Book Description
This award-winning book explores one of the most successful cultures and society the world has ever seen-capitalism. From its European roots more than 500 years ago to the present, the book examines the problems of capitalism's expansion, inequality, environmental destruction, and social unrest. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism provides the reader with the anthropological, economic, and historical framework to understand the origins of global problems, why globalization and the global expansion of the culture of capitalism has generated protest and resistance, and the steps that are necessary to solve global problems. As one reviewer said, "This is a book that will doubtless create debate and controversy, but its topic should be pondered seriously by all who consider themselves citizens of our world society today." For anyone interested in global issues and international affairs.
Customer Reviews:
Why we need to change the world.......2007-06-01
This is an excellent book even if it is outrageously over-priced.
To be sure it is polemical and passionate, neither of which are necessarily bad things and certainly not in this case. Professor Robbins argues clearly and cogently for viewing capitalism as another culture and not as an inevitable evolutionary outcome of economic history.
Perhaps the book over-emphasises the dangers and difficulties of capitalism but it is not inaccurate in describing them. Here is a history of capitalism laid out in well-written prose and it is not a pretty history. We have much to answer for and much to do to put things right.
Highly recommended.
way overpriced but worth reading.......2006-12-08
I've given this three stars simply because it would have to be astounding good to be worth $77, and it's not. It is very good however, and if the price was more like $20 of less, which would be reasonable for an oversized paperback, I would have given it 5 stars. Evidently, because it's a textbook the publisher can get away with this. However, I happened to find a used copy at a college bookstore, and felt I should get it because I have been wanting to better understand globalism, CAFTA, NAFTA, the WTO and the protests against it, the World Bank and how it both helps and interferes, the jobs that are being outsourced to Asia (btw, last time I spoke to Amazon customer service, it was with someone in India!), the seemingly endless reach and power of certain multi-national corporations, etc., and I thought this book would fit the bill. I haven't finished it yet, but it certainly does, and I've been learning a lot from reading it. Thought it definitely has a point of view, I feel it's a more balanced introductory book than the many highly opinionated books written by particular economists and think-tankers who are inevitably trying to persuade rather than educate.
Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (according to Marx).......2005-12-23
This text was required reading for a political science class dealing with developing nations. The only major problem I have from this book being in a political science class is that the content is overwhelmingly normative--the reader is given the impression that capitalism and capitalists are unanimously responsible for nearly everything terrible that has happened, including war, disease, famine, etc. The author spends a great deal of time talking about the resurgence of mostly benign protestant fundamentalism, while devoting only a few pages to discussing Islamic fundamentalism (it's really the West's fault, for spending a few million to support the mujahadeen). While there is a case to be made that market failures do lead to starvation, no mention is given to famines by progressives like Josef Stalin or Mengitsu (they aren't even listed in the glossary).
The book is written through the prism of Marxism and dependency theory by bourgeoisiephobe Richard Robbins, someone who should owe some gratitute to capitalism for getting this piece published.
On pages 42-43, one can see good examples of his economic illiteracy: the production function is "the black box" and he ignores conventional economic terms by designating "C" (which denotes consumption in economics) for commodities. Perhaps none of this is relevant, since he is a political scientist who seems to be making up his own economic models.
This book does give good insight into the structuralist perspective on international political economy. The solutions presented towards the end are, however, unrealistic (zero-economic growth, a "maximum wage," on income, revoking corporate personhood, etc.) Use this book to complement your studies on IPE/sociology/whatever suits your fancy and incorporate texts from the liberal and mercantilist schools if you want a real understanding of how the world workds.
WOW!!!.......2004-09-29
It's such a great book and it gives you detailed insights. I learned so much, I never knew how serious global issues were until now.
Excellent book for anyone who cares about the world today!.......2001-08-24
I admit I'm a little biased. Richard Robbins was actually a professor of mine at SUNY Plattsburgh, and I had the opportunity to read this book while at the same time taking his global issues class. This book not only changed my mind about a few of the world's issues, it also gave me a broader perspective about the world in general. I now think about things such as 'where do my clothes come from?' and 'how did my fruit cup get here?'. Robbins is an extremely talented man and writer who asks the question, 'Is Disneyland for Everyone?' The answer: a resounding 'No, and here's why!' This book would benefit anyone seeking to gain an understanding about the world and his/her place in it. It truly is a global world, and Robbins' book is the first step to living in it.
Book Description
"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written."—New York Times Book Review
In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.
Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
HAPHAZARD NARRATIVE; AUTHOR HAS VERY WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF SUBJECT MATTER.......2007-06-21
Of all the many books that have come out in recent years about global capitalism, finance and economics, this is certainly the worst. The author, a professor of government at Harvard, professes to specialize in international monetary history, but is really what his tenure title says he is, a professor of International Peace. He appears to be trying to reinvent his career by tackling the subject of capitalism but thoroughly lacks understanding of the subject matter, as made evident by his book.
