Reflections on the 2nd World Social Forum in Porto Alegre: what's left internationally?

This paper reflects on the implications for the international trade union movement
and Left of the 60-70,000-strong World Social Forum II. The reflections concern the analytical, theoretical and strategic implications of and for this first major international
movement of the era of a globalized and informatized capitalism. Considered in turn are: 1.
The Forum's Charter and the Call of Social Movements issued from it; 2. The impact of the
Forum on the Left as an 'old social movement'; 3. Its implications for feminism as a 'new
social movement'; 4. The meaning of 'Left' in the light of the Forum; 5. The strategy problem the unions still imply for the global justice movement; 6. The necessity of moving the
movement away from an organizational and toward a communicational logic; 7. The need
for a political-economy of global civil society construction. The Conclusion reflects on the
concept of revolution in the era of capitalist globalization, as well as the role of the global
justice movement in surpassing the emancipatory model of the French Revolution.