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JEREMY BRECHER, TIM COSTELLO, and BRENDAN SMITH are the authors of Globalization from Below: The Power of Solidarity (South End Press, 2000), from which their article here is adapted. For more information, visit www.villageorpillage.org.
PARTICIPANTS IN THE MOVEMENT FOR GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW have varied goals, but the movement's unifying goal is to bring about sufficient democratic control over states, markets, and corporations to permit people and the planet to survive and begin to shape a viable future. But what does this mean concretely? Is it possible to construct a non-utopian program that addresses the needs, concerns, and interests of diverse constituencies -- workers in the North, environmentalists, the people of the South -- in ways that are complementary, not contradictory? 1 We offer the following draft program as a work in progress, based on elements that have been percolating through the globalization-from-below movement.
While this program ultimately envisions new rules and institutions for the global economy, many of its objectives can be implemented piecemeal through pressure on particular corporations, governments, and institutions. Our sketch of a program for globalization from below is organized around seven basic principles:
1. Level labor, environmental, social, and human rights conditions upward.
2. Democratize institutions at every level from local to global.
3. Make decisions as close as possible to those they affect.
4. Equalize global wealth and power.
5. Convert the global economy to environmental sustainability.
6. Create prosperity by meeting human and environmental needs.
7. Protect against global boom and bust.
1. Level Labor, Environmental, Social, And Human Rights Conditions Upward
GLOBALIZATION FROM ABOVE IS CREATING A RACE TO THE BOTTOM, an economic war of all against all in which each workforce, community, and country is forced to compete by offering lower labor, social, environmental, and human rights conditions. Halting the race to the bottom requires raising conditions for those worst off. Such upward leveling can start with specific struggles to raise conditions for those who are being driven downward. Ultimately, minimum environmental, labor, social, and human rights standards must be incorporated in national and international law. Such standards protect communities and countries from the pressure to compete by sacrificing their rights and environment. Rising conditions for those at the bottom can also expand employment and markets and...