Indefence of Globe

7/29/2019 Indefence of Globe

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In Defense ofGlobalization

Jagdish Bhagwati


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World Economic Forum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Economic_Forum_logo.svg


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Motto

Entrepreneurship is in the global public interest

Formation

1971, as European Management Forum 1987, name changed to World Economic Forum

Type Non-Profit Organization

Legal status

Foundation

Headquarters

Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland Region served

Worldwide

Executive Chairman

Klaus Schwab

WEF


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Organization

Davos : five day meeting on the last week of Jan

2500 members from 100 countries.

Conglomeration of world leaders.

Membership

- 1000 companies from the world over with aannual turnover of five billion dollars.

WEF


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Annual meeting of the new Champions

India, china, Brazil, Russia, Mexico

Regional meeting : The India Economic Summit

The young Global leaders

Social entrepreneurship: Childline

Research Reports

Public Eye Award

Davos Man

WEF


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This Charter was approved and adopted in So Paulo, Brazil onApril 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World SocialForum Organizing Committee, and approved with modifications bythe World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.

1) The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflectivethinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, freeexchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, bygroups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any formofimperialism, and are committed to building a planetary societydirected towards fruitful relationships among Mankind and between

it and the Earth.

WSF: Charter of Principles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo,_Brazilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-liberalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-liberalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-liberalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-liberalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-liberalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo,_Brazil


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2) The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre wasan event localised in time and place. From nowon, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre

that "Another World Is Possible", it becomes apermanent process of seeking and buildingalternatives, which cannot be reduced to theevents supporting it.

3) The World Social Forum is a world process.All the meetings that are held as part of thisprocess have an international dimension.


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4) The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in

opposition to a process ofglobalization commanded by the

large multinational corporations and by the governments and

international institutions at the service of those corporations'

interests, with the complicity of national governments. They aredesigned to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a

new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights,

and those of all citizens - men and women - of all nations and the

environment and will rest on democratic international systems and

institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the

sovereignty of peoples.

5) The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only

organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries

in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world civil

society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rightshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rightshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization


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6) The meetings of the World Social Forum do notdeliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as abody. No one, therefore, will be authorized, onbehalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to

express positions claiming to be those of all itsparticipants. The participants in the Forum shall notbe called on to take decisions as a body, whether byvote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals foraction that would commit all, or the majority, of them

and that propose to be taken as establishingpositions of the Forum as a body. It thus does notconstitute a locus of power to be disputed by theparticipants in its meetings, nor does it intend toconstitute the only option for interrelation and action

by the organizations and movements that participatein it.


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7) Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forum'smeetings must be assured the right, during suchmeetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions theymay decide on, whether singly or in coordination withother participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisionswidely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them,but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions.

8) The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional,non-governmental and non-party contextthat, in a decentralized fashion,interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local tothe international to build another world.

9) The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of

activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate init, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities,

providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representationsnor military organizations shall participate in the Forum. Governmentleaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this Charter may be invitedto participate in a personal capacity.


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10) The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian andreductionist views of economy, development and history and tothe use of violence as a means of social control by the State. Itupholds respect for Human Rights, the practices of realdemocracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in

equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders andpeoples, and condemns all forms of domination and allsubjection of one person by another.

11) As a forum for debate the World Social Forum is a movementof ideas that prompts reflection, and the transparent circulation ofthe results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and instruments

of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist andovercome that domination, and on the alternatives proposed tosolve the problems of exclusion and social inequality that theprocess of capitalist globalization with its racist, sexist andenvironmentally destructive dimensions is creating internationallyand within countries.


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12) As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encouragesunderstanding and mutual recognition amongst its participantorganizations and movements, and places special value on the exchange amongthem, particularly on all that society is building to center economic activity and political action onmeeting the needs of people and respecting nature, in the present and for future generations.

13) As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen andcreate new national and international links among organizations andmovements of society, that, in both public and private life, willincrease the capacity for non-violent social resistance to the processof dehumanization the world is undergoing and to the violence used by the State, andreinforce the humanizing measures being taken by the action of these movements andorganizations.

14) The World Social Forum is a process that

encourages its participantorganizations and movements to situate their actions,from the local level to the national level and seekingactive participation in international contexts, as issues of planetarycitizenship, and to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they areexperimenting in building a new world in solidarity


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Child labour

Control of IMF & WB

Environmental degradation Cultural homogenization

Globalization of poverty

Socially destructive globalization

Globalization blamed for


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World Economic Forum Vs World Social

Forum

Stake wielding and stake asserting NGOs

Accentuation of poverty in both rich and poorer

countries

Erosion of unionization and other labour rights

Creation of a democratic deficit Harming of women

Imperiling of local mainstream and indigenous

cultures

Dama e of environment

Globalization: socially, Not just

Economically benign


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International integration including

Foreign trade,

Multinational direct foreign investment,

movements of short-term portfolio funds,

Technical diffusion

Cross-border migration

globalization with a human face

Bhagwati in defense of economic

globalization


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The WTO began life on 1 January 1995, but itstrading system is half a century older. Since1948, the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade (GATT) had provided the rules for thesystem

The last and largest GATT round, was theUruguay Round which lasted from 1986 to 1994

and led to the WTOs creation. Whereas GATT had mainly dealt with trade in

goods, the WTO and its agreements now covertrade in services, and in traded inventions,

creations and designs (intellectual property).

WTO


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the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the

only international organization dealing with

the global rules of trade between nations. Its

main function is to ensure that trade flows assmoothly, predictably and freely as possible.

WTO


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1. The WTO does NOT tell governments

what to do. The WTO does not tell

governments how to conduct their trade

policies. Rather, its a member-drivenorganization.

2.The WTO is NOT for free trade at any

cost 3.The WTO is NOT only concerned about

commercial interests. This does NOT take

priority over development

Ten misunderstandings


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4.In the WTO, commercial interests do

NOT take priority over environmental

protection

5.The WTO does NOT dictate to

governments on issues such as food

safety, and human health and safety.

Again commercial interests do NOToverride.

6.The WTO does NOT destroy jobs or


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7.Small countries are NOT powerless in

the WTO

8.The WTO is NOT the tool of powerful

lobbies.

9.Weaker countries do have a choice,

they are NOT forced to join the WTO.

10.The WTO is NOT undemocratic.


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Freeing of the trade

The North-South Divide

The role of policy in todays globalization Anti-capitalism

Anti-corporation attitude

Anti-American

Why of anti-globalization


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Handling possible downsides ( environmental

concern and insecurities of the locals: Shrimp

farming)

Protecting the interest of the labour

Question of speed for social adjustment

Globalization is good but not good

enough


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Trade enhances growth and that growth

reduces poverty.

Trade as the engine of growth.

Indian experience of raising bottom 30

percent of poor people.

Growth is the mantra. But growth is not the

pie, it is the diversification. ( Jute in

Bangladesh) ( Success of the Green

Revolution & failure of PSUs in India, Banks

& SHGs)

Poverty enhanced or diminished?


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Indefence of Globe