Who Are The Anti-Globalization Protestors?
One thing is for sure. The anti-globalization movement is not a single monolithic entity. It appears to be
a mix of labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, anti-war protestors, animal rights groups, human
rights groups, churches, and political movements. These disparate groups stand for a variety of social
and political causes, but the one thing that seems to unify them is their common opposition to economic
globalization. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines globalization as, “…the development of
an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the
tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets” (2011).
For the FTAA Conference in Miami, Florida, in 2003, there were at least 30 recognized organizations
leading up to, or participating in the periphery as protestors. The following names of participating
organizations were gleaned from open source intelligence reports provided to the MDPD planners. This
list is by no means exhaustive.
AFL-CIO
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
Alliance for Worker’s Rights
Amnesty International
American Friends Service Committee
Catholic Conference on Rural Life
Citizens Trade Campaign
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
CodePink
CopWatch
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Friends of the Earth
Green Party
Greenpeace
Lake Worth Global Justice Group
Mexicanos en Accion
Miami Workers Center
Montana Community Labor Alliance (CLA)
National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP)
National Family Farm Coalition
No FTAA
PETA
Pledge of Resistance in Baltimore
Progressive Workers Organizing Committee
Public Citizen Global Trade Watch (Ralf Nader)
Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church in Texas
Root Cause
Sierra Club
Teamsters
Texas State Employees Union/CWA
United Steelworkers of America
This list does not include the “no name” Anarchists, and the so called “direct action” or “Black Bloc”
groups of violent protestors.
These protestors come from all over the country and all over the world. In the 2003 WTO in Cancun,
there was a large contingent (over a hundred) of South Korean farmers who travelled to Mexico to
protest against the WTO policies. In Cancun there were AIDS activists from South Africa; Zapatista
sympathizers from Central America; fishermen from the Yucatan; indigenous people from Oaxaca,
Mexico; and a milieu of Marxists and Anarchists from various nations in Europe.
To give you an idea of where the FTAA protestors came from, I will quote an article in the People’s
Weekly World Newspaper that reported:
“In September a caravan departed from Seattle for Miami. On board are union leaders, workers,
environmentalists, clergy, farmers and human rights activists. The March to Miami has a single message,
‘Stop the FTAA,’ and it is taking that story directly to the American people, especially in the politically
volatile and vote-rich states of the West, Mid-West and South: Spokane, Wash.; Coeur d’Alene and
Kellogg, Idaho; Missoula and Billings, Mont.; Bismarck, N.D.; East Grand Forks, Eveleth and St. Paul,
Minn.; and on to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois where riders held rallies and dialogued with a
mosaic of heartland families “ (Winebrenner, 2003, ¶4).
Anti-globalization protestors are many different types of people, and they come from many different
places. Each group has its pet issues that don’t always align well with one another. They may disagree
on some things. For example, the unionists and environmentalists don’t always see eye-to-eye on some
issues. However, the unifying concept that brings them together is the idea of fair trade versus free
trade. Many of these groups see the present global economic system as a world of “haves and haves
not.” Given their common opposition to global free trade, it is little wonder that these disparate groups
would coalesce at meetings such as the WTO, the FTAA, the G-8, and the WEF (World Economic Forum).
How many of them are there?
It is impossible to say how many anti-globalization protestors there are in the world. It would be akin to
counting fish in the sea. The number is continually changing and not all of them appear at once in one
place. However, we can look at previous WTO conferences and similar events to gauge how many
protestors attend these conferences at any given time. For example, in the two that I am personally
familiar with, Cancun 2003, and Miami 2003, there were an estimated 10,000 protestors at each of
these weekly events. Of those, I would estimate (based on my own observations) that approximately
500 of them were the hard core Anarchist, or “Black Bloc” types. The remaining 9,000 plus, belonged to
many of the organizations that I listed in the previous section, along with a few locals who came out to
see what all the commotion was all about.
The groups may not agree on all issues, and they definitely do not agree on the tactics used during the
protests. However, they all stand to benefit by coming out in large numbers. A relatively small number
of violent protestors can look a lot bigger if they are embedded in a much larger crowd of 10,000
peaceful demonstrators. The Black Bloc protestors know this, and they count on it as a “force
multiplying” tactic. Likewise, the large numbers of peaceful demonstrators may not want to be
associated with the violent groups, but they too derive a symbiotic benefit from the alliance because the
violent groups are seen as being the “tip of the spear” or the vanguard of the cause. After the violent
groups cause a great deal of havoc, the larger, non-violent groups can come in and give the appearance
of being moderates. This is the strategy of Marxist dialectic theory, and is applied in a real life way for
these demonstrations. It should be no surprise that the dialectic strategy is used for these protests since
most of the organizations involved are either socialist in their views, or at a minimum, they are
considered to be to the left of the political mainstream.
The following table provides a summary of the estimated number of protestors at some of the venues
targeted by the anti-globalization groups.
