alternative to liberal globalization

As Canada’s Democracy Trembles, a New Global Architecture Emerges

TORONTO, 28 Jun (IPS) - Nearly 600 people were arrested as global leaders and elites met behind a fortified perimetre during the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto this weekend. Read more read

Bank Local: Indie Businesses Embrace Move Your Money

Across the U.S., independent business groups that have been urging people to "buy local" are now making "bank local" an increasingly prominent part of their message, bringing new grassroots visibility and organizational infrastructure to the Move Your Money movement. Read more read

Is Corruption the Cause? The Poverty Trap

The “corruption-causes-poverty” narrative has become a standard tool in the hegemonic discourse kit for leaders in some developing countries - where in fact, Waldon Bello argues, it is neoliberal economic policies that are really to blame for poverty. Thailand’s “Red Shirts” are not, however, being distracted by the “corruption” line the World Bank and IMF are pushing, choosing instead to keep their eyes on the prize - the real answer to poverty - replacing neoliberalism with pro-people economic (...) read

Internationalising Lanka

From the LTTE to the Sinhala chauvinist forces, the Taliban to the forces of Hindutva, we have seen reactionary and rightwing forces attack our communities, but why is our solidarity and mobilisation against such reactionary forces so limited in the region? We have seen the onslaught of neoliberalism, the dispossession of peoples, the economic impunity of free-trade zones and special economic zones, yet why have we not developed a regional analysis of political economic alternatives? To (...) read

Globalization Marches On

> Growing popular outrage has not challenged corporate power

Shifts in global power, ongoing or potential, are a lively topic among policy makers and observers. One question is whether (or when) China will displace the United States as the dominant global player, perhaps along with India. There is yet another significant shift in global power: from the general population to the principal architects of the global system, a process aided by the undermining of functioning democracy in the United States and other of the Earth’s most powerful states. Read (...) read

Globalization on the rocks

Corporate globalization in the ‘real’ world economy lay behind what appeared at first to be a strictly financial crisis. It was hooked on debt, a deadly vice which eventually crushes everything in its grip, to the point where no-one knows the value of anything. So it could be that, in August 2007, seemingly marginal ‘sub-prime’ people who started posting their house keys through the letterboxes of loan sharks across the US signalled the shipwreck of a misbegotten ‘global’ enterprise. Read (...) read

The Cleveland Model

Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation’s decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)—a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green" operation—opened its doors late last fall in Glenville, a neighborhood with a median income hovering around $18,000. It’s the first of ten major enterprises in the (...) read

Brazil – Another Power Is Possible

The birthplace of the World Social Forum (WSF), conceived as an alternative to international meetings pursuing free-market economics, Brazil is on its way to becoming a major economic power, analysts say. The question is, what kind of model will it adopt to avoid the behaviour it has previously criticised? Read more On the same subject, also from IPS Terre Viva World Social Forum coverage, read Global South’s Growing Role in Post-Crisis (...) read

Lessons from Copenhagen: A Selection

The blame game Martin Khor, Blame Denmark, not China, for Copenhagen failure, The Guardian: The decision to override the multilateral process and hold a secret meeting of select nations ruined any chance of success Mark Lynas (British, adviser to the Maldives delegation), How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room, The Guardian Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s version: Premier Wen’s 60 hours in Copenhagen, Xinhua - China Daily Bernarditas de Castro Muller (...) read

Other Worlds are Possible: Human progress in an age of climate change

This sixth report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development argues that our chances of triumphing over climate change will rise dramatically if we recognise that there we need not one but many models of human development. Featuring contributions from Dr Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Professor Herman Daly (Leading environmental economist and winner of Right Livelihood Award), Professor Wangari Maathai (...) read

Strategic issues of the global crisis

>  The international debate and the alter-globalist movement’s approach

The London G20 summit was as disappointing as expected. Several declarations were of course of interest insofar as they seem opposite to the policy principles of past years. Let us take note of them and not hesitate to remind the G20 about the promises on regulation. An initial question puts a damper on our optimism: can we really trust the leaders of the G20 to establish new regulation and to accept the consequences? For the moment, it doesn’t seem so. The dominant impression is that, (...) read

