4 - Alternatives to Globalization

Summary

When in late 1997 the Clinton administration withdrew its request for fast-track authority, The Nation celebrated. It editorialized that “against overwhelming odds, a mobilization of labor unions, environmentalists, consumer and church groups managed to torpedo the centerpiece of the corporate trade agenda.” But at the same time The Nation was eager to dispel the idea that the defeat of fast track signaled a retreat to narrow isolationism. Rather, it described the outcome as a triumph of a “new internationalism.” The withdrawal of fast track, it wrote, represented a “call to put America's weight on the side of worker, consumer and environmental movements globally” (Nation 1997, 3). Two weeks later, the magazine's national correspondent, William Greider, reiterated this position. While applauding the defeat of fast track, he attacked “nostalgic, right-wing protectionists.” Greider argued that “even if pulling up the bridges were a plausible course, it would be profoundly unprogressive.” Echoing The Nation editorial, Greider insisted that it was important for Americans to “learn to think globally.” He called on the people of the country to resist the temptation to try to “withdraw from the world” and to “think instead of grand new vistas that have been opened for human relations around the world” (Greider 1997, 12).

This call for a “new internationalism,” however, does not stand unchallenged among anti-globalization activists. Within the movement an alternative perspective wants to turn away from the grand vistas envisioned by Greider.