1. We are against capitalist globalisation because it ultimately expresses capital's demand to be absolutely free to do what it wants. This is article 1 of the capitalist constitution of the world.
All the summits we have mobilised against, all the institutions which we fight - from the WTO to the European Commission - have, at the end of the day, only one objective: to lift all the barriers which prevent capital from circulating freely, investing wherever it wants to, withdrawing whenever it wishes.
Everything that stands in the way of the free movement of capital's is made illegal and declared to be ineffective and anti-economic. The advocates of the system proclaim that this is the way towards a "happy globalisation" (as French globalisers call it).
2. We are against this globalisation because it is opposed to development which is in the interests of human beings. The short-lived local successes emphasized by the international institutions do not compensate for the many crises which have for ten years ravaged those countries which had been its best pupils. This has been the experience from Mexico to Argentina via Korea, Russia and so many others.
Beyond these crises we see a terrifying rise in inequality, inside countries and between countries that are forced to compete with each other. This is the direct result of capitalist globalisation which puts the workers of the whole world in direct competition. Those who can find a place in the globalized sector can only do so on condition that their low level of wages, which the capitalists call an "advantage", is maintained. The others are tossed aside, because of their inability to rise to the levels required by this hyper-competition: they lose their jobs, their incomes and are deprived of the means of satisfying their basic needs.
3. We are against this globalisation because it is a way of eroding social rights, including in the most advanced countries. The argument of competitiveness, the blackmail of moving factories overseas, the submission to insatiable economic constraints, result in a regression everywhere in terms of working conditions, social security and pensions.
4. We are against this globalisation because it is by its nature against the interests of the working class. Everywhere in the world, what the International Labour Organization calls 'economic insecurity' is widespread: flexibility of labour, casual work, unemployment, declining incomes. These combine with social austerity to project onto workers the "risk" that capitalists boast of taking on themselves. For the first time in the history of capitalism, the prospects for young people have deteriorated compared to those for preceding generations.
5. We are against this globalisation because through it the wealth produced by the workers of the world is plundered. Capital affirms openly that it prefers mediocre growth if it is necessary to preserve high rates of profit. But these profits are distributed between fewer and fewer people with less going to the workers who created them.
6. We are against this globalisation because it tries to make everything into a commodity. Capital does not merely demand the right to move freely to where it expects high profits. It also aims to penetrate sectors of the economy which had, to an extent, escaped its influence.
The territories it wants to conquer are not geographical: they are the public services which it wants to penetrate and "release" from the logic of social need. The capitalists target health, education, energy, transport, telecommunications, culture, and even living organisms.
For them, they represent nothing but possible fields of expansion. Each step taken in this direction automatically increases inequality. The reason is easy to understand: if health becomes a commodity, then that means care is available on the basis of your income and not how sick you are.
7. We are against this globalisation because it is unable to satisfy basic needs. About half of humanity lives from agriculture. Traditional agriculture, instead of being given the means to function is brutally exposed to the products of hyper-productive (and subsidised) agribusiness. The right of countries to protect these sectors from competition is denied.
A billion inhabitants of this planet do not have access to drinkable water. Instead of a planned response to this situation, we see today the systematic buying up of the water supply by a few multinationals which exert a terrible pressure (in particular through the WTO negotiations) to open up public and municipal services.
Access to water is increasingly dependent on whether you have money: the poor are deprived of it, while others see the bills they pay to these quasi-monopolies increasing regularly.
Lastly, anti-AIDS drugs are not distributed to those who need them but cannot afford them, because the pharmaceutical industry refuses to regard them as anything but commodities and places its profits before the objectives of public health.
8. We are against this globalisation because it is unable to deal with environmental threats. Capitalism's claim that it can solve this problem with commercial solutions, like setting up a market in rights to pollute, does not correspond to the scale of the challenges.
It is incapable of establishing energy planning and the technology transfers which would be necessary to allow a sustainable development while meeting the needs of a world population which must increase still further during the decades ahead.
9. We are against this globalisation because it denies citizens who are not part of the ruling classes of any possibility of controlling their destiny and putting forward their priorities. It deprives the dominated states of their sovereignty by forcing them to sign treaties that prohibit them from taking the slightest measure of control over capital. It empties bourgeois democracy of any real meaning.
10. We are against this globalisation because inter-capitalist competition is transformed inevitably into wars against peoples. The disorder which results, the refusal to satisfy non-profitable social needs, the marginalisation of countries and entire continents, deprive the people of any hope and make recourse to brute force the only means of 'controlling' a system which is in crisis.