Vinculando.org: Revista electrónica latinoamericana en Desarrollo Sustentable

At the present time neo-liberal values, whose beginning some situate in the Bretton Woods conference, are spreading and starting to prevail in the world political economy, in governments’ and multilateral agencies’ policies. However this happens mostly around policies and not necessarily in peoples’ projects and the so-called civil society. One example is world trade. There is an increasing perception by ordinary people of the widening of the gap between rich and poor and its relation with market liberalisation. Nowadays there is never a World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting without a parallel contesting forum or demonstration organised by socially-oriented NGOs, political groups, coalitions, peasant organisations, intellectuals and an increasing number of individual people, in a heterogeneous movement that is showing signs of adopting broader focuses and targets, more organisation, professionalisation (e.g. The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre), and hence, whose claims, despite being silenced in many countries by the media, are being heard and taken seriously by larger sectors of the population.