1. The author makes the same mistake that virtually all political science professors do when they write about capitalism: he glorifies the gold standard, he glorifies the Rothschilds and glorifies everything that had nothing to do with the emergence of twentieth century capitalism. The author is using his expertise in international relations to analyze a subject that is really never about governments, or grand alliances or fancy bankers. He thus fails to root the story in the advent of technology, or of business procedures or of the individual investor, but focuses instead of John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson and Lord Halifax.
2. Wherever the subject matter is strong, the book still fails badly. It does so because political economy is better analyzed by Robert Gilpin and others, whose books are mandatory reading and well written and which do not pretend to sell that subject matter as a study of capitalism.
3. The book's sections are surprisingly badly arranged. Sometimes one feels the author may have a method to the madness but I doubt it after having read it. It is certainly not thematic, or designed to trigger thought or chronological.
4. The book refers to a poem only twice in the 500 pages and it is about the King of Ghana! I mean a professor at Harvard should surely know how to maintain balance in his subject matter. Is that the one poem he could find worth including?
5. Stunning is the lack of understanding of the issues. He describes Britain as fully supportive of free trade mid-19th century but fails to consider how colonialism could be a form of free trade. He describes China Turkey and India as the only failures of the early 20th century without making the same connection with colonialism.
6. Worse is his understanding of the gold standard. He never mentions that that relic was responsible for more misery than anything other than world wars. He fails to consider that since the gold standard was weakened in the Forties, there have been NO PANICS RAVAGING SOCIETY. He is a gold bug.
7. He repeats William Bryan's Cross of Gold speech twice in the narrative with no suggestion that he is even aware his haphazard narrative is repeating the same quote. He also fails to mention that William Bryan was not buried in the election of 1896 but actually came to dominate the 20th century, what with unionism, minimum wages, no gold standard, empowerment of the individual investor and every other idea that Bryan first espoused. TR's and FDR's reforms were nothing if not Bryanism.
8. Why would a book mention so much about Rothschild's and their family in the US without mentioning Jacob Schiff, or detailing JP Morgan, or RObert Lehman or Albert Gordon. I mean the author simply has no balance on the subject matter because he knows so little about it.
9. Finally, it is not clear what Jeffrey Frieden is doing at Harvard. Such poorly researched fare is common to COlumbia Business School and its Dean Glenn Hubbard, or to the Hoover Institution or some place like that. Harvard on the other hand puts out more balanced and far more thoughtful pieces.
BAD BOOK THAT MUST BE AVOIDED.
Almost tempted to give it a miss.......2007-04-23
I was almost tempted to give the book a miss after seeing the high ratings that were given by reviewers that seemed to be anti-globalizationists (what an awkward term!)
However, I came across the book at my library and gave it a chance, and I was not disappointed. It is a book that does a creditable job of summing up the ups and downs of the world economy over the past hundred years and more. And it also does a fairly good job of raising some issues and problems with the world economic system, and how the system had evolved to meet those issues and problems. On the whole, I think it's a balanced book, pointing out the critical need for free and integrated markets to raising millions in the world out of poverty, as well as some of the problems facing them.
The only reason why I gave the book a four rather than a five is that it is not an easy read, and it is best read with some thought and analysis on the reader's part. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something for everyone.
By the way, do ignore those reviews that pretend to tell you what the author was saying in his book. I'm not sure that he's actually saying what they say he is saying.
Read the book for yourself. It's worth the time and effort.
Globalization 2.0.......2006-07-12
Jeffrey Frieden, a Harvard professor specializing in international trade and finance, has written a masterly and comprehensive history of capitalism from 1870 to the present. His history of globalization reminds us that it is not a recent develpment and that its current success is not guaranteed.
The first era of globalization (1870 to 1914) had many of the same characteristics as today's. There was an unprecedented cross-border movement of goods, capital, and labor. (Labor more so in the first era.) During these years huge amounts of capital moved overseas to America, Canada, and Argentina mainly due to the reduced costs of communication and transportation. The technologies driving this globalization were the telegraph and railroads. It was also facilitated by the fact that most currencies were convertible to gold. The investment in the Americas was also followed by a huge immigrant population. In these years, America, Canada, and Argentina had much larger immmigrant populations at the turn of the 20th century than today.
The main thing that distinguishes the present globalization from the first is what happened in between. After the Great Depression and World War II remedies were put into place to mitigate the damaging effects of these economic and social catastrophes. Social benefits such as unions, minimum wage, healthcare and pensions were established as safety nets. In the era between the two globalizations when economies were mostly national the safety nets were part of the social contract between capital and labor.
In 1980, when our current era of globalization begins, capital began to move overseas again in order to find countries with lower labor and social costs. This time, however, labor did not follow. The industrialized countries now have large middle classes with social benefits promised who are not certain about how they are going to be paid. This is causing many in the industrialized world to have second thoughts about our current phase of globalization.
