Brecher Etal 00 Globalizn From Below

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December 4, 2000 The Nation. 19

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IS THE KEY TO CONSOLIDATING THE LEGACY OF SEATTLE.

Globalization From Below

In the year since the Battle of Seattle, inter-

national demonstrations from Washington,

DC, to Okinawa and from Bangkok to Prague

have confronted and sometimes halted meet-

ings of the WTO, IMF, World Bank and other

instruments of globalization. They have hadsuc-

cesses that could not have been imagined just

a year ago. They have reframed the debate on

globalization, put its advocates on the defensiveand forced change in the rhetoric if not the ac-

tions of world leaders and global institutions.

Such confrontations will no doubt continue to play an im-

portant role, but the limits to simply rallying for the next Seattle

are becoming increasingly clear. Is this just a movement of

meeting-stalkers, as Naomi Klein has put it [see The Vision

Thing, July 10], or can it develop the grassroots power and broad

social vision that might make real change? To answer that ques-

tion, one must look beyond dramatic confrontations at interna-

tional conferences, which are only a media-grabbing extension

of a far broader movement that international law scholar Richard

Falk has called globalization from below.

Globalization from below has emerged from diverse concernsand experiences. Environmentalists identified globalization as a

source of acid rain and global warming and saw global corpora-

tions and the World Bank sponsoring the destruction of local en-

vironments around the world. Poor peoples movements in the

Third World and their supporters around the globe saw neoliberal-

ism, international financial capital and structural adjustment as

key causes of global poverty. Advocates for

small farmers in both the First and Third Worlds

identified new trade agreements as a means to

destroy family farming in the interest of agri-

business. Labor movements realized that inter-

national capital mobility was leading not to

mutual benefit for workers but to competitive

wage-cutting. Womens movements identified

workers exploited in the global sweatshop aspredominantly women and structural adjustment

as an attack on public programs that women par-

ticularly need. Consumer movements identified neoliberalism

and new trade agreements as attacks on high national standards

for food and product safety. College students became outraged

that products bearing their schools logos were being made by

children and women forced to work sixty or more hours per

week for less than a living wage.

These disparate developments are all responses to what Falk

has called globalization from above, an epochal change that in-

volves far more than international organizations like the WTO,

IMF and World Bank. It represents the globalization of produc-

tion, markets and finance; the global restructuring of corporationsand work; the development of new technologies like the Internet;

a radically changed role for the state; the dominance of neoliberal

ideology; large-scale tourism and poverty-induced immigration;

worldwide media domination by the culture of corporate global-

ism; and a neo-imperialism that has concentrated control of poor

countries in the hands of First World investors. At its heart lies the

ability of capital to move freely around the world, resulting in the

dynamic often referred to as the race to the bottom, a destructive

competition in which workers, communities and entire countries

are forced to gut social, labor and environmental protections to

attract mobile capital. Despite the medias focus on the flight of

JEREMY BRECHER, TIM COSTELLO AND BRENDAN SMITH

Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith are the authors of the

new bookGlobalization From Below: The Power of Solidarity (South

End) and producers of the documentary video Global Village or Glob-

al Pillage? (www.villageorpillage.org).

LARSLEET

ARU

job, thank you.The citizen-bureaucrats in Washington have been

here too long, and theyve gotten too cushy with the Democrats.

Bush got twelve times the Democrats I did in Florida. Thats the

problem. Asked about Sweeney, he shows his irritation: Heres

the Democratic Party, which cant win without organized labor,

and it gives organized labor none of the programs and principles

organized labor needs to grow. Instead, it gives them NAFTA, the

China trade legislation and no mention of revising the antilabor

Taft-Hartley Act. Yet heres a guyhes referring to himselfwho fought for OSHA and is way ahead on other policies for

organized labor, and his campaign is reprehensible? This can

only fill one with pity. Theyre on their knees, begging Gore and

the DLC for crumbs. Its pathos.

Nader does not seem worried about being perceived as a rogue

or enemy by leaders of progressive groups. Now people are say-

ing we better not come to [public interest] coalition meetings,

Nader says. Well, theythe Washington establishmentshut

out progressive civil society a long time ago. And Nader says he

doesnt give a damn about breaking ties with once-sympathetic

Democratic legislators. The ties havent been there. They said no

to us on NAFTA, WTO, the telecom bill, the merger craze, trade

with China, auto safety, stronger food-standard inspections, cam-

paign finance reform, universal healthcare. After a while, you

get the idea.Persuasion-lobbying is out for Nader; blunt electoral real-

politik is what matters. We still have a long ways to go. But the

first step in regaining power is to realize youve lost power.

