Anti-globalization is a political stance of opposition to the negative aspects of Globalization.
__Overview__
Though the mechanisms of globalization are often poorly understood in the western world, the popularity of this stance grew in the late twentieth century mainly due to emotional calls to combat the internationalisation of corporate economic activity and any potential exploitation of developing nations resulting from this. Alternate terms include anti-corporatization or alterglobalization. Those in the anti-globalization movement generally try to promote awareness for human rights NGO's, advocate socialist or social democratic alternatives to capitalism and seek to protect the public interest and the world's ecology from what they believe to be potentially damaging effects from globalisation.
Anti-globalizationists are sometimes perceived to be marginalized by mainstream media and governments because of their strongly "anti-business" views: media across the world often has ownership by wealthy individuals or large corporations, who activists believe have conflicting priorities to others in society.
__The Anti-Globalisation Movement__
The anti-globalization movement is a largely Grassroots effort. Although adherents of the movement often work in concert, the movement itself is heterogeneous and includes diverse, sometimes opposing, understandings of this process, alternative visions, strategies and tactics. Many of those involved in the movement regard the term "anti-globalization" as a misnomer, and counter it with slogans like "globalize justice" and "globalize liberation." More nuanced terms include anti-capitalist, anti-corporate or alternative globalization. Participants may use the positive terms global justice or fair trade movement, Global Justice and Solidarity Movement (GJ&SM), Movement of Movements or simply The Movement.
Some factions of the movement reject globalization as such, but the overwhelming majority of its participants are aligned with movements of indigenous people, human rights NGO's, anarchism, green movements, and to a minor extent communism. Some activists in the movement have objected not to capitalism or international markets as such but rather to what they claim is the non-transparent and undemocratic mechanisms; and the negative consequences of unregulated globalization. They are especially opposed to "globalization abuse" being misrepresented as neoliberalism, and international institutions that are perceived to promote neoliberalism without regard to ethical standards, such as the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and "free trade" treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
Activists often also oppose business alliances like the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) and the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC), as well as the governments which promote such agreements or institutions. Others argue that, if borders are opened to capital, borders should be similarly opened to allow free and legal circulation and choice of residence for migrants and refugees. These activists tend to target organizations such as the International Organization for Migration and the Schengen Information System.
It is also worth noting that many nationalist movements, such as the French National Front are also against globalization. They are usually not considered part of the 'mainstream' anti-globalization movement, which tends to adopt left-wing approaches.
__Ideology and causes within the movement__
There are many different causes championed by movement members, including labor rights, environmentalism, feminism, freedom of migration, preservation of the cultures of indigenous peoples, biodiversity, cultural diversity, food safety, organic farming, opposition to the green revolution and genetic engineering, and ending or reforming capitalism. Many of the protesters are veterans of single-issue campaigns, including forest/anti-logging activism, living wage, labor union organizing, anti-sweatshop campaigns, homeless solidarity campouts, urban squatting, urban autonomy, and political secession. Some protesters identify themselves as revolutionary anarchists, socialists, Gaians, or communists; others agree ideologically but don't immediately identify themselves as such and still others want to reform capitalism, e.g. democratic Greens, some pagans.
Although movement members see most or all of these goals as complementary to one another, the number of different, and sometimes contradictory, issues has been a point of annoyance for the people they are protesting against. Critics claim many views are inconsistent and unrealistic. Many of these concerns can be said to represent specific issues about which the protestors fear a loss of self-determination, because they believe that the global financial institutions and agreements undermine local decision-making methods. Local or national sovereignty is seen as key to protecting cultures, and ecologies.