Frieden has a guarded optimism about global capitalism and thinks it is still the best system for distributing wealth. Yet, his last chapter "Global Capitalism Troubled" points to some more clouds on the horizon. There seems to be a growing gap between those who control capital and those who work for a living. People understand that globalization is inevitable but they want a new set of rules to address the growing inequalities.
Frieden is a cheerleader for a more equitable capitalism that can deliver both social benefits and robust economic growth.
Bottom Line: Unfettered Capitalism is Destructive, Need Government.......2006-06-27
I read books in groups, and bought this one along with David Walsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations" which I recommend above this one is you are only buying one book. I also read and have reviewed "Global Class Wars" as well as all other books I recommend below.
Although I was less interested in the history, which is very well documented and clearly explained, and more in the lessons for the future, I found two clear bottom lines in this book that are supported by its extensive research:
1) Open societies and open democracies generate more money and more opportunity and more innovation than closed or failed societies; and
2) Keynes was right, there is an urgent vital role for government to play in addressing the social networks, including education, transportation, rules of commerce, and so on, that allow capitalism to work.
The author distinguishes between individual, cooperative, and competitive capitalism, and I found validation in this book for my concept of communal capitalism, a capitalism that is guided by government in avoiding the exportation of jobs, the importation of poverty, and the impoverishment of the middle class.
Unlike David Walsh's book, this book has more of a focus on what is moral and pragmatic, and so I recommend William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
I have a very strong feeling from this book and others, that the era of "out of control" capitalism is drawing to an end. We may even see the end of the corporation as a separate legal personality in the next 12 years. The transparency of information that is available when people attach themselves leech-like to a corporation and hold it accountable (see my review of "No Logo") is creating a powerful antidote against the Enrons and Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world who bribe elites and screw over the publics on both ends. I also see Wall Street losing its ability to "explode the client" (see my review of "Liar's Poker"). A great deal of good will be done in the next quarter century, and it will come from a combination of good government and educated engaged citizens working together across all boundaries.
Very Pleasing to Read (Even for a Proletariat like Me).......2006-06-25
I read this book for a graduate-level economics course. It's not an "Econ for Dummys" book, but it really enightens the reader about the history of economics in the 20th Century. It's smart and straight-forward. The author does not interject his personal perspectives, which is nice. He just puts it out there. A definite must-read for those entering the field of economics/history.
Book Description
An essential introduction to the field of historical geography, which offers a radical new way of understanding global capitalism.
Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary political economic fortunes seems to mock our best efforts to understand the forces that drive development in the world economy.
In this groundbreaking book, David Harvey shows how the disciplines of historical geography yield decisive new insights into the workings of global capitalism, and introduces the concept of uneven geographical development as a revelatory perspective on the forces which create economic success or failure.
Customer Reviews:
Another Harvey essay collection.......2006-11-12
As is usual for David Harvey, this series of three essays considers the role of space at both the political economic and the philosophical level. The first two essays are speeches given as Hettner Lectures in Geography at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the last essay is a reflection on space as a 'keyword' in the sense of Raymond Williams. Together, this forms a small booklet of little more than 140 pages.
The first essay, "Neo-Liberalism and the Restoration of Class Power", is an overview of the resurgence of neoliberalism in recent decades, and the deleterious effects this has had both practically and in academics. Much of this is known to any leftist and the same sort of thing can be found in any radical blog.
The second essay is "A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development". This essay is much more interesting and is basically a summary and example of the typical approach of Harvey in utilizing Marxist economical geography. This text can be considered an introduction to the subject, useful to look into before one would go on to read "Limits to Capital", Harvey's most important work of this kind.
The last essay, "Space as a Key Word", is a philosophical analysis of the meaning of the word space, and its various dialectical aspects. This is in my view the most novel and contributive essay in the collection, as it builds on the work of Lefebvre, Einstein and Marx to construct a concept of space at nine different levels of abstraction. Two different matrices showing the intersection of these levels are provided by Harvey, sure to give inspiration for new thinking on this subject, which I think was the essay's main intent considering its shortness.
Whether it is worth it to buy this booklet separately is hard to say. It can be quite useful as an introduction to Harvey's way of thinking, to be read before some of his real books. The last essay is also a good insight into a little discussed subject, the philosophy of space. But certainly purchase of this work is hardly necessary, any other Harvey book will do as well.
Sophisticated analysis of geographical development.......2006-10-29
"Spaces of Global Capitalism" by David Harvey consists of two presentations delivered at the eighth Hettner-Lecture at the University of Heidelberg in 2004 and a third related essay. These challening works are the product of a thinker who has spent a lifetime of cross-disciplinary study on the issues of capitalism, politics, geography and related topics. Intended principally for an academic audience, Mr. Harvey's research succeeds in providing guidance for others who may want to further explore these issues in the future.
