There is a common belief that the anti globalization movement is only concerned with opposing things. In late 2002 The Economist magazine boldly claimed that “today’s” militant critics of globalization… present no worked-out alternative to the present economic order. Instead, they invoke a Utopia free of environmental stress, social justice and branded sportswear, harking back to a preindustrial golden age that did not actually exist. Never is this alternative future given clear shape or offered up for examination. “Marx after Communism”, The Economist, 21 December 2002, p.19
In the years immediately after the 1999 “Battle for Seattle” protests, in particular, a huge amount of time and energy was invested by the anti globalization movement in working out coherent alternatives to economic globalization. Although the alternatives still have many rough edges, and major lines of internal disagreement, policies are being developed and worked-out alternatives are being offered up.
(Greg Buckman Globalization: Tame it or scrap it?)
The alternatives are being developed within the various groups that make up the anti globalization movement, particularly non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and alternative political parties. (Greg Buckman Globalization: Tame it or scrap it?)
In 1989 US academic Francis Fukuyama even confidently proclaimed that history had ended. Fukuyama argued that we don’t have choices any more. If you want to be a modern society, you don’t have a lot of alternatives these days. “The End of History”
The origins of the anti globalization movement are as complex as the origins of economic globalization itself. One can easily argue that the roots of the present day movement extend back to at least the 1970s. the 1970s saw the birth of modern day peace movement, the birth of feminist movement, the growth of the Non-aligned Movement, the first United Nations environment summit (in Stockholm in 1975) and the creation of the worlds first...