In 1989, with the decline and imminent collapse of state socialism in the Soviet Union and China, as well as the turning of so many states that had once been authoritarian and\/or had intervened actively in the economy to a model of liberal democracy and free markets, the American intellectual and State Department employee Francis Fukuyama declared \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the end of history.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d By this, he meant that there were no more grand ideas on the reorganization of society\u00e2\u20ac\u201dliberal democracy and free markets had come to be the ideal to which all states aspired. As the Soviet Union\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s state socialism disintegrated by late 1991, it seemed that Fukuyama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prediction had come true. There was, it seemed, no alternative to this form of globalization.<\/p>\n
Fukuyama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prediction was based on the benefits that globalization was supposed to bring to all countries, but the social effects of adopting a program of free markets as imposed by international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, were often dire. Many lost jobs, lost social security nets of healthcare and education, costs of living soared, as did poverty and inequality\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthese adverse effects were felt most pointedly in what were once known as Third World countries.<\/p>\n
To counter not only the effects but the very logic of globalization, a worldwide grouping of movements arose by the turn of the twentieth century, and the slogan of this anti-globalization movement was that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153another world is possible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Their opposition to globalization was most effectively demonstrated in mass mobilizations against meetings of international financial institutions in Seattle, USA in 1999 and Quebec, Canada in 2001, as well as through the meeting of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001. Asserting both the necessity and possibility of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153another world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so visibly, the anti-globalization movements seemed to challenge head on Fukuyama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claim of the end of history.<\/p>\n
Yet, the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York seemed to sap the anti-globalization movement of its vitality. George W. Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s administration launched a war in Afghanistan later that year that went largely unopposed by genuinely popular movements, but when such a movement arose on a hitherto unforeseen global scale to oppose the American invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003, it met not only with immediate failure but rapid disintegration. It seemed that another world was, indeed, possible, but it was not the one that the anti-globalization movement was looking forward to. It was one where authoritarianism and the belligerence of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remaining superpower was unchecked, and while the World Social Forum continued to meet it and its associated movements seemed to wither.<\/p>\n
Our current moment is one of global crisis\u00e2\u20ac\u201dglobal crises of food, of the climate, of the entire globalized economic system, and of health. The end of history, it seems, has long ended. In fact, even as these global crises have developed, new movements have arisen or older ones have been reinvigorated, particularly but not only in the Third World. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pink tide\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of left-leaning and leftist governments in Latin America has provided a glimpse of an alternative globalization challenging the logic of liberal democracy and free markets. Meanwhile, in certain parts of South Asia, communist movements seem to be making inroads through combinations of armed and electoral struggles. Indeed, the very election of Barack Obama in the United States suggests the widespread desire for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153change\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor another world\u00e2\u20ac\u201dinvolving an end to wars and the provision of greater social security. In other words, even as it seems that the entire world is careening toward a catastrophic crisis, movements on the ground and in government in many countries are attempting to build, precisely, a better world. While we can guess at the outlines of another world, only through active participation can we make the possible probable and give it substantive content.<\/p>\n
This piece is written for class. The idea is to be able to communicate effectively in non-academese for a general audience.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1989, with the decline and imminent collapse of state socialism in the Soviet Union and China, as well as the turning of so many states that had once been authoritarian and\/or had intervened actively in the economy to a model of liberal democracy and free markets, the American intellectual and State Department employee Francis […]<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}