The first lecture, "Neo-liberalism and the restoration of class power" is by far the most accessible in the book. In essence a 62-page synopsis of Mr. Harvey's exceptional book, "A Brief History of Neoliberalism", the author convincingly reveals neoliberalism to be an ideology whose primary goal is to enshrine and protect elite power. Mr. Harvey's brilliant analysis connects growing income disparities with a concomitant rise in militarism and fundamentalism which he contends must be addressed with a revived popular struggle for democracy. The author's thoughts on this timely and important topic is quite simply essential reading.
The second lecture is entitled, "Notes towards a theory of uneven geographical development". Mr. Harvey explores how developed capitalist nations of the north tend to exploit the periphery, creating a chronic state of underdevelopment for much of the global south. The author discusses the concept of accumulation by dispossession and how it is subject to changing conditions, including: market exchange, spatial competition, geographical division of labor, monopolistic competition, annihilation of space through time, physical infrastructures, production of regionality, production of scale, territorial systems of political administration, and geopolitics. The analysis opens pathways for other scholars who may be interested in applying Mr. Harvey's principles to specific case studies.
The third essay included in the book is "Space as a key word." This seemed to be the most theoretical of the three and will probably be of greatest interests to specialists in the field of geographical development. Mr. Harvey shows how human practices define urban space and gives shape to architecture; for example, collective memory and political struggle are critical to defining culturally significant landmarks such as the rebuilding of ground zero in New York City. The author suggests that space must be understood from multiple perspectives and provides methodologies for others to consider.
I recommend this demanding book for academics or persons who have a sophisticated understanding of geographical development. On the other hand, those who are interested in uneven development as it pertains to neoliberalism are encouraged to pick up Mr. Harvey's highly-readable "A Brief History of Neoliberalism" in order to fully appreciate the author's thoughts on this particularly important topic.
A cogent and persuasive warning of the harm that can come from neglecting harmful worldwide geo-social trends.......2006-09-12
Spaces Of Global Capitalism: Towards A Theory Of Uneven Geographical Development is a collection of essays about fiscal crises that have wracked the developing world, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. Geographer and social theorist David Harvey criticizes the failings of modern capitalism, discusses the development of neo-liberalism, and searches for answers to the globalization of inequality in the essays "Neo-Liberalism and the Restoration of Class Power", "Notes Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development", and "Space as a Key Word". Intended for scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences, Spaces Of Global Capitalism is a cogent and persuasive warning of the harm that can come from neglecting harmful worldwide geo-social trends, and is highly recommended.
a great theoretical resource.......2006-07-10
Harvey is one of the most influential theorists of our times. He has been doing some great work on global development issues. Some of his initial thoughts are recorded in a recent book called _Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a theory of uneven geographical development_. This is continuation of his earlier works - New Imperialism and A brief history of Neoliberlism. He repeats some of the idea in this smaller book, however, he is working on some new ideas. So if you haven't read the other books, this can be good introduction. However, to get a better idea I would recommend reading his other works.
According to Harvey, uneven development is nothing new. However, extreme volatile geopolitical situation made it necessary for better theoretical interpretation. Harvey outlines four different ways currently we think of uneven development:
1)"Catch up": In this paradigm uneven development is the product of the process from the center that leaves behind residuals from preceding eras or "meets with pockets of resistances towards the progress and modernization that capitalism promotes". He continues, "Backwardness (the term is highly significant) arises out of an unwillingness or an inability (in racist versions considered innate, in environmentalist versions seen as naturally imposed, and in culturalist versions understood in terms of weight of historical, religious etc.) to "catch up" with the dynamics of a western-centered capitalism, usually portrayed as the highpoint of modernity and civilization."
2)Constructivist arguments: The focus here is exploitative practices of capitalism backed by political and military establishment of powerful nations.
3)Environmentalist: Jared Diamond and Jeffery Sachs are one of the biggest proponents of this approach.
4)Geopolitical interpretation: These interpretations focuses on territorially organized powers. "These powers can be organized as states or blocs of states but struggles also occur between regions, cities, communities, local neighborhoods, turfs etc."
Harvey points out that there are many overlaps between these approaches. However, depending on the approach, the line of argument is can change. So he is trying to develop a "unified" theory of uneven geographical development. He proposes four conditionalities that is simple enough to aid comprehension and complex enough to embrace the nuances:
a) The material embedding of capital accumulation process in the web of socio-ecological life .
b) Accumulation by dispossession.
c)The law-like character of capital accumulation in space and time.
d) The political, social and "class" struggles at a variety of geographical scales.
Amazon.com
Not everyone embraces the "American Way." But as historian Walter LaFeber demonstrates in this highly original look at the effects of global capitalism, not everyone has a choice. Using powerful communications satellites in the 1980s and, later, unbridled capital, transnational corporations such as McDonald's and Nike and their media-mogul counterparts have infiltrated cultures from Paris to Beijing, understanding perfectly that what the world sees the world buys (in this case, Big Macs and anything plastered with a Nike swoosh). Of course, it helps when hoops legend Michael Jordan--the world's most idolized athlete--is pitching your products. His influence is pervasive: "McDonald's, blaring Michael Jordan's endorsement, operated in 103 nations and fed one percent of the world's population each day. 'Within the East Asian urban environment,' one historian of the firm notes, 'McDonald's fills a niche once occupied by the teahouse, the neighborhood shop, the street-side stall, and the park bench.'"