As such, one common thread among the disparate causes is that the World Bank and IMF are seen as undermining local decision-making methods. Local or national sovereignty is seen as key to protecting cultures and ecologies. Governments and free trade institutions, on the other hand, are seen as acting for the good of trans-national (or multi-national) corporations (e.g. Microsoft, Monsanto, etc.). These corporations are seen as having abilities that human persons do not have: moving freely across borders, extracting desired natural resources, utilising a diversity of human resources. They are perceived to be able to move on after damage to natural capital and biodiversity in a manner impossible for a nation's citizens. Activists also claim corporations impose a kind of "global monoculture". Some of the movements' common goals are, therefore, an end to the legal status of corporate personhood and the dissolution, or dramatic reform, of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. As protest slogans (simplistically) summarize: "People and planet before profits", "The Earth is not for sale!", or "Teamsters and Turtles, Together At Last!".
Some aspects of the movement's agenda is shared by major (pro-capitalist) economic theorists who argue for much less centralized systems of money supply, debt control, and trade law. These include George Soros, Joseph E. Stiglitz (formerly of the World Bank), and David Korten. These three in particular have made strong arguments for drastically improving transparency, for debt relief, land reform, and restructuring corporate accountability systems. Korten and Stiglitz's contribution to the movement include involvement in direct actions and street protest. As many supporters of the movement do not share basic assumptions of capitalism and economics itself, their particular agenda may not dominate the movement or its perceptions, but it potentially provides greater credibility.
__Influences__
Several influential critical works have inspired the anti-globalization movement. These include, most influentially:
Naomi Klein's book No Logo, which criticized the production practices of multinational corporations and the omnipresence of brand-driven marketing in popular culture.
Vandana Shiva's book Biopiracy, which documented the way that the natural capital of indigenous peoples and ecoregions is converted to forms of intellectual capital recognized as commercial property without sharing the private utility thus derived.
Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom (winner of The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1999), arguing strongly against traditional macro-economics, and for a system of money supply where currency would be based on free time.
Perhaps more influential than any printed book is the vast array of material on spiritual movements, anarchism, libertarian socialism and the Green Movement that is now available on the Internet. The previously obscure works of Arundhati Roy, Starhawk, and John Zerzan in particular - these inspired a critique favoring feminism, consensus process and political secession, opposing a "tyranny of Number" by which the critics seem to mean any global measurements of people or profit at all. Perhaps the only axiom shared widely by such critics is, in line with this critique, that biodiversity is good, extinction bad. Arguably most advocates of globalization would agree with this too, so it may be a straw man.
Other than this vague "biodiversity good, extinction bad, numbers harmful" summary, which would no doubt enrage many followers of specific ideologies, there seems to be no leader who is universally accepted by "the movement". In this respect it resembles the peace movement, environmental movement, ecology movement, Green Movement, and various forms of anarchism and fundamentalism, all of which generally abhor usurpation of power by "leaders", while paradoxically elevating previously obscure figures or doctrines. Some call this an anti-monoculture movement, and make strong links between ecological, social, and ideological diversity doctrines.
__'Anti-Empire' development__
In 2003, the movement showed wide and deep global opposition to the war in Iraq. Following the most spectacular show of numbers on the weekend of February 15, when about 10 million or more anti-globalization protesters participated in global protests against war on Iraq (pre-war), the New York Times dubbed the movement as the "world's second superpower".
Although the global protest did not stop the invasion itself, supporters believe it demonstrated to the world the seeming inconsistency between the claim that the invasion defended and promoted Democracy, and the fact that the leaders of many formally democratic countries (Spain, Italy, Poland) were acting against the wishes of the majorities of their populations in supporting the war. Noam Chomsky claimed these leaders "showed their contempt for democracy". Critics of this type of argument have tended to point out that this is just a standard criticism of representative democracy - a democratically elected government will not always act in the direction of greatest current public support - and that, therefore, there is no inconsistency in the leaders' positions given these countries are parliamentary democracies.
To show how closely linked the economic and military issues are in the eyes of some in the movement, one new statement of its human rights aims was written as the We Stand for Peace & Justice statement, leading in the USA to a coordination of the movement known as United for Peace and Justice.