Numerous actors make globalisation possible. You cannot simply point to one actor and say, ‘hey, you are responsible for this system’. 

The first actors are the financial institutions – the IMF and World Bank, which have been more than happy to lend capital to brutal, corrupt dictators around the world, and then charge unfair interest rates upon the populations to pay this debt back.

Then, there is the World Trade Organisation, which regulates trade throughout the world. Its rules favour rich countries. It has been successful in ensuring that poor countries remove protections but has overlooked the subsidies richer nations give to their industries. US agriculture could not compete if it did not receive state subsidies.

Then there are corporations, which Chomsky calls private tyrannies. These institutions are solely designed to make profit. They might have clever marketing campaigns to make you think otherwise but corporate charity is a joke. One example of this is the Ronald McDonald House – which allows for families to stay in hospital when their children have cancer. This sounds like a nice idea. But do not forget that New Zealand kids are the third most obese in the OECD. Furthermore, we could have a more competent health system if corporations like McDonalds paid more tax. 

Giant corporations are often directly involved in brutal human rights violations. Take the example of petrochemical giant Shell (2008 profit US $31.4 billion, up 14 per cent on the previous year). Shell operates oilfields in Nigeria. The local Ogoni people became disgruntled with Shell’s appropriation of their land without adequate compensation, and the pollution. They resisted through the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, led by Ken Saro-Wiwa. In response, Shell collaborated with the Nigerian Government to provide ‘security’.  Ogoni activists allege they (and members of their families) were imprisoned, tortured, and killed by the Nigerian government. Shell allegedly provided money, weapons and logistical support to the military, such as transportation and ammunition. In 1995, Saro-Wiwa other Ogoni leaders were hanged, after being convicted of murder by a special military tribunal. Allegedly, Shell fabricated evidence in these trials. Shell paid $15.5 million to settle the Saro-Wiwa case but continues to deny any wrongdoing.

The final actors are the nation states. They are essential because capital can move around the globe but people can not. This is the simple reason why globalisation is possible, under the status quo. If we could all have turned up to Seattle, things would have been much different. As NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman said, “The hidden hand of the market, will never work without the hidden fist—McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps ... Without America on duty, there will be no America Online.”

After World War II, the US produced approximately half of the world’s industrial output. All other major powers had suffered terrible destruction in the Second World War. Despite myths of D-Day, the war was on the Eastern Front. About two-thirds of the military deaths in the war were USSR soldiers. The US decided to finance the rebuilding of Western Europe and Japan. It lent money under the Bretton Woods System. It was out of this system that the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, were established. This was the golden age of capitalism. Massive Cold War arms spending kept the system working well until the 1970s. In 1971, the US unilaterally stopped backing the dollar with gold, making their currency the global currency. Furthermore, the economic order began to stagnate, with the oil shocks of the 70s.

A new economic order in the 80s was proposed by Milton Friedman and his associates at the University of Chicago - neo-liberalism. It required privatisation and reliance on the so-called free market to determine wages and prices. If governments wished to borrow capital from the IMF or the World Bank, they had to sign up to these neo-liberal policies. Governments that refused, such as the 1970s Allende government in Chile, were overthrown in bloody coups by CIA-backed thugs like Pinochet. Friedman and his cronies were on close terms with Pinochet, telling him how to run his economy, while he presided over a police state that used rape and murder as stock in trade.

This is the era of modern globalisation. Even supposedly left-wing parties, such as the Labour party in New Zealand agreed with this new world order. Mike Moore (not the US filmmaker, but a minister in the 1984 Labour Government), was actually the head of the WTO at the time of the Battle of Seattle. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it seemed nothing could stop globalisation. Historian Francis Fukuyama boasted that the end of history had been reached, with liberal capitalism dominant the world over.

Unfortunately, not everything was rosy. As Chomsky writes: “Rates of growth of the economy and productivity have slowed, wages have stagnated or declined for a great many people (in the US, a majority of nonsupervisory workers), the work load has sharply increased, benefits have declined, social indicators have deteriorated over a considerable range, and so on - with far worse consequences in the South (the former colonial world), which is why the nonaligned countries (accounting for 80 per cent of the world's population), have strongly condemned this form of globalization.”

In November, 1999, at a World Trade Organisation Meeting in Seattle, resistance from the "South" and the "North" combined in one of the most significant demonstrations since the Vietnam War. Seattle is not one of the most important cities on the world stage. However, it is home to Microsoft and Starbucks, two of the most recognisable brands on the planet. It also has working class history. In 1919, Seattle was the first city in the US to hold a general strike, in which the entire city refused to turn up for work. In November, 1999, a World Trade Organisation Meeting was held. Thousands of labour, environmental and human rights activists went to protest the WTO’s pro-corporate policies and so-called globalization. Farmers from India and France, trade unionists from the US and many other lands, advocates of the poor, AIDS coalitions and many others held teach-ins, rallies and protests during the last week of November. The protesters managed to shut down the meeting, mainly with blockades. 

Because some protesters deliberately smashed windows, the media attempted to brand them, and the protest in general, as mindless anarchists. But it was small minority who smashed windows and even then it wasn't mindless; the major corporate stores were targeted, rather than small businesses. Smashing windows is almost always counter-productive but labelling the protest a failure because of it is a joke. The police were extremely violent themselves - a state of martial law was declared. According to Mark Hosler, a Seattle protester: "There was a lot of completely unprovoked firing of rubber bullets, concussion grenades, tear gas and pepper spray in the eyes of protesters who were peacefully sitting or standing in rows with their arms linked together. I never heard any warnings whatsoever before the police did this. My friend witnessed a police officer lean down to a seated protester, pull her goggles from her eyes, pull her head back, force her eyes open and spray pepper spray directly into her eyes. This happened many times. I got teargassed and had concussion grenades tossed at me and rubber bullets were being fired at us. You may have read that the police only became violent after the protesters did. But the opposite is true. The police were firing on us for four hours before any windows were broken by protesters."

Let us not forget that those who die of starvation every day far outnumber the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Maintaining the status quo requires constant lethal violence. 

The protests were successful in their short term goal; they managed to shut down the conference. Michael Moore, the US film maker stated that “It was a t remendous victory for everyone who lives from paycheck to paycheck. We owe a lot to those brave souls who got arrested and spent the rest of the week in jail.” They demonstrated that ordinary people care about issues, and will do more than just complain about it to their mates down at the pub. Although globalisation continues, the Battle of Seattle represented that we can take on the system and win."

According to the website realbattleinseattle.org, there are five lessons to be learnt. The first is that we cannot afford to fight the symptoms of the system, or organise around single issues. The whole system needs to be replaced. The second is to organise strategically. The organisation must be widely publicised, decentralised, and have clear goals and logic. Thirdly, the movement must focous on people power. The movement must be a grassroots movement, to avoid people being drawn into the illusion of reformism. Fourthly, experience in the laboratory of resistance. No-one is sure what tactics will work again in the future. People should not assume that a previously successful tactic, such as blockades will work again in the future. Fifth, people must tell others of the messages of the movement.