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Abstract
In 2001 the first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The meeting was viewed by many at the time as a new manifestation of the global Left, a people's opposition to the World Economic Forum that stood as the first real front to global capitalism since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While many activists and intellectuals on the left have since become deeply critical of the Forum, newer movements, such as Occupy, the Arab Spring and the indignados, have built upon its successes and innovations.
Another World is Possible is the original collection of essays and demands from the heart of the ‘movement of movements’. Based on the work of the first two annual meetings of the WSF, this classic collection not only set out the initial aims of the movements that came together, it also paved the way for the theoretical study of new social movements, their multiple and participatory character. Today, as many crises affect all our lives, it is time to revisit the original demands of a global solidarity movement, united in its determination to fight against the concentration of wealth, the proliferation of poverty and inequalities, and the destruction of our earth, and to reconstitute a global left.
'The best guidebook that I know for re-imagining a progressive politics responsive to the challenges of the twenty-first century. It brings together the ideas, language, and imaginings of the most articulate voices on the global stage.'
Richard Falk, Princeton University
'The Second World Social Forum was a carnival of ideas and solidarities. Another World is Possible captures superbly their many alternatives to neoliberalism and provides one big "Ya Basta" to the status quo.'
Thomas Mertes, co-author of A Movement of Movements
'A brilliant series of collective thoughts by those who built the WSF on all the major topics of an emancipatory project for the twenty-first century. Indispensable reading for a new generation of activists.’
Geoffrey Pleyers, author of Alter-Globalization
'This new edition reminds us of not only how original and timely the World Social Forum was and what a global impact it had, but also of how changing times are challenging the WSF a decade and more later. Strongly recommended.'
Peter Waterman, co-editor of World Social Forum: Challenging Empires
'A fascinating and valuable reflection of political reality.'
Roger S. Gottlieb, Tikkun
William F. Fisher is professor of international development and social change in the International Development, Community, and Environment Department at Clark University, USA. Thomas Ponniah is a professor of philosophy and politics in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at George Brown College in Toronto, an affiliate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and a summer lecturer at Harvard University.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front Cover | Front cover | ||
| critique influence change | i | ||
| About the Editors | iv | ||
| Title Page | v | ||
| Copyright | vi | ||
| Contents | vii | ||
| Acknowledgements\r | xiii | ||
| Foreword to the critique influence change Edition | xvii | ||
| Preface to the critique influence change Edition | xxi | ||
| Foreword to the First Edition | xxvii | ||
| Preface to the First Edition | xxxi | ||
| Introduction\r | 1 | ||
| Part I: The Production of Wealth and Social Reproduction | 21 | ||
| Overview: Key Questions, Critical Issues \r | 23 | ||
| Key Questions | 23 | ||
| Critical Issues | 25 | ||
| 1: External Debt: Abolish the Debt in Order to Free Development | 30 | ||
| Breaking the Infernal Cycle of Debt | 31 | ||
| Extra Resources to Finance Development | 32 | ||
| A New Development Strategy | 34 | ||
| New Rules of Financial Good Practice | 36 | ||
| Further Indispensable Measures | 37 | ||
| Notes | 37 | ||
| 2: Africa/Brazil: Conference Synthesis | 38 | ||
| 3: Financial Capital: Controls on Finance Capital | 41 | ||
| Introduction | 41 | ||
| Restore Controls over Capital Flows to Nation-States | 42 | ||
| Promote Control of Capital Flows | 43 | ||
| Reinforce Control of Markets and Financial Actors | 46 | ||
| Reform the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) | 49 | ||
| 4: International Trade: Conference Synthesis | 51 | ||
| Broad Consensus on Free Trade and the WTO | 51 | ||
| Proposals by Dot Keet, Africa Trade Network | 51 | ||
| Proposals on the WTO by Martin Khor, Third World Network | 52 | ||
| Proposals by Paul Nicholson, Via Campesina | 53 | ||
| Proposals by Hector de la Cueva, Alianza Social Continental | 53 | ||
| Proposal by Lori Wallach, Public Citizen | 54 | ||
| Final proposals by the panellists | 54 | ||
