Under this reading what would be the best criterion  For and...

Under this reading what would be the best criterion 

For and against globalization

With this background, it is not surprising that globalization has become the last field of a struggle between liberals and their critics. The scenery of the struggle between globalizers and an- tiglobalizers (among which those of Seattle in 1999 and Cancun in 2003 stand out) illustrate very graphically­ the configuration of the two blocs: on one side, the establishment and the ruling classes of the  developed and ongoing countries.  of development, and on the other, an amalgam of groups and social movements of different­  leftist inspiration (Marxist, syndicalist, pacifist, ecologist, feminist, indigenist, localist, anarchist, etc.). 

For neoliberals (or "globophiles", in the jargon of globalization), globalization is positive and should be welcomed, since it has brought the most extensive and intense era of peace and prosperity  in  history: authors such as Sala-i-Martín (2002) have highlighted that, only in the last decade , between 300 and 500 million­ people (depending on the indicators used) would have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the integration dynamics of the   world  economy. Globalisation­, its proponents argue, has enabled the  world economy to  grow over the past 50 years at a rate unprecedented in history: 4.1 per cent. Free trade is a positive-sum game, not a­  zero-sum game: it allows resources to be allocated more efficiently, improves productivity and expands, in short, the frontier of production and consumption possibilities. From this point of view, the more interdependent, flexible and open an economy is, the greater the competitiveness and wealth it­ can achieve. 

Interestingly, globalizers and anti-globalists agree on a single point: that globalization increases  the  relative power of the market vis-à-vis the state. For globalizers, the demands of flexibility and competitiveness that globalization commands are incompatible with large states and high levels of public spending ­ . For this reason, tax competition between countries to attract investment­ is by no means a problem, but an advantage, as it forces States to operate more effectively and efficiently with less taxation and more transparency, which ultimately  benefits all citizens. Therefore, according to its parties­, globalization not only weakens the state (which is good for the individual freedoms of citizens), but also favors democracy and peace on a global scale (which is good for the whole of humanity). From these ranks it is stressed that the level of freedom of communications and transparency required by globalization is incompatible with the very nature of  dictatorial regimes. In the long term, they conclude  that "globalizers" such as Guillermo de la Dehesa (2001) point out, a world with minimal and highly interdependent  states will be more democratic, peaceful and prosperous. 

According to this view, most of the  world's economic problems stem from the insufficient integration of world financial, trade and services markets (especially of countries excluded from these flows), not from over-integration (or globalization). The existing poverty in the South would respond, to a large extent, to the persistence of  protectionist practices and the excess of regulations and other trade barriers. The  conventional view, represented by Mike Moore (2000), former director-general of the WTO, holds that if the North opened the borders of  rich countries to products from the South, 320 million people would be lifted out of poverty in the next decade. The most effective strategies to help the Third World out of poverty would be the elimination of European  agricultural policy, which consumes some €47 billion a year, or the abolition of US agricultural subsidies (which in 2003 amounted to around €19 billion).  ). Globalization would therefore  not be the cause of underdevelopment, but a possible solution. In their favour, they argue that, thanks to the  trade liberalization­  promoted by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (or GATT, the precedent of the WTO), since 1948 the volume of world trade has multiplied by fifteen, and world output by seven. In the last 50 years,  in addition, GDP in the least developed countries has increased threefold, life expectancy has increased by 20 years and the literacy rate has increased by 30 points. The rebellion against globalization, Moore concludes, simply reflects the resistance of the privileged in the North to accept that their economies have to be more flexible and open for the South to develop. The problem, then, lies not in globalization, but in resistance to it: proof of this, Moore points out, is that the only countries that have emerged from poverty and underdevelopment in recent decades are those that have adopted policies of insertion in the world economy, such as China, or the so-called "Asian tigers" (Hong Kong,  Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea). ­­

For its critics, on the contrary, globalization represents a new model of occi dental imperialism, a (new) higher phase of capitalism in terms of the extension of markets, but also in terms of the sharpening of its contradictions. Seen in this way, globalization underlies a more sophisticated model of colonialism; it implies a new "turn of the screw" of North-South dependence, by which the North uses its control of global financial means to control the natural resources of the poorest countries, without the need to take direct charge of the development of these countries, a commitment that was implicit in the col nialism of the nineteenth century. "The program of the dominant forces," writes Samir Amin (2001), "is to destroy the gains of the working classes, to destroy the systems of social security and employment protection, to reinstate poverty wages, to return the peripheral countries to their status as suppliers of raw materials, to reduce subcontractors to the emerging countries, and to accelerate the plundering of natural resources." ­­

Following this type of reasoning, once the communist alternative has disappeared, the Western economic elites will have nothing to lose by suppressing the fiscal and redistributive policies on which the great social pact reached in Europe after the Second World War was based and on which the welfare states were built. Seen in this way, glossing would be the excuse of the ruling classes to break the pact for stable employment and equal opportunities on which the power of the social democratic parties in Western Europe has been based. Without room for autonomy for monetary policy (transferred ­­de jure to international regulators such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the European Central Bank (ECB), and ­de facto to the brokers of the world capital markets), the  social democratic option could only be adapted to a neoliberal program (the so-called "Third Way" ") or disappear­. Globalization, in the words of Ramonet (2001) "unifies  economic policies and generalizes the same formulas: mass layoffs, low jobs ­ ,  ecological predation, liquidation of  the welfare state, reduction of public spending. , dismissal of civil servants, increase in foreign debt and marginalization  of minorities". 

As a consequence,  critics  of globalization point out, inequalities would not only have not  been corrected, but would have increased sharply­  within and between countries. The integration of world markets would have given rise to a  dual  world economy: in the North, while the average wages of company managers have increased 50-fold in recent  years, the purchasing power of workers has only increased 50-fold in recent years.  it has doubled, while the wage for unskilled work has not grown. Similarly, on a global scale, the last 40 years would have seen  the income gap between the 20  richest and poorest economies double. The result of this model of globalization, characterized by the predominance of market forces and the absence of a  global ­ non-economic government, is summarized in the figures provided by institutions such as the  General Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank: 85 percent of world income is in the hands of 20 percent of the population. , while 2.5 billion people live on less than two dollars a day (UNSG 2001;  World Bank 2000). From this perspective, financial crises, ­ ecological disasters and the spread  of armed conflicts would prove that, unless a multilateral institutional system were put in place to govern globalisation effectively, it is simply unsustainable; therefore, to persevere in it in the fields­.  Conditions would amount to collective suicide. 

As has been pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, rather than giving the reason to one or the other, the objective of the following sections is to offer some relevant data and arguments for the analysis of this phenomenon. To this end,  the four main debates that focus the controversy on tor not ­globalization will be examined: the first debate concerns whether globalization is a  new or old phenomenon; the second revolves around the weakening of the State as the center of decisions and a frame of reference for political activity. ; the third focuses­ on the relationship between democracy and globalization; and the fourth concerns the relationship between globalization, poverty and inequality.