LaFeber transitions smoothly from Michael Jordan biography to socioeconomic commentary, first exploring Jordan as the great American hero, then turning a critical eye on Nike and its shoddy overseas labor practices. Jordan can certainly sell shoes, but at what cost? In the final chapter heading, LaFeber asks whether Michael Jordan is the "Greatest Endorser of the Twentieth Century" or "An Insidious Form of Imperialism." He presents evidence of both, but ultimately The New Global Capitalism becomes less about Jordan's marketing prowess than America's influence over the world's consumer habits, and, subsequently, the havoc that power can wreak. LaFeber's short (164 pages), lucid study gives readers a fresh perspective on the battle between capital and culture. Recommended. --Rob McDonald
Book Description
Walter LaFeber's timely analysis looks at the ways that triumphant capitalism, coupled with high-tech telecommunications, is conquering the nations of the world, one mind—one pair of feet—at a time.
With Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism, Walter LaFeber has written a biography, a social history, and a far-ranging economic critique. From basketball prodigy to international phenomenon to seductive commercial ideal, Michael Jordan is the supreme example of how American corporations have used technology in a brave, massively wired new world to sell their products in every corner of the globe. LaFeber's examination of Nike and its particular dominion over the global marketplace is often scathing, while his fascinating mini-biography of Michael Jordan and the commercial history of basketball reveal much about American society.
For this new paperback edition, LaFeber has added a chapter on globalization in a changed world, after mass protests and since September 11.
Customer Reviews:
Capital vs Culture.......2007-09-23
LaFeber was well-known and loved by his students at Cornell as a spell binding lecturer and is widely respected as an expert on the history U.S foreign relations. So at first I wondered what about Michael Jordan could possibly interest a distinguished and conscientious scholar of American history, someone not normally associated with forays into pop culture. But it's a really fascinating, thoughtful, and surprising essay. LaFeber argues that Jordan is even bigger than we think--not as a sports icon but as both a symptom and cause of revolutionary change in the global order of things. Yes, the world changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the end of the cold war, he says, but the rise of Jordan is an even bigger watershed moment in world history. The real kicker comes late in the book and is somewhat understated--that there is a war between culture and capital and capital is winning. The implications of this idea are enormous and mostly frightening. This is the maelstrom Marshall McLuhan was trying to warn us about. For anyone interested in media studies, cultural criticism, or a scholarly historian's perspective on global capitalism, this book will be eye-opening and mind-expanding. And the bits about Jordan himself are pretty fascinating.
A must read for all world citizens.......2005-06-30
Just a short note to say that this is one of the most important books I have read in the past 10 years. It tackles capitalism, race, & the role of the individual in the global context in an engaging yet very well informed manner. As a History professor, I have tought this book at several major universities and it has always met with much approval from my students.
Simply Wonderful book. Definitely recommend it........2005-05-05
This book was absolutely riveting. Provides in-depth information about anything to do with Michael Jordan and basketball in terms of its relations to the world. You will not have any questions when done reading. Gives a whole new perspective on the marketing of the NBA and how things work and evolve. The author shows how one person can affect millions, even billions of people. It allows us a glimpse of how something small can be so big at the same time.
There Is More To Michael Jordan Then Playing Basketball..........2004-05-14
In Michael Jordan And The New Global Capitalism, Walter LaFaber uses his ability to research and write about something to express to the readers how important advertising is to any corporation or business. For the Nike Corporation, they partnered up with Michael Jordan and worked out a plan to advertise him and their products through worldwide telecommunications. When Michael Jordan won (which was something he did a lot), the Nike Corporation won too, because everyone wanted to be "like Mike," and the only way to be "like Mike" was to buy his footwear and apparel or other Nike footwear and apparel. This book is a good awakening to anyone interested in how our economy works for big businesses, and its also a good book for anyone interested in basketball and or Michael Jordan. This is a definite must read all in all, because even if you end up not liking this book, you will be better off having read it.
Good Enough.......2002-10-21
Lafeber really shows you how putting time and effort into something can really take you far in life. I found the book to be very fascinating because it gives all the history of how basketball got started and how MJ and Nike became such powerful household names. This book is a really good read for any MJ fan who wants to learn the whole history behind him. It shows you what global advertising can do to a persons popularity. The bottom line this book is filled with tons of very interesting facts and just tells a good story, so go pick it up as soon as you can.
