globalization has been much more widely used.

Anti-globalization appeared in the 1980s when Third World countries started questioning their debt to the International Monetary Fund. It spread to the Western world in the 1990s and gained huge media coverage at the 1999 Seattle demonstrations. Since then, major anti-globalization protests have occurred at a number of recent meetings of international financial and trade organizations. As well as these specific protests, anti-globalization has also attracted groups more generally opposed to liberal capitalism. As it is an extremely diverse network, it seeks coordination through yearly World Social Forums (which parallel the World Economic Forums held each year in Davos).