Page 131 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

strengths of the current movements in contrast to the Stalinist ones of the
not so recent past.
This chapter takes another view. It argues that while the anti-
globalization movement has grown into an enormous worldwide move-
ment capable of having a powerful influence on the central issues of
world society, it still has not moved into the mainstream. Without what
I call ‘moving into the mainstream’, this vast and growing movement
will not be able to achieve the objective of meaningful social, economic,
environmental and political change. By ‘mainstream’ I mean the arena
of the everyday politics of unemployment, poor education, health care,
world poverty and inequality, racism, development, taxation, budget
deficits, war and all the other issues that are the bread and butter of the
established main political parties and interest groups in civil society. It
is in fact the only movement on the horizon that has the potential to
bring about positive changes in society at a global level, which is where
they are needed. It is therefore a vital matter for this movement to take
itself into the mainstream where the central issues that directly affect
the lives of hundreds of millions of people are fought over politically.
In order to do so, the movement must, like other political forces, artic-
ulate some kind of program, however loosely, and develop broad
alliances, for example, with trade union and civil rights movements in
the developed world and anti-imperialist movements in the developing
world – a kind of ‘grand alliance’. At least this is the point of view from
which this chapter departs. One can be lulled into complacency by the
very size of the anti-globalization movement. What participants may
forget, however, is that gigantic mass movements from the Left have
existed before but petered out. For one reason or another they failed
to move into and secure the support of the mainstream on any long-
lasting basis.
Many in the anti-globalization movement increasingly recognize this
problem which is why the term ‘global justice movement’ – an inade-
quate term, given the inherently limited distributionist content of the
concept of ‘justice’ – is gaining more popularity. The point here is that it
is no longer good enough to be simply ‘anti’. One now has to start elabo-
rating what one is and is not for. Such an exercise carries obvious risks,
especially that of generating excessive argumentation, sectarianism and
divisiveness in the movement – to the great potential benefit of the sup-
porters of globalization. But it can hardly be avoided if the movement is
to make that shift into the mainstream that I am arguing is essential.
In this chapter I critique the proposals of one such group in the
anti-globalization movement, who have taken up the challenge to develop

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