Product Description
Two fundamentally different business models of capitalism are operating in the business world today. One is self-destructive and increasingly corrupt. The other is emergent, flourishing, and inspirational. The author explains the differences between the two and reveals the extraordinary results of the more successful model. Profit for Life draws on nearly forty years of research on the empirical connections between stewardship and profitability.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels by Joseph H. Bragdon.......2007-04-08
Profit for Life shatters the old paradigm that success in business means sucking the life from people and natural resources by viewing both as dispensable commodities. By showing us how success in business--including big business--goes hand-in-hand with respect for human and natural communities, Bragdon frees us from the wrenching misconception that profit and citizenship represent a kind of zero-sum game.
Bragdon unites head and heart in one of the most uplifting books I have ever read. Profit for Life offers hope with a firm footing. I recommend Profit for Life to anyone with an interest in business management, strategic investment, or corporate citizenship.
Daniel D. Dutcher, J.D., Ph.D.
Project Director
The Clean Energy Group
Montpelier, Vermont
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels.......2007-01-31
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels
by Ann McGee-Cooper
How do you measure the value of servant leadership in business? How can we know it works? These have been two of the most frequently asked questions in our consulting practice over the past 30 years.
In Profit for Life, Jay Bragdon provides us with some compelling answers. He does this by setting aside much of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that drives business these days, and adopts a more rounded, holistic approach that gives us deeper insight into the firm.
The book is based on the experiences of 60 companies - Bragdon's "learning lab" - that broadly represent the industry/sector diversity of the world economy. Throughout the text he describes 16 of these pioneering companies, called the Focus Group. The distinguishing feature of all these firms is their effort to mimic living systems - in the ways they organize, manage and add value. This mental model is radically different from the traditional one that views the firm as a money making machine.
Although it may seem counter intuitive, the living system approach yields vastly superior results than the traditional one. For example, the average equity return of learning lab companies was nearly double the S&P 500 over the past decade; and their excess performance continues as this review is written. Bragdon expects such premium returns will diminish over time as the more effective methods of the living system model become copied and enter the mainstream. Nevertheless, these results are a strong affirmation of the milieu in which servant leadership normally operates.
Servant leadership, to Bragdon, is all about relationships. He says "relational equity" is the foundation on which companies build financial equity. When companies care about people and the things people care about, Employees become inspired and their inspiration cascades into everything they do, including their relationships with customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders.
The raison d'etre of these servant-led firms is value creation - value that permeates all relationships. Companies that excel at such value creation pursue a strategy Bragdon calls "living asset stewardship" (LAS). The fundamental premise of LAS is: Profit arises from life, and must therefore serve life if it is to be sustainable.
To understand the strategic value of living asset stewardship, Bragdon makes a critical distinction between living assets (people and Nature) and non-living capital assets (buildings, equipment and financial reserves). We see this in three contexts. First, people are closely bonded to Nature - genetically, physically and spiritually - in ways that capital assets are not. Second, living assets are the source of non-living capital assets. And third, because living assets are inherently creative and emergent, their value grows over time rather than depreciating as capital assets do.
The operating leverage in the learning lab and the 16 Focus Group companies resides in the human heart rather than in mechanistic financial gearing. This is supported by the fact that they generate consistently higher returns on equity while carrying substantially lower debt ratios.
Although traditionally managed companies have been adopting some stewardship practices in the past decade, Bragdon finds their approach differs fundamentally from those in his study. In the mechanistic view of these firms, stewardship is an add-on that is subservient to their drive for profit. By contrast, in companies that have adopted the living system model, LAS is deeply woven into the value creation process - reflecting the fact that they see themselves as "living" and therefore integral to, rather than separate from, Nature and society.
Profit for Life builds on the brilliant work of Arie deGeus, former coordinator of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. DeGeus' classic, The Living Company, noted that long-lived companies had a collective consciousness, were sensitive to their environments, tried to work in harmony with the world around them, and strove to leave a legacy to future generations. Wilson tells us this collective consciousness is an expression of humanity's deep affinity for life, which he calls "biophilia," and that our biophilic instincts have evolved over thousands of generations of natural selection.
In my work as a teacher of servant leadership, I would highlight the paradigm shift Bragdon describes. The mission of leaders in LAS organizations is to serve and grow their people because that is the source of the firm's liveliness and capacity for growth. As Robert K. Greenleaf said: "The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger and more autonomous." That seminal quote is used twice in the book to describe the power and generative capacity of LAS.
I highly recommend this book and will be using it regularly in our practice.
Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., Business Consultant & Executive coach
in the field of Servant Leadership & growing Learning Organization.
Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates, Inc.
An Extraordinary Book: A Must Read.......2006-11-26
I intend to recommend Profit for Life to all my current MBA students. Next fall I am team teaching an MBA core course that combines Operations Management and Managerial Accounting. I intend to make the case that your book should be required reading and part of the course.
I became familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming in 1990 and attended one of his four day seminars a year later. I also began to follow Peter Senge's work and later read Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Tom Johnson's book, Profit Beyond Measure, has been required reading in my Advanced Managerial Accounting elective at the MBA level.
