The Pros And Cons Of Anti-Globalization

The anti-globalization movement has been criticized mainly by politicians, people from conservative ideologies and institutions, and, also, by many economists.

There are different kinds of criticism of the anti-globalization movement.

Ideological

Anti-Globalization is attacked mainly by the conservative wing of politics, but especially by liberalists and defenders of free trade, who claim that free economy is a right of the individual liberty. Many of them hold that the movement has its basis in Marxism, and the protesters have no idea where the wealth comes from.

There are famous people who defend liberalism, like the Italian politician Emma Bonino, or the Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstat. In the culture world we must highlight the Swedish writer Johan Norberg, with his book “In Defense of Global Capitalism” or the philosophers Michael Heath and Andrew Potter who affirm that the cultural rebellion is the basis of consumerism.

Some of the criticizers are afraid of the possibility that this movement would fall into a global revolution. But the leaders of the movement say that this movement has a pacific structure and that they are a minority, so they are not a threat to the established order.

Violence and Criminalization

One of the main criticisms against the Anti-Globalization movement is that sometimes they use violence in manifestations.

Some of the radical activists, like those who belong to the called “Black Blocs” defend the attacks to Mc Donald’s, Banks and shop windows saying that it is a reaction against the system and that it is the best way of focusing the attention of the mass media in the movement.

It is true that not all the members of the movement pertain to the radical side, and what is more, the majority o...

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... jobs, returning to the poor and having no options for the economic takeoff.

Lack of evidence

People who is against the movement say that the evidences of nowadays and the results of globalization, do not support the Anti-Globalization movement:

• Downfall of people who come from developing countries living below $1 per day in East Asia.

• The world income per head has increased by more over period 2002-2007

• The increment in universal suffrage, from no nations in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations in 2000.

• There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita as well as the percentage of the population with access to clean water.

Even so, members of the anti-globalization movement argue that positive data from countries which largely ignored neoliberal prescriptions, notably China, discredits the evidence that pro-globalists present.