Neahtawanta Center, Synapse 36: International Forum on Globalization

Summer 1996 - Issue Number 36

International Forum on Globalization

The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is a new alliance created by sixty activists, scholars, economists, researchers, and writers to stimulate new thinking, joint activity, and public education in response to the rapidly emerging economic and political arrangement called the global economy.

Representing 40 organizations in 19 countries, the Forum's participants have come together out of shared concern that the world's corporate and political leadership is undertaking a restructuring of global politics and economics that may prove as historically significant as any event since the Industrial Revolution. This restructuring is happening at tremendous speed, without full public disclosure of the multiple, profound consequences affecting democracy, human welfare, and the natural world, with devastating effects upon local economies and communities across the planet.

Renaming the problem.
The IFG first convened in San Francisco in January, 1994. It was in the wake of NAFTA's passage, and the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT agreement. For the organizations and leaders who had worked tirelessly to explain the proposed trade agreements' serious negative consequences, it was time to regroup.

The first IFG participants felt that activism must continue despite setbacks but that the full dimensions and scale of the problem be re-articulated. No longer confined solely to the problems of the new "free trade" agreements or the policies of the World Bank, the issues now needed to be understood systematically, as a global process. A complete reorganization of the world's economic and political activity was underway, and with it the effective takeover of global governance by transnational corporations and the international trade bureaucracies that they established.

At first, the IFG functioned as a kind of think tank among some thirty people (later expanded to sixty) to reexamine the issues and develop alternative strategies, especially those that might reverse the globalization trend. The meetings enabled participants to work through differences among themselves-for example, the different frames of reference between northern and "southern" (Third World) activists. Other discussions focused on the differing views of environmental and labor issues within trade agreements; the role of new technologies in the globalization juggernaut; and the steps needed to relocalize control. The meetings provided an unpressured atmosphere for educational exchange and collaboration. An overall analysis was prepared (which follows), and several publications are in process.

Based on that early experience, the participants agreed to begin speaking out against "economic globalization," since it was clear that public discourse--in the media, in academic, in among governments--had not seriously questioned the common wisdom, that a globalized economy would "lift all boats." Nor had it been understood that viable alternative perspectives and analyses exist.

IFG Position Statement (January 1995):
The International Forum on Globalization advocates equitable, democratic and ecologically sustainable economics. It is formed in response to the present worldwide drive toward a globalized economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments. These current trends toward globalization are neither historically inevitable or desirable. If continued, they will lead to a number of negative outcomes:

The rapid diminishment of the powers of local and indigenous communities, states and even nations to control their futures, economic and political power is transferred to global and transnational institutions.
The acceleration of modes of economic development that give scant attention to issues of equity or the health of the natural world, and that have already brought the planet to the brink of economic, social and environmental catastrophe.
A reinforcement and expansion of the economic colonization of southern countries by northern countries, while widening the gap between rich and poor in all countries.
A sharp increase in unemployment in both North and South, as work is increasingly mechanized and automated, as corporate farming and biotechnology replace traditional small-scale agriculture, and as corporate activity becomes more mobile, unrestricted, opaque and unaccountable.
Massive population shifts from rural to urban areas, with commensurate poverty, famine, ethnic friction, and degradation of living and working conditions and human rights.
The accelerated invasion of the earth's remaining wilderness places, bringing a loss of biodiversity, depletion of natural resources and the breakdown of the planet's life support systems, as is already evident in ozone destruction, global warming, loss of species and habitat, depletion of forests and oceans, and the loss of the lands and rights of native peoples.
Worldwide homogenization of diverse, local, and indigenous cultures, social and economic forms, as well as values and living patterns that reflect the efficiency needs of the new global monoculture; simultaneously, the homogenization of diverse landscapes, as they are transformed to suit the global market.

The International Forum on Globalization views international trade and investment agreements, including the GATT, the WTO, Maastricht, and NAFTA, combined with the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to be direct stimulants to the processes that devastate the natural world, weaken democracy, and create a world order in the control of transnational corporations.

The International Forum on Globalization will study, publish and actively advocate in opposition to the current trends toward economic globalization, and will seek to reverse its direction. Simultaneously, we will advocate on behalf of a far more diversified, locally controlled, community based economics that will emphasize the following:

Revitalization of local communities by promoting maximum self-reliance, economic and political control, and environmental sustainability.
Establishment of economic enterprises, and accompanying institutions that enhance people's abilities to exercise democratic control over all decisions that affect them, while promoting meaningful and sustainable livelihoods for all.
Replacement of economic policies based on such concepts as "comparative advantage," which have destroyed local economies through emphasizing regional specialization and environmentally disastrous global transport activity. We urge emphasis on the use of local resources for local production and consumption to produce a better balance between local commerce and long-distance trade.
Abandonment of the paradigm of unlimited economic growth-which is blind to ecological limits and seeks to maximize consumption and material throughput.
Recognition of the rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples.
Encouragement of biodiversity, cultural diversity, and diversity of social, economic, and political forms.
Development of autonomous, regional and local cycles of production and consumption based primarily on renewable resources of energy and raw materials, and recycling all types of wastes, thus preserving natural resources for future generations, as well as the wisdom and beauty of nature.

We believe that the creation of a more equitable economic order-based on principles of diversity, democracy, community and ecological sustainability-will require new international agreements that place the needs of people, local economies and the natural world ahead of the interests of corporations. It is possible, necessary, and in the long run, far more viable to seek such paths than a globalized economic system doomed to fail.

For More information contact: IFG
1555 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94109
tel: 415-771-3394
fax: 415-771-1121
e-mail: ifg@ifg.org
web: www.ifg.org

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