Bragdon's book has brought the ideas, theories, and concepts discussed by these individuals together for me in a way that I could not have imagined. More importantly, he has not only taken their ideas to the next level, but done it in a way that provides a tangible blue print for how to change our current style of command and control management with its focus on profit maximization to a LAS Theory of Management.
The use of the sixteen focus companies from the LAMP INDEX and the author's ability ability to clearly show the distinctions in their style of management from the traditional management models that continue to be taught in almost all business schools, and the success these companies have achieved not just financially, gives those of us hoping to change management education and core business curriculums a new hope.
Thank you for such an outstanding book.
Joseph F. Castellano
Professor, Department of Accounting
University of Dayton Business School
Excellent, highly readable information.......2006-11-18
This is not one of those lightweight business books that repeats its Chapter 1 message over and over. It's chock full of research-based information that anyone involved in the sustainability movement should have. The publisher is Peter Senge's non-profit, so if you're familiar with his excellent work over the years, this would make a great addition to your library. The author's passion for his subject is obvious from page one.
Book Description
Andre Gunder Frank asks us to ReOrient our views away from Eurocentrism--to see the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asia-centered world. In a bold challenge to received historiography and social theory he turns on its head the world according to Marx, Weber, and other theorists, including Polanyi, Rostow, Braudel, and Wallerstein. Frank explains the Rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to the decline of the East around 1800. European states, he says, used the silver extracted from the American colonies to buy entry into an expanding Asian market that already flourished in the global economy. Resorting to import substitution and export promotion in the world market, they became Newly Industrializing Economies and tipped the global economic balance to the West. That is precisely what East Asia is doing today, Frank points out, to recover its traditional dominance. As a result, the "center" of the world economy is once again moving to the "Middle Kingdom" of China. Anyone interested in Asia, in world systems and world economic and social history, in international relations, and in comparative area studies, will have to take into account Frank's exciting reassessment of our global economic past and future.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating, albeit incomplete.......2005-03-31
ReOrient is one the most important works of the last decade in that it not only challenges a dominant perspective in Western social science but it also refutes author's and his colleagues' earlier arguments. Andre Gunder Frank lays down two central arguments in ReOrient which complement one another: 1) the "rise of the West" did not happen due to any internal factors but was predicated on American silver and Asian market; 2) Asia in general and China in particular was the center of global economy until the 19th century. Thus, Frank aims to destroy the bases of Eurocentrism in social sciences.
Frank argues that Europe was not an important figure in world economy until the 19th century. Asians were more productive and competitive than Europeans and Asia remained at the center of global economy until the industrial revolution. Throughout this period European nations constantly had trade deficits with Asian nations, particularly with China and India. An indication of this European trade deficit was that gold and silver were never less than two-thirds of total European exports (p. 74). New World silver was for this reason very important for the Europeans; it helped them cover their trade deficits with the Asians and become a more active player in Asian economy. Thus, Frank contends that American silver bought Europeans a ticket in the "Asian productive and commercial train, which was steaming ahead on an already well-established track," (p. 115).
One of Frank's original arguments regarding the superiority of the Chinese economy vis-à-vis the European economy in the 15th to 19th century is the different effects on these economies of the influx of New World silver. To make his case, Frank utilizes Fisher's famous quantity-price equation which maintains that an increase in the amount of money in an economy will result in increases in the prices of goods unless it is matched by an increase in quantity of goods (p. 154). Frank then demonstrates that whereas American silver caused substantial increases in the price of goods in Europe, it did not have any remarkable inflationary effect on the Chinese economy. For this to happen, Chinese production must have increased parallel to the increase in the amount of silver. This means that the massive arrival of new American money stimulated production more in Asia than in Europe (pp. 157-8). According to Frank, this situation attests to higher productivity of Chinese economy compared to European economy. Thus, Frank refutes the orthodox Eurocentric "hoarding" argument on China which assumed that the Chinese used American/European silver by and large in non-economic and unproductive ways, primarily as jewelry: "Asians earned this money first because they were more industrious and more productive to begin with; the additional money then generated still more Asian demand and production," (p. 177).
Another historical fact Frank uses to demonstrate the superiority of Asian economies over European economies is the per capita production in these two economies in the 16th to 19th century. Using the estimates of such prominent historians as Braudel and Bairoch, Frank shows that in 1750 Asians accounted for 66 percent of world population but produced 80 percent of total world output; by contrast, Europe, which constituted 20 percent of world population then, produced only part of the remaining 20 percent. This again means that on average "Asians must have been significantly more productive than Europeans in 1750" (p. 173). As in the fist case, Franks' reasoning is simple, but smart and convincing.
After all these economic comparisons, Frank concludes that the Europeans did not "create" the world economic system but "purchased" an existing one with American silver. He therefore asserts that "the rise of the West" must be derived from the prior and contemporaneous development of "The rest," (p. 224).