| 5: Transnational Corporations: Issues and Proposals | 55 | ||
| Summary Proposal | 55 | ||
| Corporations Have Too Much Power | 55 | ||
| Governments and Corporations are Intimately Intertwined | 56 | ||
| Sectors, Individual Corporations, Structural Power | 57 | ||
| Dialogue versus Confrontation | 58 | ||
| Corporate Responsibility versus Corporate Accountability versus Democratic Control over Corporations | 59 | ||
| Reform versus Banishment | 61 | ||
| 6: Labour | 62 | ||
| (i) A Strategic Perspective on the International Trade Union Movement for the Twenty-first Century\r | 62 | ||
| Introduction | 62 | ||
| Perspective on Transformative Unionism – Values, Ethics, Beliefs and Traditions | 63 | ||
| Our Socio-Economic Outlook | 68 | ||
| Organizational Review and Restructuring | 70 | ||
| The Perspective for Africa and the South | 75 | ||
| Conclusion | 77 | ||
| (ii) A Global Strategy for Labour\r | 78 | ||
| Investor Protectionism | 78 | ||
| Capital’s Gains | 81 | ||
| Global Class Politics | 83 | ||
| Trade Unions’ Role | 85 | ||
| Conclusion | 90 | ||
| Notes | 90 | ||
| 7: A Solidarity Economy | 91 | ||
| (i) Resist and Build\r | 91 | ||
| Social, Solidarity-based Economics | 91 | ||
| Social, Solidarity-Based Economics and Development of Communities | 95 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 97 | ||
| Questions | 98 | ||
| Analyses | 100 | ||
| Proposals | 101 | ||
| Consensus and Differences of Opinion | 104 | ||
| Lead Participants | 105 | ||
| Part II: Access to Wealth and Sustainability | 107 | ||
| Overview: Key Questions, Critical Issues \r | 109 | ||
| Key Questions | 109 | ||
| Critical Issues | 112 | ||
| 8: Environment and Sustainability | 115 | ||
| (i) The Living Democracy Movement: Alternatives to the Bankruptcy of Globalization\r | 115 | ||
| Bankruptcy of Globalization | 115 | ||
| Creating Alternatives to Corporate Globalization | 117 | ||
| Creative Resistance | 118 | ||
| The Living Democracy Movement | 120 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 125 | ||
| Summary Document | 125 | ||
| 9: Water – A Common Good: Conference Synthesis | 130 | ||
| Key Themes | 131 | ||
| Social Groups Involved | 131 | ||
| Analysis | 132 | ||
| Proposals | 133 | ||
| Sustainable Water Management | 134 | ||
| The Fight against Dams | 135 | ||
| 10: Knowledge, Copyright and Patents | 136 | ||
| (i) Intellectual Property and the Knowledge Gap\r | 136 | ||
| The First Problem – The Rules | 136 | ||
| The Second Problem – Their Impact | 137 | ||
| Campaign Strategies | 139 | ||
| Conclusion | 143 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 144 | ||
| Context | 144 | ||
| The Problem | 145 | ||
| The Alternatives: Three Levels | 147 | ||
| 11: Medicine, Health, AIDS: Conference Synthesis | 150 | ||
| Access to Essential Medicines | 151 | ||
| A Brief Note on the Brazilian Experience | 153 | ||
| The Global Campaigns and their Results | 154 | ||
| Arguments Used by Global Campaigns | 155 | ||
| Challenges and Priorities | 156 | ||
| Doha: Challenges that Persist | 159 | ||
| Palestine: A Motion of Protest | 159 | ||
| Notes | 160 | ||
| 12: Food: People’s Right to Produce, Feed Themselves and Exercise their Food Sovereignty | 161 | ||
| The Real Causes of Hunger and Malnutrition | 163 | ||
| The Consequences of Neoliberal Policies | 165 | ||
| 13: Cities, Urban Population: Conference Synthesis | 173 | ||
| 14: Indigenous Peoples | 180 | ||
| (i) Indigenous Commission Statement\r | 180 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 182 | ||
| Background | 182 | ||
| Proposals | 185 | ||
| Part III: The Affirmation of Civil Society and Public Space | 187 | ||
| Overview: Key Questions, Critical Issues\r | 189 | ||
| Key Questions | 189 | ||
| Critical Issues | 192 | ||
| 15: The Media: Democratization of Communications and the Media | 195 | ||
| The Issues | 195 | ||
| Proposals for Alternative Approaches | 198 | ||
| 16: Education: Conference Synthesis | 202 | ||
| Action by Civil Society | 205 | ||
| Education as a Liberating Tool | 206 | ||
| Outrage over Poverty | 208 | ||
| Education and Emancipation | 209 | ||
| Essential Principles of this Fight | 211 | ||
| 17: Culture: Cultural Diversity, Cultural Production and Identity | 212 | ||
| Introduction | 212 | ||
| Context | 212 | ||
| Globalization | 213 | ||
| Culture | 214 | ||
| Cultural Diversity and Identity | 215 | ||
| Cultural Production, Diversity and Identity | 215 | ||
| Conclusion | 216 | ||
| Proposals | 216 | ||
| 18: Violence | 218 | ||
| (i) Violence Against Women: The ‘Other World’ Must Act \r | 218 | ||
| Introduction | 218 | ||
| Violence against Women: A Transnational and Transcultural Reality | 219 | ||
