Anti-globalization (mundialism)

Anti-globalization is a term used to describe the political stance of people and groups who oppose neoliberal policies of unfettered globalization.
“Anti-globalization" may involve the process or actions taken by a state in order to demonstrate its sovereignty and practice democratic decision-making. Anti-globalization may occur in order to put brakes on the international transfer of people, goods and ideology, particularly those determined by the organizations such as the IMF or the WTO in imposing the radical deregulation program of free market fundamentalism on local governments and populations. Moreover, as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein argues in her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (also subtitled No Space, No Choice, No Jobs) anti-globalism can denote either a single social movement or an umbrella term that encompasses a number of separate social movements [23] such as nationalists and socialists. In either case, participants stand in opposition to the unregulated political power of large, multi-national corporations, as the corporations exercise power through leveraging trade agreements which damage in some instances the democratic rights of citizens, the environment particularly air quality index and rain forests, as well as national governments sovereignty to determine labor rights including the right to unionize for better pay, and better working conditions, or laws as they may otherwise infringe on cultural practices and traditions of developing countries.
Most people who are labeled "anti-globalization" consider the term to be too vague and inaccurate [24]
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... That enhances what's called "globalization," a term of propaganda used conventionally to refer to a certain particular form of international integration that is (not surprisingly) beneficial to its designers: Multinational corporations and the powerful states to which they are closely linked.
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Critics have observed that the term's contemporary usage comprises several meanings, for example Noam Chomsky states that: [25]
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The term "globalization," like most terms of public discourse, has two meanings: its literal meaning, and a technical sense used for doctrinal purposes. In its literal sense, "globalization" means international integration. Its strongest proponents since its origins have been the workers movements and the left (which is why unions are called "internationals"), and the strongest proponents today are those who meet annually in the World Social Forum and its many regional offshoots. In the technical sense defined by the powerful, they are described as "anti-globalization," which means that they favor globalization directed to the needs and concerns of people, not investors, financial institutions and other sectors of power, with the interests of people incidental. That's "globalization" in the technical doctrinal sense.
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Stiglitz, Joseph & Andrew Charlton. 2005. Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development. p. 54 n. 23 (writing that "The anti-globalization movement developed in opposition to the perceived negative aspects of globalization. The term 'anti-globalization' is in many ways a misnomer, since the group represents a wide range of interests and issues and many of the people involved in the anti-globalization movement do support closer ties between the various peoples and cultures of the world through, for example, aid, assistance for refugees, and global environmental issues.") preferring instead to describe themselves as the Global Justice Movement, the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Movement, the Movement of Movements (a popular term in Italy), the "Alter-globalization" movement (popular in France), the "Counter-Globalization" movement, and a number of other terms.
Anti-globalization is seen as a critical response to the development of neoliberalism, which is widely seen to have commenced with Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald Reagan's policies toward creating laissez-faire capitalism on a global scale by promoting the liberalization of countries’ economies and the weakening of trade and business regulations. Neoliberal proponents argue the increase of free trade and the reduction of the public sector will bring benefits to poor countries and to disadvantaged people in rich countries. Most anti-globalization advocates strongly disagree, adding that neoliberal policies may bring a loss of sovereignty to democratic institutions. Noam Chomsky states that [26] [27]
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The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity - that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems.
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Critiques of the current wave of economic globalization typically look at both the damage to the planet, in terms of the perceived unsustainable harm done to the biosphere, as well as the perceived human costs, such as increased poverty, inequality, miscegenation, injustice and the erosion of traditional culture which, the critics contend, all occur as a result of the economic transformations related to globalization. They challenge directly the metrics, such as GDP, used to measure progress promulgated by institutions such as the World Bank, and look to other measures, such as the Happy Planet Index,[28] created by the New Economics Foundation[29]. They point to a "multitude of interconnected fatal consequences--social disintegration, a breakdown of democracy, more rapid and extensive deterioration of the environment, the spread of new diseases, increasing poverty and alienation"[30] which they claim are the unintended but very real consequences of globalization.
