The Other Davos: The Globalization of Resistance to the World Economic System - Hardcover

9781856499873: The Other Davos: The Globalization of Resistance to the World Economic System

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1856499871 ISBN 13: 9781856499873

Publisher: Zed Books, 2001

Davos, the Swiss mountain resort, is host each year to the meetings of the World Economic Forum. To this informal gathering of those business and financial magnates with real economic power in the capitalist world are invited political leaders, cultural and religious organizations and even some trade unionists. The aim is to define global economic strategies. Then one year, for the first time, a counter-Davos gathering brought together on the same date social movements representative of resistance and struggles across five continents. These movements were Brazil's Landless People's Movement, the Trade Union Congress of South Korea, the National Peasant Federation of Burkina Faso, the Quebec Women's Movement and the French Movement of the Unemployed. They met with a number of eminent economists, sociologists, historians and political scientists. The dialogue had been initiated, in association with Le Monde Diplomatique, by ATTAC (the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the benefit of Citizens), the Coordinating Centre against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the World Forum for Alternatives, and the Latin American branch of SAPRIN (the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network). The aim was to demonstrate, by means of very different analyses and the presentation of concrete alternatives, their opposition to the dominant ideology of neo-liberalism and the dictatorship of capitalism over global society. This book is a compilation of these discussions. Its impact has already resonated around the world with publication in Arabic, Burmese, Dutch, French, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese and a number of other languages.

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Synopsis:

The Swiss mountain resort of Davos is host each year to the meetings of the World Economic Forum, an informal group of top business and financial magnates who meet to define global economic strategies. For the first time, a counter-Davos gathering brought together on the same date social movements representative of resistance and struggles across five continents. These movements were Brazil's Landless People's Movement; the Trade Union Congress of South Korea; the National Peasant Federation of Burkina Faso; the Quebec Women's Movement; and the French Movement of the Unemployed. They met with a number of eminent economists, sociologists, historians and political scientists to demonstrate their opposition to the dominant ideology of neo-liberalism. This book is a compilation of these discussions, whose impact has resonated around the world.

About the Author:

Francois Houtart is a sociologist, Professor Emeritus of Louvain University (Belgium), director the Tricontinental Centre, and executive secretary of the World Forum for Alternatives. Francois Polet is a sociologist and researcher at the Tricontinental Centre.

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