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November 28, 2003
The previous post about local urban communities emphasised the local response to the deterritorializing forces of gloablization. These local communities are defending the importance of their place as a way of dealing with the impact that economic globalization is having on their daily lives. The 'place' of local communities is the 'location' in the global economy for global capital.
What then is the global context of this resistance? it is not just free trade. There is a global context for local communities since these communities are not isolated islands. They are linked to other groups and form part of a virtual movement in a network society.
Roughly speaking we can say that those who oppose, or resist the negative effects of corporate form of globalization that is fostered by the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on their local communities are usually characterised as the 'anti-globalization movement'. This movement is usually seen as defensive: as defending local communities, the heritage of particular places and national traditions against the global market. This makes this resistance susceptible to attack as 'protectionist' and 'globaphobic.'
In Australia this movement has reservations about the benefits of free trade. It is sceptical of the economist's arguments that mutual gains are to be realized through comparative advantage; highlights the social losses from increased unemployment and the loss of hard won work conditions; and points to the undermining of protectonist environmental regulations and the social democratic welfare state safety net.
The movement defends civil society against the global market, and it has developed a global presence and linkage. It has used the Internet to create a new electronically connected civil society, a virtual community and a public space. The diverse and headless global movement---what Bataille would call acephalous--- has a political impact because of the impact of negative public opinion on the ongoing market reform process.
Three events have fostered this. The environmental strand of ant-globalization movement was shocked by the way the rulings of the WTO in the 1990s opened the doorway to overturning protective domestic environmental legislation because it represented a barrier to free trade. This lead mainstream environmental groups to adopt a negative stance towards corporate globalization.
The second event was the way NiKe and Reebook produced their athletic gear in sweatshop conditions in Asia. This highlighted the consequences of footlose corporate capital shifting its production facilities to low-wage developing countries.
The third event was the Asian financial crisis in which the IMF ws seen to protect investors in the North America over the liveihoods of citizens in Sotuth Eastern Asian countries. The IMF, World Bank and the WTO were seen to have less regard for the well-being of people in the developing world than for international financial stability.
Whilst the antiglobalization movement drifts away from its environmentalism towards the social justice concerns of the growing North South economic inequality, it also puts pressure on the social democratic state within Australia to preserve the social safety net and enhance environmental protection. that socail safety net is important given the persistance of unemployment and the incapacity of the state to do somethign about it.
That then is the global context of local communities such as Fitzroy Melbourne, as described in Milkbar.com.au
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You place "anti-globalization movement" at first in quotation marks, indicating your skepticism regarding the term, but by the end of your piece, the marks disappear. Your skepticism is well deserved. There is the awful suspicion that the genealogy of "anti-globalization movement" would lead one directly to the corporate-media detractors of what somw now call the global justice campaign. Staying with the negative, I prefer "anti-corporatization" to "anti-globalization," for the gripe is not with globalization per se, but rather with the globalization of injustice at the behest of monolithic corporations.
On a similar note, the military is also suffering from the effects of the global economy on local environments. The U.S. Military is under siege from urban sprawl.
BTW: thanks for the link.