Critics argue that:

Poorer countries are sometimes at disadvantage: While it is true that globalization encourages free trade among countries on an international level, there are also negative consequences because some countries try to save their national markets. The main export of poorer countries is usually agricultural goods. It is difficult for these countries to compete with stronger countries that subsidize their own farmers. Because the farmers in the poorer countries cannot compete, they are forced to sell their crops at much lower price than what the market is paying. [31]
Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers: The deterioration of protections for weaker nations by stronger industrialized powers has resulted in the exploitation of the people in those nations to become cheap labor. Due to the lack of protections, companies from powerful industrialized nations are able to offer workers enough salary to entice them to endure extremely long hours and unsafe working conditions. The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear alongside development. With the world in this current state, it is impossible for the exploited workers to escape poverty. It is true that the workers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, this would mean starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her family. [32]
Shift from manufacturing to service work: The low cost of offshore workers have enticed corporations to move production to foreign countries. The laid off unskilled workers are forced into the service sector where wages and benefits are low, but turnover is high. This has contributed to the widening economic gap between skilled and unskilled workers. The loss of these jobs has also contributed greatly to the slow decline of the middle class which is a major factor in the increasing economic inequality in the United States. Families that were once part of the middle class are forced into lower positions by massive layoffs and outsourcing to another country. This also means that people in the lower class have a much harder time climbing out of poverty because of the absence of the middle class as a stepping stone. [33]
The rise of contingent work: As globalization causes more and more jobs to be shipped overseas, and the middle class declines, there is less need for corporations to hire full time employees. Companies are less inclined to offer benefits (health insurance, bonuses, vacation time, shares in the company, and pensions), or reduce benefits, to part time workers. Most companies don’t offer any benefits at all. Even though most of the middle class workers still have their jobs, the reality is that their buying power has decreased due to decreased benefits. Job security is also a major issue with contingent work. [34]
Weakening of labor unions: The surplus in cheap labor coupled with an ever growing number of companies in transition has caused a weakening of labor unions in the United States. Unions lose their effectiveness when their membership begins to decline. As a result unions hold less power over corporations that are able to easily replace workers, often for lower wages, and have the option to not offer unionized jobs anymore. [35]
In December 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovichas called much previous empirical research on global poverty and inequality into question because, according to him, improved estimates of purchasing power parity indicate that developing countries are worse off than previously believed. Milanovic remarks that "literally hundreds of scholarly papers on convergence or divergence of countries’ incomes have been published in the last decade based on what we know now were faulty numbers. With the new data, economists will revise calculations and possibly reach new conclusions" moreover noting that "implications for the estimates of global inequality and poverty are enormous. The new numbers show global inequality to be significantly greater than even the most pessimistic authors had thought. Until the last month, global inequality, or difference in real incomes between all individuals of the world, was estimated at around 65 Gini points – with 100 denoting complete inequality and 0 denoting total equality, with everybody’s income the same – a level of inequality somewhat higher than that of South Africa. But the new numbers show global inequality to be 70 Gini points – a level of inequality never recorded anywhere." [36]
The critics of globalization typically emphasize that globalization is a process that is mediated according to corporate interests, and typically raise the possibility of alternative global institutions and policies, which they believe address the moral claims of poor and working classes throughout the globe, as well as environmental concerns in a more equitable way.[37]
The movement is very broad, including church groups, national liberation factions, peasant unionists, intellectuals, artists, protectionists, anarchists, those in support of relocalization and others. Some are reformist, (arguing for a more humane form of capitalism) while others are more revolutionary (arguing for what they believe is a more humane system than capitalism) and others are reactionary, believing globalization destroys national industry and jobs.
One of the key points made by critics of recent economic globalization is that income inequality, both between and within nations, is increasing as a result of these processes. One article from 2001 found that significantly, in 7 out of 8 metrics, income inequality has increased in the twenty years ending 2001. Also, "incomes in the lower deciles of world income distribution have probably fallen absolutely since the 1980s". Furthermore, the World Bank's figures on absolute poverty were challenged. The article was skeptical of the World Bank's claim that the number of people living on less than $1 a day has held steady at 1.2 billion from 1987 to 1998, because of biased methodology.[38]
A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called 'champagne glass' effect[39] , was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which showed the distribution of global income to be very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's income.[40]
+ Distribution of world GDP, 1989

Quintile of Population
Income
Richest 20%
82.7%
Second 20%
11.7%
Third 20%
2.3%
Fourth 20%
1.4%
Poorest 20%
1.2%
SOURCE: United Nations Development Program. 1992 Human Development Report[41]
Most importantly, critics of recent economic globalization see that these developments are not at all occurring in a vacuum, but feed into ethnic, religious, and factional tensions that lead to wars and help breed terrorism. Furthermore, these terrorists, now globally interconnected and empowered with knowledge, create a whole new category of warfare based, in part, on the disruption of the interconnections which are both created by and necessary for globalization. [42] Some commentators believe the nation-state is ill-equipped to deal with this emergent threat.[43]
In terms of the controversial global migration issue, disputes revolve around both its causes, whether and to what extent it is voluntary or involuntary, necessary or unnecessary; and its effects, whether beneficial, or socially and environmentally costly. Proponents tend to see migration simply as a process whereby white and blue collar workers may go from one country to another to provide their services, while critics tend to emphasize negative causes such as economic, political, and environmental insecurity, and cite as one notable effect, the link between migration and the enormous growth of urban slums in developing countries. According to "The Challenge of Slums," a 2003 UN-Habitat report, "the cyclical nature of capitalism, increased demand for skilled versus unskilled labour, and the negative effects of globalization — in particular, global economic booms and busts that ratchet up inequality and distribute new wealth unevenly — contribute to the enormous growth of slums."[44]
Even supporters of globalization are highly critical of some current policies. In particular, the very high subsidies to and protective tariffs for agriculture in the developed world. For example, almost half of the budget of the European Union goes to agricultural subsidies, mainly to large farms and agricultural businesses, which form a powerful lobby.[45] Japan gave 47 billion dollars in 2005 in subsidies to its agricultural sector,[46] nearly four times the amount it gave in total foreign aid.[47] The US gives 3.9 billion dollars each year in subsidies to its cotton sector, including 25,000 growers, three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.[48] This drains the taxed money and increases the prices for the consumers in developed world; decreases competition and efficiency; prevents exports by more competitive agricultural and other sectors in the developed world due to retaliatory trade barriers; and undermines the very type of industry in which the developing countries do have comparative advantages. Tariffs and trade barriers, thereby, hinder the economic development of developing economies, adversely affecting living standards in these countries.[49]
Various aspects of globalization are seen as harmful by public-interest activists as well as strong state nationalists. This movement has no unified name. "Anti-globalization" is the media's preferred term; it can lead to some confusion, as activists typically oppose certain aspects or forms of globalization, not globalization per se. Activists themselves, for example Noam Chomsky, have said that this name is meaningless as the aim of the movement is to globalize justice.[50] Indeed, the global justice movement is a common name. Many activists also unite under the slogan "another world is possible", which has given rise to names such as altermondialisme in French.
