On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 12:28 +0530, Ingrid wrote: > Movement –noun : a diffusely organized or heterogeneous group of > people or organizations tending toward or favoring a generalized > common goal
as i have not attended the WSF, my comments are informed by the public face of it, so they are more comments on the "anti-globalisation movement" than the WSF itself. what i find disturbing is what udhay called the lack of internal coherence. while you can have a movement against an "anti" concept when what you're against is a single thing, such as slavery, it is hard to have a movement "anti-" something which in itself is not coherent. one of the most egregious examples of internal incoherence are agriculture anti-globalisation activists from europe, such as jose bove, who "unite" with agriculture anti-globalisation activists from africa or india. the former support domestic (european) agriculture subsidies that lead to the bizarre situation where one european cow gets more taxpayer funding than the entire income of each of 2 billion humans on this planet. these subsidies lead directly to the poverty of farmers in africa and india (where prices, such as for cotton, fall in response to dumping of surplus production from europe - which is surplus only because of european subsidies supported by european "anti-globalists"). similarly the criticism of free trade assumes that it is the rich countries that benefit the most, while in fact trade is what has led to the single largest number of people moved out of poverty ever, in china, and it is in fact the import of chinese products (rather than, say, american ones) that threaten domestic producers in southern africa, bangladesh and india. taking textiles as an example, though, cheaper chinese textiles clearly do benefit consumers in these poorer countries. best, rishab best, rishab
