ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to undertake historical analysis of a single country to establish general and specific relationships between globalization, democracy, and authoritarianism. Working people’s struggle against globalization-cum-authoritarianism in terms of unorganized and organized strikes and riots was essentially for the implementation of participatory democracy. The development of race and working-class consciousness, and the establishment of trade unions contributed significantly towards making the social formations integrated into global markets, more democratic. The appalling working and living conditions created by the global capitalist labor process stimulated various forms of resistance by working people. Importantly as well, class-consciousness was developed through the formation of labor unions to the point where the workers in their bid for democracy challenged the colonial authoritarian state for political power. The rise of the trade union movement in the first place in 1919 was associated with the deplorable social and economic conditions that were stimulated by World War I.
