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‘LOCALIZATION’ EXPLORED

a credible alternative to corporate globalization. This is the work of Colin
Hines and the International Forum of Globalization (IFG) and which
refers to itself, accurately in my view, as a ‘Localization’ perspective. This
is basically an Anglo-American group, although it has important repre-
sentatives from Asia – Vandana Shiva, Martin Khor and Walden Bello to
mention a few. No claim is made here that the particular alternatives pro-
posed in their writings are in any way definitive or characteristic of the
anti-globalization movement as a whole. However, their perspective is
undoubtedly an important one that captures many of the instinctive
views of persons who are anti-globalization. Indeed, the arguments pre-
sented here apply to many of those in the movement whom Callinicos
2
describes as ‘autonomous’ and ‘reformist’ anti-capitalists. The perspec-
tives of IFG and Colin Hines, although containing many differences, in
their general shared characteristics provide an opportunity to discuss
some of the critical issues which any anti-globalization movement must
confront as it seeks to connect with mainstream politics.

Two Bodies of Experience and Theory

One of the most striking features of this literature on alternatives to
globalization is the failure to discuss the considerable body of empirical
and theoretical knowledge that has accumulated around the issue of
alternatives to imperialism and capitalism in general. I am referring to
the vast literature on the problems of central planning and other failures
in the Soviet economy, the issues of how to understand the NEP, the fail-
ure of the Khrushchev and Kosygin reforms and the failure of pere-
stroika. There is an equally vast literature on the roots of the Polish crisis
which led to the rise and fall of Gomulka, the Gierek boom and bust
crisis of 1971–75, the problems of the Yugoslavian self-management
system, the experience with the Hungarian reforms of 1968 and the many
attempts to develop a viable economy in the former Czechoslovakia and
the former GDR. Likewise, there is no reference to the experiences of
3
China during the ‘Great Leap Forward’ or the Cultural Revolution and
the movement to market relations and globalization after the 1979
reforms – arguably the most gigantic and significant act of globalization
in the economic realm ever undertaken anywhere in the world. There is
no discussion of the experience of Cuba either, and the question of
the controlled but unmistakable extension of market relations in that
economy. Indeed, the desire of Cuba to integrate itself into the global
economy – in effect – to become a part of the process of globalization

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