Making Globalization Work: Towards Global Economic Justice

Globalization as a corporate-led process has come under much justifiable criticism. This paper attempts to give the term analytic content distinct from its more ideological formulations. It then focuses on a normative analysis of globalization from the capabilities perspective. A freedom-centered perspective such as the capabilities approach emphasizes policies and institutions that can enhance freedom globally and locally. A global governance structure based on transparent principles of both economic efficiency and social justice is shown to be a desirable state of affairs; however, the present fractured process of globalization is more likely to end up in a fragmenting regionalism or even national protectionism and rivalry. Multilateral cooperation on the basis of the framework advanced here is an urgent necessity.To this end the creation of international regimes of cooperation in areas ranging from trade and finance to ecological and women's and minorities rights issues must be put on the international and national social and political agendas