Event Location Date Estimated Number of Protestors
WTO Seattle, Washington December 1999 35,000 – 50,000
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
Washington, DC April 2000 5,000 – 8,000
Republican National Convention
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania July 2000 3,000
Democratic National Convention
Los Angeles, California August 2000 6,000 – 8,000
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
Prague, Czech Republic September 2000 11,000
SOA-FTAA Quebec, Canada April 2001 34,000
European Union Summit Gotenberg, Sweden June 2001 12,000 – 20,000
G-8 Summit Evian, France June 2003 50,000
Agri-tech Ministerial
Conference
Sacramento, California June 2003 5,000
WTO Cancun, Mexico September 2003 10,000
FTAA Miami, Florida November 2003 10,000
G-8 Summit Sea Island, Georgia June 2004 500 – 700
One way of gauging the numbers of protestors is to look at how many have gone to training classes that
teach various techniques such as rappelling, climbing towers to place signs, and other disruptive tactics.
The Ruckus Society is an organization that provides training to a number of protest organizations. On its
History web page, the Ruckus Society claims to have trained over 3,000 activists and organizers in “non-
violent direct action” tactics over a ten year span starting in 1995.
Why are they so angry?
This question cannot really be answered entirely in this article… if at all… because as stated earlier,
“they” simply do not exist as a single monolithic group. There are many groups, with many interests,
and they don’t always align well. Moreover, any attempt to answer this question would require me to
read the minds of many people. Reading the mind of one person alone can be enough of challenge for
me. Nevertheless, I will try to answer this question the best I can, based on my personal first-hand
impressions, from my readings, and from conversing with some of the protestors face-to-face.
As I understand it, anti-globalization protestors see the world as a chasm between the “haves” and the
“haves not.” They view the existing economic world order as being highly skewed to the advantage of
the rich (which comprise a conveniently stated 1% of the population), at the expense of the poor
masses, which comprise the remaining 99% of the world’s population. This 1% versus 99% rhetoric has
been clearly evident in the recent Occupy Wall Street protests throughout much of the nation.
As a result of this perceived imbalance of wealth, the anti-globalization protestors seek remedies that
would radically transform the existing economic world order. While there are considerable differences
of opinion between the radical extremes, and the more moderate groups, the essence of their proposed
remedies lies in the “leveling of the playing field” through the use of non-market based purposive
economic actions such as fair trade instead of free trade. In other words… the redistribution of wealth
through non-market means.
There was one interesting thing that I couldn’t help but notice while I was becoming fully immersed in
the FTAA planning, and by proxy… to the culture of the anti-globalization protestors. I noticed that for
some reason, a lot of the anti-globalization groups seemed to specifically target companies such as
Starbucks and Nike. That would not seem to be strange in itself since these are two multinational
companies that would seem to be the target of anti-globalization groups… for the mere reason that they
are global, and they are profiteers of the free market system. However, I learned that things are not
always what they appear to be.
It just so happened that at the same time that I was planning for the FTAA, I had begun my doctoral
studies, and I had started to compile a literature review of articles that dealt with the topic of corporate
social responsibility (CSR). I chose that topic for my doctoral dissertation because I liked the underlying
core tenet of corporate social responsibility… “doing well by doing good.” This is a core value that I feel
strongly about, and that fits with my personal view of philanthropy, and giving of oneself for the
betterment of the community.
However, the deeper I got into my literature review, the more I noticed what appeared to be an
anomaly in the “doing well by doing good” paradigm. It seems that that rule may be true most of the
time, but as I found out, it is not true all the time. In my studies I found out that Starbucks and Nike
were consistently regarded as two of the top corporate citizens when it comes to corporate social
responsibility. These two companies stand out for their efforts in the community and for environmental
causes.
In the book Dancing with the Tiger, Starbucks in particular was singled out as an example of excellent
corporate social responsibility:
“So in the end, from a commercial perspective, what Starbucks is doing behind the scenes, with
generous employee benefits, shade-grown coffee, partnering with non-profit organizations to support
countries of origin where it sources coffee, composting coffee grounds, and countless other responsible
initiatives, it all amounts to simply good business. Because the totality of what Starbucks is and does
continues to draw customers back to the stores, over and over and over” (Nattrass & Altomare, 2002, p.
138).
However, Nattrass and Altomare go on to point out that perhaps all is not well for Starbucks:
“Yet the company’s very success and high visibility have made it a favorite target for an array of social
activist campaigns, ironically sometimes because of the very social conscience attributed to Starbucks
customers and the high values that the company itself espouses” (p. 103).
Nike and Starbucks… among the top corporate citizens year in and year out… yet these are the same two
companies that the anti-globalization groups seem to target the most. The paradox was glaring. The
irony was too much to resist. Why was this happening? Why are two of the companies that do the
most for “fair trade” and to help indigenous cultures in host countries are the same ones that the anti-
globalization groups were targeting? This all seemed to be counterintuitive. Perhaps it was indicative of
something else. I was so intrigued by this contradiction that I adjusted the focus of my studies. Instead
of examining the conventional wisdom of “doing well by doing good,” I looked instead at the apparent
anomaly that I had stumbled on.
Four and a half years later… after the WTO in Cancun and the FTAA in Miami, I concluded my doctoral
research on corporate social responsibility. The research included a content analysis of the web sites
and blogs of special interest groups. I titled my dissertation, Unintended Effects of Corporate Social