全球化的社会观 Globalisation Social Views

全球化作为一个概念和术语是不容易确定的，可以用来描述或涉及几个不同的方式。无论是全球化国际化，全球化是一个形容词来描述国家之间的跨境关系；全球化西化或美国化，现代性的社会结构，传播世界各地经常破坏现有的文化和地方沿途自决。
全球化作为全球化的自由化所指的是“除政府限制运动的国家之间为了创造一个开放的过程中，无国界的世界经济。”；或全球化大众化这个词在全球是指在世界范围内，“全球化”这意味着制作过程中的各种对象和经验有人在地球的每一个角落的因特网和电视。因此，反全球化遭受同样的遗传性问题，虽然它可以肯定地说，，有一个连续的最肯定的模糊性和不确定性的不同意见和团体连接的主题。

Globalisation Social Views
Globalisation as a concept and term is not easily definable and can be used to describe or relate in several different ways. Whether it be globalisation as internationalisation in which globalisation is viewed as just one more adjective to describe cross-border relations between countries; globalisation as westernisation or Americanisation in which the social structures of modernity are spread the world over often destroying existing cultures and local self-determination along its way.

Globalisation as liberalisation wherein globalisation refers to “a process of removing government-imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an open, borderless world economy.” (Scholte 2000); or globalisation as universalisation in which the word global is used to mean worldwide, “globalisation” thus meaning the process of making various objects and experiences available to people at all corners of the earth’ e.g. the internet and television. Consequently anti-globalisation suffers from the same hereditary problem and although it can definitely be argued that there is a continuous spine there is most certainly ambiguity and uncertainty in the differing views and groups attached the subject.

Anti-globalisation is most often used as an umbrella phrase for a group of different protest causes, including anti-capitalism and opposition to multinationals, third world debt, child labour, environmentalism, animal rights, nationalism and anarchism. The two ways I see it best to divide anti-globalisation are Anti-Capitalism and Alter-Globalism.

Anti-capitalists are simply those who want to totally replace capitalism with another system such as communism or anarchism. Alter-globalists can be defined as people who believe in capitalism but also believe there should be changes to the current globalisation regime so it promotes the primacy of, amongst other things, human rights rather than economic progression. In this essay I will be focusing on the latter of these two definitions.

Alter-globalisation’s political line is close to that of anti-globalisation but differs as it chooses to present itself as championing the international integration of globalisation while pushing for the values of democracy, economic justice, human rights and environmental protection to be put ahead of solely economic concerns. Noam Chomsky on the subject of being Alter-globalist rather than anti-globalist at the World Social Forum in 2002,

“The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term “Globalisation” to refer to the specific version of internationillegal for a product to be banned by a government based on the way it is produced i.e. using child labour; and governments cannot take into account the behaviour of companies that do business with vicious dictatorships such as Burma. Alter-global activists say these two WTO rulings mean potential resolutions to human rights and labour abuses are blocked.

Following on from this, alter-globalists strongly believe the WTO’s stern protection of intellectual property rights comes at the expense of human health and lives. The organisation’s support for pharmaceutical companies trying to overcome governments seeking to protect their people’s health has had serious ramifications for places like sub-Saharan Africa. The US government, on behalf of US drug companies, is attempting to obstruct developing countries access to less expensive, generic, life-saving drugs.

The South African government, for example, has been threatened with a WTO challenge over projected national health laws that would encourage the use of generic drugs, ban the practice of manufacturers offering economic motivations to doctors who prescribe their products and set up parallel importing, permitting companies to import from countries which can supply cheaper drugs.

The environment, in the eyes of the alter-global activist, is important and has a powerful enemy in the WTO. The WTO sees important environmental protections as barriers to trade, and uses corporations to disassemble them wherever possible. Alter-globalists activists say the WTO is at present fanning the flames of deforestation by negotiating an agreement that would eliminate tariffs on wood products and thus increasing the demand for timber.

The final two big enemies of the alter-globalists are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); these two are the chief sources of foreign currency loans for the use of poverty alleviation in the poorest countries of the world. At the same time, the poorest countries of the world owe more money to these two institutions than they do any other private or government institutions because most of these loans so badly designed that the countries who have borrowed have not reaped enough income to pay them back.

Of all the debts owed by these poorer countries the debt owed to the World Bank and the IMF is the most difficult to deal with. Both organisations, unlike private lenders and government aid agencies, refuse to terminate debts because they say that their bylaws prevent them from doing so. This debt has boomed in recent years for the poorest countries with multilateral debt swelling by over five hundred percent in the last two decades of the 20th Century. In the last few years, the World Bank and the IMF have agreed to aid countries that are suffering greatly from serious debt burdens by launching the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative of 1996.

Unfortunately to qualify for HIPC, a country must complete three years under an IMF-designed Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). Plus after that obstacle, the country must fulfil an additional three years bound by another SAP before relief on multilateral debt is approved. One of the main points of this which alter-globalists dislike is the unfortunate paradox that the SAPs require them to cut spending on food subsidies, education and health care.

Since the HIPC Initiative was implemented only very few countries, including Uganda, Bolivia, Guyana, Mozambique, and Mali, have received or are in a position to receive any relief and the HIPC relief they have received has equated to be worth reasonably little. Concerns for alter-globalists rising from these issues touch upon the increasing gap between the rich and poor and once again basic human rights.

Some of the criticisms that can be aimed at anti-globalists in general revolve around the fact they have a lack coherent goals, and that the views of different protesters are often in opposition to each other. Critics also argue that some of the views of the anti-globalisation movement are not supported by the empirical evidence put forward.

Here are some of the frequently used claims from these critics to support their stance. “The world income per head has increased by more over period 2002-2007 than during any other period on the record.” (The Economist 2008); there has been a doubling of life expectancy in the developing world since World War II (Hicks and Allen 1999); there has been a significant decrease in child mortality in every developing region of the world (Pfeffermann 2002); and the increase in universal suffrage, from no nations in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations in 2000. (Freedomhouse.org 1999) Another criticism against these activists is that, although the subjects of many of their protests involve issues that are broadly seen as significant problems, such as human rights, it seldom puts forward detailed solutions.

Without a doubt there is an anti-globalisation movement but like globalisation it is hard to pin down. The two definitions that I have mentioned, alter-globalist and briefly anti-capitalist, have the most definite shape to them out of the contenders and then from that Alter-globalist seems the most apt to describe the given movement. Nevertheless they still have more than a few adjoining ideas. The latter approach can be described as out-and-out anti-globalist whereas the former could be more suitably labeled “globalisation critics”.

Usually there is no set boundary between the two and the term anti-globalisation is often applied to both. While advocates of both approaches often collaborate and are a reaction to the same events, their differences are probably greater than their common ground. Opponents exist in the domineering form multinational companies such as McDonalds, Starbucks and Nike but also in international organisations such as the IMF, WTO and World Bank.