Why we oppose the G8

World leaders meet every summer as the "Group of Eight industrialized nations." These leaders come from the top nations that dominate the world. They talk about topical events such as the conflicts in the Mideast, but their main objective is to talk with each other about the world economy, which is dominated by world capitalism, a system that anarchists oppose. Those of us who are fighting for a different world have organized protests against the G8 summits, including the famous 2001 summit in Genoa, Italy that ended in the death of protester, Carlo Giuliani.

Why do we bother protesting the G8 summits?

Unlike trade summit meetings such as the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) or the WTO (World Trade Organization), which include representatives from every country in the meetings, the G8 is a meeting of the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world. In other words, the G8 is where the money is at. These are the most powerful people in the world, who control your lives without your input.

The G8 is anti-democratic

The G8 promotes a scenario of top-down development that completely excludes the local communities and individuals most affected by the changes from the decision-making. The G8 is not a meeting of average working people, in fact, average working people can't even express their dissent at the summit. Popular democracy is so dangerous to the G8 that protesters are being kept miles from the summit site.

Local control, not state control

We protest the G8 because it promotes a framework of development that concentrates production in large, export-oriented sectors, eliminating any possibility for developing nations to create a self-sufficient economy controlled by the producers themselves. The G8 furthers the interests of neoliberalism and capitalism. The G8 is part of free trade schemes such as CAFTA, NAFTA, the FTAA, and the WTO, all of which have been opposed by billions of people around the world. Developing nations don't need help from the G8 or the WTO. Development has to be decided by the people themselves, at the local and grassroots level.

Cooperative economics, not capitalism

The G8 decision-making process is dominated by the large corporate interests of the member nations and exists to serve their needs - not those of the actual producers. The G8 is capitalism as it is personified by the world leaders and industrial countries which control the world economy and, in effect, our lives. The G8 promotes an economic model of growth-at-any-cost that destroys the environment and indigenous cultures, wastes the earth's resources, and places the determination of individual and community desires in the hands of profit-hungry capitalists, rather than of the people themselves.

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