There are a wide variety of types of "anti-globalization". In general, critics claim that the results of globalization have not been what was predicted when the attempt to increase free trade began, and that many institutions involved in the system of globalization have not taken the interests of poorer nations, the working class, and the natural environment into account. One of the proposed solutions to the uncontrolled environmental damage created by global economic expansion is to set prices for that environmental damage done to the biosphere, so that the economy 'sees' the price signals from the environment, and begins to internalize the value of the environment. [51] The present global economic system, critics of globalization would note, does not price the damage (e.g., pollution) done to limited environmental resources making those resources, in effect, free.[51] Economic theory, however, holds that items of economic utility and in limited supply should be priced in order to be used efficiently by the market.[52] Presently, the two proposals for sending these price signals to the economy are a 'Carbon Tax', proposed by in the U.S. by Al Gore, and a "Cap and Trade" system, as has been created in the European Union.
Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that unrestricted free trade benefits those with more financial leverage (i.e. the rich) at the expense of the poor.[53]
Americanization related to a period of high political American clout and of significant growth of America's shops, markets and object being brought into other countries. So globalization, a much more diversified phenomenon, relates to a multilateral political world and to the increase of objects, markets and so on into each others countries.
Some opponents of globalization see the phenomenon as the promotion of corporatist interests.[54] They also claim that the increasing autonomy and strength of corporate entities shapes the political policy of countries.[55] [56]
Some anti-globalization groups argue that globalization is necessarily imperialistic; it can therefore be said that "globalization" is another term for a form of Americanization, as it is believed by some observers that the United States could be one of the few countries (if not the only one) to truly profit from globalization.[citation needed]
Some argue that globalization imposes credit-based economics, resulting in unsustainable growth of debt and debt crises. [56]
The world increasingly is confronted with problems that cannot be solved by individual nation-states acting alone. Examples include over-fishing of the oceans, water pollution, global warming, global trade, and international terrorist networks. Solutions to these problems necessitate new forms of cooperation and the creation of new global institutions. Since the end of WWII, following the advent of the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, there has been an explosion in the reach and power of multinational corporations and the rapid growth of global civil society.[57]
The financial crises in Southeast Asia that began in 1997 in the relatively small, debt-ridden economy of Thailand but quickly spread to the economies of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and eventually were felt all around the world [58], demonstrated the new risks and volatility in rapidly changing globalized markets[citation needed]. The IMF's subsequent 'bailout' money came with conditions of political change (i.e. government spending limits) attached and came to be viewed by critics as undermining national sovereignty in neo-colonialist fashion[citation needed]. Anti-Globalization activists pointed to the meltdowns as proof of the high human cost of the indiscriminate global economy.[citation needed]
Many global institutions that have a strong international influence are not democratically ruled, nor are their leaders democratically elected. Therefore they are considered by some as supranational undemocratic powers.[59][60][61][62]
The main opposition is to unfettered globalization guided by governments and what are claimed to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) that are not held responsible through transparent or democratic processes by the populations that they affect and instead respond mostly to the interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and occasionally violent, protests from opponents of "corporate globalism."
Some anti-globalization activists and supporters object to the fact that the currently globalization encompasses money and corporations, but not people, the environment, and unions. This can be seen in the strict immigration controls in nearly all countries, and the lack of labour rights in many countries in the developing world.
Another, more conservative, camp opposed to globalization is state-centric nationalists who fear globalization is displacing the role of nations in global politics and point to NGOs as encroaching upon the power of individual nations. Some advocates of this warrant for anti-globalization are Pat Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen and Ned Pencil.
Many have decried the lack of unity and direction in the movement, but some, such as Noam Chomsky, have claimed that this lack of centralization may in fact be a strength.