Jose-Antonio Orosco, Oregon State Univ.

"César Chavez on Violence and Property Destruction in the Struggle for Global Justice"

In this paper, I examine several arguments that justify property

destruction, such as the actions taken by some protestors against

the World Trade Organization in Seattle 1999, as a form of civil

disobedience against corporate economic globalization.  These arguments stress that the question about the use of violence is not a moral one, but a strategic one; that is, about the most efficient means to achieve global social justice.  I then rely on César Chavez's conception of nonviolent civil disobedience to demonstrate why these arguments fundamentally misunderstand the dynamics of power and violence.  Chavez argues that advocates of property destruction

threaten to reduce struggles for social justice to power politics

by ignoring moral guidelines for strategy, fail to consider how

state repression against violent protests harms the most poor and

vulnerable members of society, and confuse a violent shift in the

balance of power with the creation of a more just, democratic, and equitable world.