on) has been affected by the recent growth of undemocratic supra-national organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the IMF, NAFTA, and the World Bank, and how activists seek to reform or abolish these agencies.
Globalization is a diffuse and complex subject, involving a number of political, economic, environmental, legal, and human rights issues. By the same token, the anti-globalization movement is made up of a number of motley organizations with diverse interests, programs, analyses, and tactics, and is similarly difficult to simplify and define precisely.
In the Financial Times (10/15/01) James Harding describes the picture painted by the anti-globalisation campaigners' critique as "a world in which companies fuelled by the demands of hungry stockholders exploit people, pillage resources, and capture democratic institutions" all over the Earth.
The Canadian Dimension Editorial Collective puts it a little more precisely (7-8/02), which I will quote at length because of its insight and clarity:
"The major forces behind the drive for increased globalization are the transnational corporations whose logic requires the free movement of capital, goods and skilled peoples across borders. This free movement succeeds best when national sovereignty is replaced by the "supra-sovereignty" of international agencies like the WTO, the IMF and NAFTA. The rules imposed by these international organizations are designed to give priority to the needs of capital. In this sense, globalization is the enemy of local custom, democratically determined legislation, regulations and standards and the needs of local populations and communities. In this light, it is clear that globalization is nothing other than a renaming of the logic of global capitalism itself".
In other words, the anti-globalization movement is an anti-capitalist movement. And with impeccable logic the focus of its wrath is directed not just at the above-mentioned ...