What challenges did social reformers address at the turn of the twenty-first century?

Just as nineteenth-century social reformers embraced the cause of ending slavery, modern social reformers have sought to end global inequality, racism, and sexism and to improve human and civil rights for all. Social movements played a critical role in the victory of the democratic movements in Latin America and Europe and the end of the apartheid system in South Africa (see “South Africa Under Apartheid” in Chapter 32).

As movements for human rights and social reform gained ground in the 1960s and 1970s, activists increasingly looked beyond national borders to form alliances. Movements for women’s rights, nuclear disarmament, environmental protection, and addressing climate change all became both local and global efforts. For example, the global anti-apartheid movement kept pressure on nations to apply economic and political sanctions on the white-minority regime in South Africa. But at the same time, the anti-apartheid movement served as a means to address local problems. For instance, in Brazil anti-apartheid activism helped draw attention to the country’s own racial inequalities, while in the United States anti-apartheid activism on college campuses helped students organize movements concerned with other issues such as gender equality.

The 1977 Nestlé boycott exemplified the kinds of success such movements could achieve as well as their limitations. Critics charged that the Swiss company’s intense marketing of powdered baby formula in poor countries or regions with little access to clean water posed a risk to children. These critics argued that Nestlé profited from the death of children by coaxing mothers away from breast-feeding, which provided the best nutrition, and toward formula that would likely be mixed with contaminated water, or diluted by mothers who couldn’t afford enough formula to use the recommended amounts. Activists called on consumers around the world to boycott Nestlé products.

At first, Nestlé dismissed the boycott and sought to discredit the movement. The president of the company’s Brazilian division declared that “the US Nestlé Co has advised me that their research indicates that this [boycott] is actually an indirect attack on the free world’s economic system.”2 Condemnation of Nestlé mounted. In a 1978 hearing, U.S. senator Ted Kennedy asked a Nestlé executive: “Can a product which requires clean water, good sanitation, adequate family income and a literate parent to follow printed instructions be properly and safely used in areas where water is contaminated, sewage runs in the streets, poverty is severe and illiteracy is high?”3 The executive answered evasively.

In 1981 the UN World Health Organization responded to the campaign by developing a set of voluntary standards, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, regulating the marketing of infant formula in poorer countries where access to clean water was precarious. In 1984 Nestlé agreed to follow the standards. The movement succeeded, but its success raised questions: multinational corporations operate beyond the reach of single governments, and often operate in regions with weak regulatory or investigatory structures, or in countries where repressive political systems shield them from scrutiny. As a result, it is hard to hold them accountable when their conduct is unethical. At the same time, social movements and nongovernmental organizations also acted outside the realm of public accountability.