| The Multiple Manifestations of Violence against Women | 220 | ||
| Fundamentalist Regimes: Extreme Examples of the Institutionalization of Violence against Women | 221 | ||
| Rape as a Weapon of War | 223 | ||
| Women Fight Back and Organize | 223 | ||
| The Causes of Violence against Women | 224 | ||
| The Consequences of Violence against Women | 225 | ||
| Violence against Women and Liberal Globalization | 226 | ||
| The Sex Trade: A Vastly Profitable Industry | 228 | ||
| Alternatives, Perspectives and Directions to Take, Towards the Complete Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women | 229 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis on the Culture of Violence and Domestic Violence\r | 236 | ||
| 19: Discrimination and Intolerance | 240 | ||
| (i) Combating Discrimination and Intolerance \r | 240 | ||
| Background to the Situation of Dalits in India | 240 | ||
| Continued Practice of Untouchability | 241 | ||
| Extreme Poverty | 241 | ||
| Recommended Strategies | 244 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 246 | ||
| Questions | 246 | ||
| Analysis | 247 | ||
| Proposals That Have Been Identified | 249 | ||
| Convergences and Differences: Points of Debate in Civil Society | 253 | ||
| Stakeholders | 254 | ||
| 20: Migration and the Traffic in People: The Contradictions of Globalization | 255 | ||
| ‘Today the World Is Global’ | 255 | ||
| Understanding Globalization | 255 | ||
| The Shifting Paradigm of Migration: From Industrialization to Globalization | 257 | ||
| Characteristics of Current Migration Flows | 258 | ||
| The European Case: Towards a ‘Precarious Immigration’ | 260 | ||
| What Action is to be Taken vis-à-vis Globalization? | 261 | ||
| 21 The Global Civil Society Movement | 262 | ||
| (i) Discussion Document\r | 262 | ||
| The Movement against Neoliberal Globalization | 262 | ||
| Heterogeneity and Diversity: A ‘Movement of Movements’ | 264 | ||
| Porto Alegre: The Parliament of the People | 265 | ||
| From Porto Alegre to Genoa: International Convergence and the Vilification of the Movement | 267 | ||
| Neo-Colonial War and New Challenges for the Movement | 269 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis \r | 272 | ||
| Background to the Conference | 272 | ||
| Key Questions | 273 | ||
| Leading Actors | 274 | ||
| Relevant Analyses | 274 | ||
| Points of Agreement and Disagreement | 275 | ||
| Part IV: Political Power and Ethics in the New Society | 277 | ||
| Overview: Key Questions, Critical Issues\r | 279 | ||
| Key Questions | 279 | ||
| Critical Issues | 281 | ||
| 22: The International Architecture of Power | 285 | ||
| (i) International Organizations and the Architecture of World Power\r | 285 | ||
| Proposal for a Pluralistic System of Global Economic Governance | 285 | ||
| What is Deglobalization | 285 | ||
| Pluralist Global Governance | 286 | ||
| Note | 289 | ||
| (ii) Conference Synthesis\r | 290 | ||
| Questions Prepared by the Facilitator | 290 | ||
| Proposals | 292 | ||
| Points of Convergence | 294 | ||
| Agents of Change | 295 | ||
| 23: Militarism and Globalization: Conference Synthesis | 296 | ||
| The Central Question of the Conference | 296 | ||
| James Petras | 297 | ||
| Claude Serfati | 300 | ||
| Lily Traubman | 302 | ||
| Hector Mondragón | 303 | ||
| Alfredo Wagner | 306 | ||
| Dianne Luping | 307 | ||
| Proposals | 307 | ||
| 24: Human Rights: Conference Synthesis on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights | 309 | ||
| Establishment of a Permanent Forum on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights | 311 | ||
| The Primacy of Human Rights | 313 | ||
| Support for the Draft Optional Protocol to the ICESCR | 315 | ||
| 25: Sovereignty, Nation, Empire | 317 | ||
| 26: Democracy: Participatory Democracy | 324 | ||
| Two Opposing Views on the Future of Humankind | 324 | ||
| Participation Demands Political Decentralization and Devolution of Powers, both Political and Economic | 326 | ||
| Economics | 326 | ||
| Ethics | 327 | ||
| Politics | 327 | ||
| 27: Values | 329 | ||
| (i) Values of a New Civilization \r | 329 | ||
| Qualitative Values | 331 | ||
| Liberty | 332 | ||
| Equality and Fraternity | 333 | ||
| Democracy as an Indispensable Value | 335 | ||
| The Environment | 335 | ||
| Socialism as an Alternative | 336 | ||
| Notes | 337 | ||
| (ii) Feminism and the Three Enlightenment Ideals | 338 | ||
| Epilogue: Social Movements’ Manifesto | 346 | ||
| Resistance to Neoliberalism, War and Militarism; For Peace and Social Justice | 346 | ||
| Appendix 1: World Social Forum Charter of Principles | 355 | ||
| Appendix 2: World Social Forum 2003: Contacts\r | 359 | ||
| Index\r | 361 | ||
| Back Cover | Back cover |