Naders Green Party run has confirmed his view that resurrection

awaits only those progressives who recognize this harsh reality,

give up on the Democrats and act accordingly. s


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20 The Nation. December 4, 2000

jobs from First to Third World countries, just as devastating is the

competition among Third World countries desperately seeking

jobs and investment at any cost.

Those affected by globalization from above have begun to con-

verge, brought together by common interests, goals and a number

of specific campaigns. This emerging movementthis network

of networksis the iceberg of which the street demonstrations

form the most visible tip. It is the potential power of this conflu-

ence of forces and the still-larger forces that share its interests,not the threat of a few thousand demonstrators, that troubles the

sleep of finance ministers and international bureaucrats.

Participants in the movement for globalization from below

have varied agendas, but the movements unifying mission

is to bring about sufficient democratic control over states,

markets and corporations to insure a viable future for people

and the planet. Beyond just saying no to the WTO, World

Bank and IMF, achieving that goal requires that people organize

themselves and force change at every level, from local to global,

in both government and civil society. It requires that they define

these struggles as responses to a common problem, as part of a

common movement and as

sharing common goals. It re-

quires linking together in the

manner of the Lilliputians in

Jonathan Swifts fable Gul-

livers Travels, who were able

to capture Gulliver, many times their size, by tying him up with

hundreds of threads.

While attention has been focused on big international demon-

strations, in fact the movement for globalization from below has

been acting and linking up in an enormous range of ways that

may be less visible than meeting-stalking but that transcend its

limitations.Many actions are linking local concerns to globalization: Dur-

ing the September/October Prague demonstrations, coordinated

protests were held in Denver, Indianapolis, Boston and dozens of

other US cities. In Hartford, Connecticut, 300 unionized janitors

and student activists held a joint protest to make the connections

between global corporate greed and the fight for a living wage by

Hartford working people. Twenty-five people were arrested for

blocking downtown traffic in front of the global headquarters of

United Technology Corporation, which recently fired unionized

janitors and replaced them with lower paid, nonunion workers.

UTC has also been accused by the Machinists union of shipping

jobs abroad in violation of a union agreement.

Other recent actions have brought new groups into the move-ment, relating their concerns to the dynamics of the global econ-

omy. A coalition in Massachusetts, for example, drew attention

to the effects of globalization on the contingent work force. At a

recent march through downtown Boston, protesters demanded

that temp agencies sign a Temp Worker Bill of Rights. A flier

headlined Join a Global Fight for Justice explained, Temp

work is the face of globalization. But workers all over the world

are fighting back for economic security. It linked demands for

city policies, state legislation and corporate responsibility to the

domination of the industry by a few global giants.

Around the world, mass worker movements have contested

globalization from above through resistance to privatization,

social-services cuts and structural adjustment. May and June

2000 saw six general strikes against the effects of globalization

and neoliberalism. In India 20 million workers and farmers para-

lyzed much of the country with a general strike aimed against

the surrender of the countrys economic sovereignty before the

World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund,

according to one leader. As many as 12 million Argentine workers

struck against IMF-inspired austerity measures. In Nigeria ageneral strike protesting IMF-promoted fuel-price increases

closed much of the country. In South Korea a partial general

strike demanded a shorter workweek and labor-law protections

for contingent workers to counter the impact of IMF restructur-

ing plans. In South Africa 4 million workers struck to protest the

loss of 500,000 jobs as a result of the governments neoliberal

austerity policies. A general strike in Uruguay protested high

unemployment rates that workers blamed on IMF-inspired spend-

ing cuts. These actions indicate that resistance to globalization

from above is at least as strong among Third World as among

First World workers.

Some campaigns have targeted global corporations directly.

The well-known campaign

against Nike, for example,

has forced the company to

promise significant changes

in its employment practices,

though few have yet been

realized. When a recent cross-country Nike Truth Tour organ-

ized by students protested the firing of a worker at a Nike sub-

contractor in Honduras, the employer was forced to rehire her.

