SOCIAL SOLIDARITY, DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM

This paper critically examines the assumptions of the advocates of ''globalization'' and develops an alternative that is the polar opposite. The first half of the paper challenges the following assumptions about ''globalization'': that national sovereignty is eroding for all countries; that the level of transnational ownership is higher now than in the past; that ''globalization'' has been the inevitable result of technological change; that democracy is strengthened by global economic liberalization. The second half of the paper examines the prospects for the creation of democratic alternatives to globalization in old and new social movements. Socially controlled investment funds that have ''location commitment'' to communities are seen as an alternative to the globalization vision of transnational corporations.