The anti-globalization movement was the \"it\" movement for young people until the tragedy on September 11. Major protests against the undemocratic nature of the financial and political institutions that govern globalization exploded at every major international meeting. Ties were strengthened between labor, environmental groups, students, and community organizations. The YCL has played an important leadership role in the movement by working hard to strengthen and consolidate the coalitions that form it.
Since September 11, the political landscape has changed dramatically and an anti-war movement is growing in opposition to a senseless war on terrorism. In many ways, this anti-war movement has drained resources and people from the anti-globalization movement. I would argue that the YCL needs to remain focused on fighting the inequality and injustices that accompany globalization and link our important anti-war work back to it. We must work to build and support institutions (such as the US labor movement) that could challenge the existing market fundamentalist power structures that benefit from globalization and create the conditions for senseless wars.
Globalization is the removal of barriers to unhindered international trade and capital flow. Under the battle-cry of \"FREE TRADE for PROSPERITY\", countless countries were bullied into dismantling institutions that shielded their burgeoning economies from the madness of the international market.
The three bullies of the story are the World Trade Organization (WTO) that pushes for an end to tariffs. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the emergency lender to countries in serious economic difficulties (the loans always come with free-trade strings attached) The World Bank which loans capital to countries to use in crucial development projects, such as building infrastructure, fighting disease, increasing literacy. The problem with the current system is that it lends more to countries that are on the way of following the free market dogma and less to countries that are looking for their own path to development.
The people who run these organizations all come from and return to the financial and banking communities. They view the world through a corporate capitalist lens and work to make the world more friendly to corporate profit. Governments of first-world countries are often complicit in bullying since the interests of their politicians are so closely tied to the interests of the financial community. These three very powerful agencies push poor nations to adopt development policies and practices based on free market logic (a.k.a. neo-liberalism, free trade, Washington Consensus). These policies and practices do not at all lead to development in these nations - they lead to a better profit environment for corporations and increased economic and political instability.
We see many concrete examples all around us. Sweatshops exist because clothing manufactures, appliances manufactures, and other companies take advantage freely come in and out of any country they please and that the WTO/IMF prevent countries from adopting adequate labor and environmental controls. Sweatshops hop from country to country chasing the conditions where they can get the most production for the cheapest wages. We feel the effects of globalization in the US as factories close up and relocate to countries where it is easier to exploit workers. Our unions are suffering from this hemorrhage of jobs and members.
Our humanism can serve as enough reason why the YCL should be engaged in fighting underdevelopment and what perpetuates it. Humanism, though, is not our only reason. The YCL as an organization dedicated to empowering workers and working-class youth in the United States. Globalization is a threat to what we have achieved and what we may achieve in the future and remains a major threat to workers in the United States.
As it becomes easier to leave and threaten American workers with massive lay-offs, they can force workers to accept worse conditions and smaller pay. A story that we see all the time in newspapers lately is the devastation of the \'company town\'. Towns that developed around old factories, mines, or other job sources suddenly become destitute when the company that used to provide most of the jobs suddenly decides to move abroad. In their wake, they leave ghost towns, failing education systems (property values plummet), and the commerce that depended on the wages of former employees in ruins. As old production jobs leave towns in ruins, huge retailers move across the country wrecking the businesses of local people, bringing worse jobs for less pay, and higher (monopolist) prices. Globalized corporations have little concern for the well-being of the communities they operate in.
International corporate dominance is closely linked with increasing corporate power at home. The government is cutting back and privatizing public safety nets while increasing corporate welfare and contract spending that benefits a few corporations. Corporations have effectively managed to buy politicians through campaign contributions to push for policies that make it easier to make profits from the labor of workers. As these companies become more and more globalized, they are less and less accountable to the government and to us. By engaging in a campaign that will bring power back to popular and accountable institutions, the dominance of the corporations over our lives can be checked and reversed. We need to have an internationalist understanding of the exploitation we feel at home.
As the YCL works to empower American workers and working class youth, it must realize that unchecked exploitation of our brothers and sisters abroad will lead to an increase in our own exploitation. It is crucial that we remain engaged in and leaders of the anti-globalization movement. Globalization currently is the largest threat facing human rights, labor rights, civil rights, and the environment.
The YCL also needs to take leadership and strengthen the youth movement against globalization. The protests that have began in Seattle and continued at every major trade meeting are important to maintain the space where we can effectively organize against corporations and their puppet institutions. These must continue despite a political shift to the right. We have lost a lot of ground since September 11 and protests are an important way to reclaim our lost space.
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