C

orporate campaign targets are now being expanded to include

the crucial but often hidden players in globalization from

aboveprivate financial institutions. The Rainforest ActionNetwork has launched a campaign against the f inanciers

of ecological destruction and human suffering, focusing on

Citigroup, the largest private financial institution in North Amer-

ica. It highlights Citigroups role as chief financial adviser in the

Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project in Africa, which will

pollute pristine rainforest and disrupt indigenous forest commu-

nities; its role in financing redwood logging operations in Cali-

fornia; its firing of unionized janitors; its financing of Monsanto

and other genetic engineering companies; its role in predatory

lending and denial of loans to African-Americans; and its profits

from prison construction and privatization.

The campaign to restrict genetically modified organisms

forced Monsanto and US negotiators earlier this year to acceptthe Cartagena Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity,

allowing GMOs to be regulated. Greenpeace called the protocol

a historic step toward protecting the environment and con-

sumers from the dangers of genetic engineering. Monsanto not

only accepted the protocol, it announced a decision to withdraw

from the business of selling sterile seeds and to participate in a

dialogue with Greenpeace.

This example shows the multilevel strategies that globaliza-

tion from below is using to parlay its power. While asserting au-

thority superior to the WTO, the protocol also illustrates the

crucial positive role that international institutions can play in

The movement for globalization from below

has been organizing in ways that transcend

the limitations of mass demonstrations.


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December 4, 2000 The Nation. 21

limiting the depredations of global corporations and markets. And

it empowered national governments to regulate GMOs and the

corporations that purvey them. The campaign put pressure both

on governments and directly on corporations like Monsanto,

while other governments put pressure on the US government, a

leading force against regulation of GMOs. It may well have been

the pressure on Monsanto and its resultant change of heart that

changed the position of the US government.

Globalization-from-below activists are also intervening insophisticated ways in national politics. When South Africa tried

to pass a law allowing it to ignore drug patents during health

emergencies, the Clinton Administration lobbied hard against

it and put South Africa on a watch list that is the first step to-

ward trade sanctions. But then Philadelphia ACT UP began

hounding presidential candidate Al Gore on the issue. Accord-

ing to theNew York Times, The banners saying that Mr. Gore

was letting Africans die to please American pharmaceutical

companies left his campaign chagrined. After media and cam-

paign staff looked into the matter, the Administration did an

about-face and, while certainly not doing enough to make AIDS

drugs available, accepted African governments circumvention

of AIDS drug patents.

No doubt The Economistexaggerated when it wrote that the

new wave of protest around globalization is more than a mere

nuisance: it is getting its way. But globalization from below is

having a concrete impact on policies and conditions in scores

of instances all over the world. Each such campaign is a partial

representation of the movements vision, goals and program,

reflecting fundamental values of human dignity, self-government,

environmental sustainability and human solidarity.

Trevor Manuel, finance minister of South Africa and co-

chairman of the Prague IMF/World Bank meetings, recently

complained, I understand what [protesters] are against, but I am

not sure what they are for. In fact, as even Newsweekhad to

concede after the Battle of Seattle, One of the most important

lessons of Seattle is that there are now two visions of globalization

on offer, one led by commerce, one by social activism.The movement for globalization from below is now develop-

ing positive programs that integrate the needs and objectives of

its diverse constituents. More than 1,000 civil-society organi-

zations in seventy-seven countriesessentially the Seattle coali-

tionhave launched a new global campaign to demand an

alternative, humane, democratically accountable and sustainable

system of commerce that benefits us all. They have agreed to

an eleven-point program for transformation of the WTO and the

global trading system, focused not on eliminating trade or re-

turning to some lost past of national economic isolation but on

promoting internationalismwhere different cultures, coun-

tries, and people trade and exchange goods and ideas and work

together toward common goals.

Globalization from belows vision has been articulated in

scores of international statements and above all in the movements

own actions. Many of its guiding principles are elaborated in the

Global Sustainable Development Resolution, co-sponsored by a

group of progressive members of the US Congress [see Whose

Globalization? March 22, 1999]. They include leveling labor,


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A CORPORATE ANTIVIOLENCE PROGRAM TARGETS STUDENTS WHO DONT FIT IN.

