Alterglobalisation: "Another world is possible?"

Résumé du document

In the mid-eighties there were huge criticisms caused by the liberal policy carried out both by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. There were, especially in the United Kingdom, a lot of strikes and manifestations against the neo-liberalism. However, Margaret Thatcher, answering to an interview about these criticisms, asserted: “There is no alternative.” By these words, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom claimed that liberalism, a political doctrine “favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate reform” (www.askoxford.com), was the only political doctrine able to lead the countries and their economies. We can think that this sentence was said in a particular context in the eighties since at that time the Soviet Union (and communism) was still an enemy. Yet one decade later most of the developed countries economies are ruled by this kind of economy. Furthermore the main international institutions have applied neo-liberalism to the developing countries through the “Washington consensus”, which is a set of ten commands such as the liberalization of the market, the liberalisation of the financial market, privatizations and deregulation…As a consequence all the economies around the world are ruled by liberalism, and the phenomenon of globalisation has emerged from it. What is globalisation? It is hard to give a unique and complete definition because it is a very versatile word. I would like to concentrate on a more economical one: according to the Encyclopaedia Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org wiki/Globalisation), globalisation means a huge freedom of trade, increasing commercial and industrial links between the different parts of the world, a loss of sovereignty for the State concerning its economy and the spread of capitalism.

Extraits

[...] The first of their actions was to meet in the spots where international meetings happen, such as the G8, the World Bank or IMF meetings or the EU meetings. The aim each time was to disturb the meeting, and to involve the Medias in order to expose them. The first ones like Seattle, Davos or Genoas were real successes because police staffs and meetings' organizations were surprised. The slogans during those demonstrations were for example: Shut it down! Capitalism? No thanks! WTO? [...]

[...] They want to settle a new global order; that is why the slogan of the entire movement is now “Another world is possible”. The idea of an alternative is not for them like a plate form as for a political party or claims as for trade-unions the alternative is an open list of wishes, which can be improved all the time by all the trends of the movement. Furthermore this alternative is organized for the entire world. II/ Organization and actions 2.1 Seattle, Davos and Genoa: the first actions of the alternative movement Since 1999 the different movements and associations acting against the current globalisation have been gathering in order to build altogether a bigger movement. [...]

[...] As far as I am concerned these last three criticisms are justified; however as the movement is quite diverse these criticisms can be more or less relevant. 3-2 The future Faced with these criticisms the alternative globalisation movement has decided to act; a lot of change has been ongoing since the last WSF in Porto Alegre. At first it has been decided that the Forum International Council drops the organizing role; the Forum is now run by itself. As a result more people can express themselves and in Mumbai in 2004 more disadvantaged people have already participated in the debates. [...]

[...] In an article published in May 2004 in Le Monde Diplomatique (http://www.monde- diplomatique.fr/2004/05/NIKONOFF/11172?var_recherche=Altermondialisme), Jacques Nikonoff the president of ATTAC explained what happened thirty years ago. According to him the current globalisation is a domination of the North on the South, of the Anglo-Saxon capitalism against the other, of the owners against the poorest. This model of globalisation is the result of the conservative wave lead by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan; they have “manipulated” the global economy, with the different government and different international companies in order to achieve this domination. [...]

[...] Three other criticisms are formulated against the alternative globalisation. The first one is the lack of coherence; I said above that the movement was quite heterogeneous and as a consequence there are a lot of points of views, sometimes even contradictory ones. If it can be considered as a force, this is nevertheless a weakness as well: they can not have a common action on some topics and they do not appear to be a serious movement when combined the NGOs, the trade-unions, the anarchists, the ecologists and the utopians The second criticism is the lack of concrete response to globalisation: most of the critics emphasize that the advocates of the movement propose ideas which are ideals such as peace, equality, solidarity and sharing; yet how is it possible to implement these ideals to the World? [...]