The global financial crisis: Lessons and responses from Africa

> Demba Moussa Dembele

As the international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism, Africa and the global South should break free from failed neoliberal policies and the institutions that have promoted them and define their own paths to development, writes Demba Moussa Dembele, director of the Forum for African Alternatives. The crisis provides fundamental lessons, says Dembele, the first being that markets do not have self-correcting mechanisms, (...) read

WSF had a prophetic voice

> Walden Bello interviewed by Gabriel Elizondo

As the WSF was winding down in Belem in Brazil, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo spoke with Walden Bello about his thoughts on this year’s meeting. Al Jazeera: How has the 2009 World Social Forum different from the past years’? Bello: This represents the triumph of the World Social Forum over the World Economic Forum. Basically I think that what the forum has been standing for is the strong critique of neo-liberalism and warning the world of the kinds of difficulties neo-liberalism was (...) read

Toxic capitalism

http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip (...)

The crisis that we are witnessing today is shaking the very foundations of neo-liberal capitalism. It is unfolding at an accelerating speed, and nobody is capable of saying where it will lead. This article does not try to follow its unfolding step by step, because it would be likely to be outdated by the time it was published. It seeks rather to suggest some keys to interpret this crisis and to demonstrate what is at stake on the social level.  read

Reflections on the III Americas Social Forum, Guatemala

>  By Michael Leon Guerrero and Cindy Wiesner Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

The 3rd Americas Social Forum (ASF3) convened October 7-12, 2008 in Guatemala City was an important and exciting benchmark for the global social forum process. It was grounded by its grassroots nature with strong participation of peasants, women, and indigenous peoples, and by the dialogues and debates of alternatives to neoliberal capitalism based on actual experience. We would like to share what we see as some of the key characteristics of ASF3 that marked the event as an important (...) read

Microcredit Pioneer Wins Peace Nobel

Longtime IDRC partner Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 13 October 2006 for his work in advancing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women. Yunus shares the award with the bank he founded, the Grameen Bank, which has been instrumental in helping millions of poor Bangladeshis, many of them women, improve their lives by lending them small sums to start businesses. Muhammad Yunus’ bank has gone from loaning poor women money to buy chickens and cows to (...) read

Economic Alternatives to Neoliberalism

> Pambazuka News 209: 2 June 2005

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

Any attempt to build economic alternatives to neoliberalism also needs to take account of its ideological and repressive elements. As potentially viable alternatives are developed, the neoliberal system will do all in its power to repress these initiatives. Therefore, as well as being visionary and identifying offensive demands towards realising that vision, attention must also be given to defending the space that is available to develop alternatives. The closing down of forms of expression, passing of restrictive legislation and acts of violent repression must be resisted together with the building of alternatives. Maintaining the space to be able to develop alternatives is thus an integral dimension of the struggle for alternatives.  read

Case studies in alternatives

> Pambazuka, 15 Dec 2005

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

This article tracks the emergence of an “African Peoples’ Consensus”, in opposition to the Washington Consensus, through the rise of the African Peoples Forum and recent debates on economic alternatives. It asks what should we be questioning (use of language, erosion of cultural values), and what concrete process is needed to get closer to these alternatives.  read

Proposals for a socially responsible economy

> Alliance 21, May 2001, 24 pp

http://www.alliance21.org/2003/artic (...)

The current hegemonic model of economic development, based on a capitalist globalisation, may create moderates rates of economic growth, but have given rise to new inequalities. These proposals consider a new development model centered sustainability. A model which is rooted in a shared ethical code which must materialize in a renewed socio-economic regulation.  read

Will WTO Shrink or Sink?

> ZNet, Dec 2005

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti (...)

Here the author describes how economically weaker nations have learnt to exercise their power in WTO through non-cooperation and why they need to reject the “Aid of Trade” package in the draft Hong Kong Ministerial Text, viewing it as a retreat from commitments made at Doha.  read