Unleashed by globalization trends (1980-2011)

Abstract

This article is a short summary of the author’s reasearch of years, not finished yet, about the challengefrom below to the rising forces of industrial capitalism by changing actors from below who, during the lasttwo centuries and in the name of some beloved values of Modernity, like the emancipation of humanbeings and the building of societies at once just and worthy of that name, have tried to put an end tocapitalism’s unhumanity or, in many cases, trascend it. Specifically, the focus of the article is thecontemporary world and what seems to be a gradually substitution of the classical challengers, with thelabour movement leading them all, by new actors who, increasingly, better represent the values ofModernity in the present day world, with the “newest” social movements leading the trend. The analysisstops in 2008 because, to begin with, it was written then, but also to show that the irruption of the secondGreat Depression between 2007 and 2011 moves the axial focus of the inquiry to a new and different basissince, more and more, the challenge to globalized capitalism is a defensive one and a reaction to the crisis,and this suggest that this be analyzed specifically and separatedly.