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DAMNING
CHARGESHEET AGAINST GLOBALIZATION
UNMASKING IMPERIALIST DESIGN
- SUKOMAL SEN -
Currently globalization is at the
centre of diverse intellectual and political agenda. As both
description of widespread epoch developments and a prescription
for action, it has achieved a virtual hegemony and so is
presented with an air of inevitability that disarms the
imagination and prevents thought of and action toward a systemic
alternative – towards another, just social and economic order –
another world.
With the on set of deepest ever of
economic crisis of capitalist system as such in the 1970s and
the ‘lost decade’ for the developing countries in the 1980s, the
political ideology and practice of Globalization started
operating in full swing.
That the
motive of this Globalization of economy lies with the
imperialist economic interests of the Western powers with US
imperialism at the centre stage, is a matter of no doubt to-day.
When this process of imperialist
globalization started, except the trade unions, some left
political parties, few other organizations of the oppressed
people and some left intellectuals, there was hardly any voice
against its ideology and operational practices.
But, of late, the situation is
fast changing. Since the last few years of the twentieth
century, questions are being raised by certain intellectual
circles, not necessarily of the left variety about the motive
and ideology of this Globalizatilon. It is not that simply a big
section of working class and other exploited masses are coming
out on the streets to vigorously protest against it, many
university intellectuals of the first order are making sharp
critical analysis of the process and outcome of the
Globalization and there is a common point in these intellectual
discourse that this anti-people Globalization should not only be
ideologically opposed, it should be resisted with all might.
The international agencies
operating this process of Globalization have also come in
sharpest of criticism by many in the academic critics not to
speak of the opposing masses.
In this treaties we take up a few
most recent publications by top level academicians and
intellectuals of international fame who have openly come out
both against the ideology and policies of this imperialist
globalization. We take up here for our article, review of four
of the latest publications viz. (1) Transnational Law and
Contemporary Problems –Journal of the University of Iowa,
College of Law, USA, volume 9 Number 1 Spring 1999. (In this
voluminiuous publication, contributions have mercilessly
dissected what is called Globalization), (2) Globslization
And Its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz (Current Affairs, USA),
a leading academic economist, noble prize winner in Economics
and more surprisingly who served on the Council of Economic
Advisers under President Clinton in White House, wherefrom he
moved to the World Bank in 1997 and served as chief economist
and remained Vice President for about three years. In his own
language, I saw first hand the devastating effect that
Globalization can have on developing countries and especially
the poor within those countries’(p IX of Preface), (3) No
LOGO, Noami Klein (Flamingo, U.K.) an award-winning
journalist from Canada and authoress of many books; The book is
‘an entertaining exposure of corporate culture resonating with
disillusion and (4) Globalization Unmasked – Imperialism
in the 21st century by Jones Petras and Henry
Veltmeyer (Zed Books, London) – Professor. Emerites of
Sociology at the State University of New York and Adjunct
Professor in International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s
University, Halifex, Novo Scatre, Canada and Professor of
Sociology and International Development Studies at the
Unversidad Autonoma de-Zacatecas, Mexico respectively.
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