While studying the decline of the brass industry in western Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley, I became aware that the deindustrialization I was seeing was largely the result of what would soon be known as economic globalization.[1] I became increasingly concerned with economic globalization and the movements that developed to counter it over the course of the 1980s. I collaborated on three books on the subject: Global Visions, Global Village or Global Pillage, and Globalization from Below.
Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order, a 1993 “multifesto” I edited with John Brown Childs and and Jill Cutler, aimed to “initiate a dialogue which will establish globalization-from-below as a new paradigm for understanding and reshaping the world order.”[2] Global Village or Global Pillage, written with Tim Costello, focused on the emergence of economic globalization. Globalization from Below, written with Tim Costello and Brendan Smith in the aftermath of the Seattle WTO protests, recounted the emergence of transnational social movements embodying what we called “globalization from below.” We also wrote and produced the documentary Global Village or Global Pillage?
In 1998, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) read Global Village or Global Pillage and asked me to work for him part-time on globalization issues. Together with Sanders staff member Brendan Smith, I developed the Global Sustainable Development Resolution which provided a comprehensive program for transforming the global economy based on the programs of a wide range of public interest organizations and policy analysts. Sherrod Brown, Cynthia McKinney, and Dennis Kusinich served as original cosponsors.
In 2005, Tim Costello asked Brendan Smith and me to collaborate in creating an organization called Global Labor Strategies “to contribute to building global labor solidarity through research, analysis, strategic thinking, and network building around labor and employment issues.” This innovative work was cut off by Tim Costello’s death in 2009.
[1] Save the Humans?, 140-41.
[2] Jeremy Brecher, John Brown Childs, and Jill Cutler, Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order (Boston: South End Press, 1993) p. 2.