Caught in the WAVE

S

eventeen-year-old Cliff Riggins is a self-

described theater freak who wears black nail

polish, listens to Godsmack and has experi-

mented with Wicca, a neopagan religion in-volving witchcraft. At West Mecklenburg

High School, located just off Billy Graham

Parkway on the outskirts of Charlotte, North

Carolina, these are not activities that get him

chosen to head up the pep rallies. That duty is

usually reserved for a crowd known around

school as the preps, who wear a lot of Aber-

crombie & Fitch and all seem to work at the county pool in the

summer. Although Riggins has found a groove for himself at

West Meck by spending lots of time in the theater department,

hes frank about the fact that hes never really fit in. I guess Ive

always liked to color outside the lines, he says.

While Riggins is used to getting weird looks in the halls, henever expected that his unusual tastes would make him a target of

criminal suspicion. After the Columbine shootings, when the per-

petrators identified themselves as members of an outsider group

called the Trench Coat Mafia, he was pulled aside and confronted

by teachers about his tendency to dress in black and occasionally

wear a long coat. FBI agents wear trench coats! says Riggins,

who has never been in a fistfight. Maybe I dont look like every-

one else, but its not like Im gonna go shoot up the school.

A new school-safety initiative launched at

West Meck this fall means there is no end of

aggravation in sight for students like Riggins.

The WAVE, which stands for Working AgainstViolence Everywhere, is a corporate-sponsored

program that features a toll-free number students

can call anonymously to report classmates they

deem dangerous. To help identify potential of-

fenders, the WAVE, which is run by the global

security giant Pinkertons Inc., distributes bright-

ly colored pamphlets outlining the Early Warn-

ing Signs. Behaviors listed include social withdrawal, being

easily angered by minor things and experiencing excessive

feelings of rejection. The program enjoys the support of North

Carolinas Democratic Governor, Jim Hunt, and is being intro-

duced statewide in public middle and high schools.

The WAVE provides students with wallet-sized plastic cardsstamped with the WAVE Line 800 number, entitling them to dis-

counts and free gifts from the programs corporate sponsors. This

fall participants were offered a buy-one, get-one-free Go-Cart

or Bumper Boat ride at Celebration Station, an amusement park.

Tamara Park, a spokesperson for Pinkerton Services Group, ex-

plains: Students need to know that corporations are invested

in their future. If kids get a discount when they use their WAVE

card to buy a burger, it gives them incentive to hold on to the card

and reminds them that corporations care.

While the corporate-sponsored reward system is unique to

the WAVE, similar early warning behavior checklists are surfac-

JANE SPENCER

Jane Spencer is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Research support

provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

LARSLEETARU

22 The Nation. December 4, 2000

environmental, social and human rights conditions upward;

democratizing institutions at every level from local to global;

making decisions as close as possible to those they affect; equal-

izing global wealth and power; converting the global economy

to environmental sustainability; creating prosperity by meeting

human and environmental needs; and protecting against global

boom and bust.

The advocates of globalization from above often portray its

critics as backward-looking economic nationalists who want tohide from the realities of globalizationand its opportunities

in order to protect narrow special interests. And indeed, all over

the world, Patrick Buchanan, Jean-Marie Le Pen and their ilk are

exploiting the antiglobalization backlash to recruit followers for

ethnocentric, anti-immigrant, antigay, racist, sexist and national-

ist bigotry. Globalization from below, in contrast, is rooted in soli-

darity among people and groups who recognize their diversity

but who nonetheless grasp their common interests. It can only

succeed to the extent that the diverse elements that make it up are

able to incorporate one anothers needs and concerns while hold-

ing their own more xenophobic impulses in check.

Some within the movement advocate centralized global gov-

ernment as the solution to corporate globalization; others seek a

reassertion of national or even local sovereignty. But the problems

of globalization are unlikely to be solved either by some central

global authority or by national or local autarky. The real choice

today is between a globalization from above that disempowers

people at every level and a globalization from below that ex-

pands self-government not only at a global level but at regional,

national and local levels as well. The movement faces many po-tential pitfalls, and given the power of those it opposes, there is

no guarantee that it can actually modify globalization enough

to preserve people and environment, let alone to build a decent

world order. But that is more likely to be achieved by means of

a movement that is unified across the boundaries of countries,

issues and constituencies than by any other approach. Globali-

zation from above made ordinary people around the world

seem powerless; globalization from below has the potential to

change the power equation. Rarely in human history have ordi-

nary people had such an opportunity to transform the world for

the better. s


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Brecher Etal 00 Globalizn From Below