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SEVEN ‘Localization’ Explored

In the light of the arguments presented above, I now turn to the critical
issue of the alternatives to monopoly and finance capitalism proposed by
the anti-globalization movement – or the ‘global justice’ movement as
they have been latterly and significantly re-named. Here I present what
I regard as a friendly critique of the thinking of the anti-globalization
movement. I make this point initially because most of this chapter occu-
pies itself with pointing to what I regard as the dangerous fallacies in this
thinking which render these ideas unfeasible in their present form. Indeed,
the conclusion which follows from this chapter is that the alternatives to
globalization here discussed are unworkable economically or politically,
and where they are workable they are undesirable, from the point of
view of many of the people who support anti-globalization, not to mention
the general citizenry. These somewhat severe criticisms are not made in
a hostile spirit with the aim of undermining the movement. On the con-
trary, they are made from the point of view of enhancing the credibility and
therefore the political effectiveness of the anti-globalization movement.
At least that is the claim.
One of the most important questions facing the anti-globalization
movement is the issue of developing theoretically and empirically con-
vincing alternatives to the existing corporate global and political systems.
This is a vital matter from several points of view. In the first place, as the
movement has grown to the massive size that it has today, with demonstra-
tions regularly reaching the level of over 300,000 persons, it is drawing in
persons from ever-wider social strata. These different, often single-issue,
groups come to the anti-globalization movement from very diverse view-
points and experiences. Many are environmentalists, outraged by the
threat that greenhouse gases are posing for the environment. Others,
moved by the intensifying poverty in the developing world, are advocates