I have always liked Chomsky's take on it:
--ravi
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7548 DM: A lot of eminent scholars are fond of using the phrase "anti- globalization movement." What do you think of that label?
NC: As I've said repeatedly, including at the World Social forum, it's just plain propaganda. I mean "globalization" used in a neutral sense just means "international integration." The World Social Forum in fact is a perfect example of globalization at the level of people. I mean you have people from India, Africa, Brazil, Latin America, North America, Europe, just about everywhere, from every walk of life, who have somewhat common concerns and interests. That's globalization. In fact, globalization itself has been the guiding vision of the workers' movements on the left since their origins in the 19th century. That's why every labor union is called an International even though they are not international. That's the aspiration, and that's how the several Internationals were formed, true internationals. In fact the World Social Forum is probably the first time there has been any development grassroots-up that merits the term "international." There is just no way for these movements to be anti-globalization. They are perfect instances of globalization. The term has come to be used in recent years as a kind of a technical term which doesn't refer to globalization, but refers to a very specific form of international economic integration …
DM: Right.
NC: … namely based on the priority given to investor rights, not rights of people. So rights of investors, lenders, corporations, banks, financial institutions and so on, within a general neo-liberal framework, roughly the so-called Washington Consensus. That's a particular doctrinal position, which has come to be called "globalization" because the people who have that position have control of concentrated wealth and power, so they can therefore impose their terms on much discourse. It's kind of like saying that in the old Soviet Union "democracy" meant the so-called People's Democracies. You know, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They had the power to use the term "democracy" for those gross distortions of democracy. And the people who pretty much own the world have enough power to distort the term "globalization" to their highly specific and extremely doctrinary position. But the people who are opposed to their version of globalization aren't opposed to globalization. They're just calling for other modes of globalization that prioritize rights of people, future generations, the environment, etc., more than the rights of those with concentrated wealth and power. The same is true of all of the agreements (so-called, not really agreements, but treaties that are instituted within that framework). Take say NAFTA - striking example - the North American Free Trade Agreement. I mean, the one phrase in that that is correct is "North American." It does indeed have to do with three North American countries, counting Mexico as North American. Now beyond that, every statement is false. It's not about free trade. It's highly protectionist. It's certainly not, in many respects, an agreement. The population in Canada and the United States, the majority is opposed and probably in Mexico too, but we don't have good polls from Mexico. There were alternative proposals. This was the executive version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which did have a very powerful elite consensus behind it. So the corporate world was in favor; the media were virtually 100% in favor. Now the population was mostly opposed, and there were alternatives proposed. So for example there's a treaty in the United States which requires that labor be consulted seriously on any international economic agreement that affects workers, which this obviously did. Well, the labor movement wasn't even notified. I mean there is a Labor Advisory Council which is responsible for such things. I think they were notified, given the text about 24 hours before it was signed. It was Clinton that really, really loathed democracy and freedom. That didn't get reported. Nevertheless, the Labor Advisory Council even with that limited time was able to put forward a proposal, a very constructive detailed proposal, for a North American Free Trade Agreement, but one that was redesigned so instead of being directed to low wage, low growth, high profit futures (as they correctly described this one) it would be directed towards a high growth, high wage, more egalitarian form of international integration. And that was presented. Actually it turns out that their proposal was very similar to that proposed about the same time by Congress's own Research Bureau and Office of Technology Assessment, which also said they were opposed to this version of the agreement, but they suggested a different version, very much with a similar critique to that of the labor movement and similar constructive proposals. None of that was ever reported. I mean to this day, nobody knows about it, more than ten years later. It's just suppressed. I mean there was discussion of the labor movement. They were denounced. Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, who is about as far to the left as you can get, condemned the labor movement for its brutal, harsh, nationalistic tactics, on and on. He had a clue what the labor movement position was, and it was anything but. But it simply could not be reported. As far as I am aware, to this day it hasn't been reported. Well it's kind of like globalization. There was no opposition to a North American economic agreement, but there was opposition to this one, and there were constructive alternatives but they never entered political discussion and debate. I mean the media did enjoy Ross Perot because they could make fun of him, you know, talk about sucking sounds, make jokes, and so on and so forth. But the serious proposals that came straight out of popular movements, like the labor movement and even Congress's Research Bureau, they were off the agenda. And it's pretty much the same with regard to globalization, which is sort of like the use of the word democracy in the old Soviet Union. For other purposes, but similar mechanisms.