Prospects:
The principal importance of ReOrient lies in its demolishing the bases of Eurocentrism in theories that explain "the rise of West" with factors that are internal to Europe. These theories attributed European economic development to Europe's exceptionality in such factors as rationality, religion, science, and geographic location. Yet Frank demonstrates that Europe did not have any inherent superiority in the 15th through 18th century vis-à-vis Asia and Asian nations were at least as much rational, industrial, capitalist, and dynamic as the European ones. Thus, there was no European "head start" or "exceptionality" that would necessitate the creation of a European hegemony over others. It was American silver and Asian market that allowed the "rise of the West". As such, Frank's arguments change the central question to be dealt with regarding the rise of the West. The critical question is no more why it was the West that rose in the 15th century -because it did not-, but why and how the West rose in the late 18th and early 19th century. As Frank argues, the new question is not about a mere difference in time but begs a qualitatively different answer.
What makes ReOrient particularly important is that it not only destroys the myth of "European exceptionalism" but it also uncovers and refutes the Eurocentrism in the critics of these theories as well. Frank argues that such important critics of capitalist world economy as Marx, Braudel, and Wallerstein could not escape the Eurocentrism embedded in the theories they criticized either. While Marx viewed Asian nations as stagnant, traditional and inferior; Wallerstein assigned an insignificant role to Asia and the Mediterranean in the making of his modern world-system (p. 45). Frank views these arguments as mere assumptions and refutes them in two ways: first, he tries to demonstrate that Europe did not have any inherent superiority in the 15th through 18th century vis-à-vis Asia; second, Frank argues that Europe owe its future "rise" to its borrowing from and integration to a well-established Asian economy. Thus, Frank demonstrates that Europe did not create a world system and incorporated more and more of the rest of the world as Wallerstein argued, but rather integrated itself to the Asian market and "climbed up on the back of Asia," (pp. 4, 30)
Problems:
Unfortunately, Frank's novel theorizing turns out to be at the expense of some conceptual clarity. Frank's approach to world economy and modes of production renders such important concepts like world system and capitalism ambiguous. Frank argues that there has always been "one world economy/system" and it had its "own structure and dynamic," (p. 139). In Frank's view, existence of any trade relations between regions of the world create a world system. Thus, Frank equates global trade with world system. However, until the 18th century trade was highly regionalized and most regions had miniscule contacts with others. Frank himself notes that Europeans' role in Asian trade before the second half of the 18th century was insignificant and Europe accounted for only one percent of Asian nations' international trade (pp. 178-85). Thus, if we define world-system as a global economic system in which most parts of the world are economically dependent on one another, I will have to side with Wallerstein who argued that such a system did not exist until the 19th century ("The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System", in The Essential Wallerstein, p. 74). Indeed, although unintentionally, Frank also provide support to this point when he notes that Europeans were the first to "operate in all markets simultaneously or systematically to integrate its activities between all of them," (p. 177). As such, there has been only one world-system so far and -unfortunately- it has been a European one.
A subsequent problem that results from Frank's bias towards holistic analysis is his search for single centers in world economy. Frank argues that the entire world economy was "Sinocentric" until the 19th century (p. 117). However, I have doubts regarding China's central role in economies of European and Middle Eastern countries in any period of history. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries the Ottomans and Persians were more central to Middle Eastern economies than were the Chinese. Similarly, in the same period the British and the Dutch were more central to European economy than the Chinese. I therefore tend to agree with Pomeranz who later stated that the pre-1800 world was "a polycentric world with no dominant center," (The Great Divergence, p. 4).
Another shortcoming in Frank's book is that he cannot adequately account for the "rise of the West" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His argument is that Asian economies were altogether facing a Kondratieff B-cycle in the first half of the 18th century and this allowed Europe to finally outdo the Asians. He therefore asserts that "the fall of Asia" preceded European political and military intervention in Asian nations (pp. 266-8). The first problem one might have with this argument is that it is impressionistic and allows little room to human agency. A more fundamental problem that I have, however, is that Frank's account does not consider the possibility that the Asian economic decline in the first half of the 18th century could have been a temporary problem and Asian economies could have easily recovered if it were not for European military intervention. Indeed, Frank himself reports that average annual exports from Asia by both Dutch and British East India companies declined in the decades of 1730s and 1740s "but recovered in the 1750s," (p. 270). Frank also notes that throughout the 18th century the balance of trade between Britain and China was constantly in China's favor and the British could reverse this situation only through forced opium trade in the 19th century. Thus, contra Frank, I believe that Asian economic problems in the 18th century were not insurmountable and "the fall of Asia" was indeed a European creation. As such, we still do not have a satisfying answer as to why Europe outdid the Asians by 1800.
How Asia Once Won (And Could Again).......2002-01-23
Andre Gunder Frank wrote ReOrient to demonstrate that the present Western predominance in the world economy is fairly new. It began when Europe gained control of the New World's natural resources, particularly silver, and used it to "buy a ticket on the Asian train" (Gunder Frank's apt metaphor).
Gunder Frank also speculates that East Asia's present economic growth and potential will eventually help it regain economic hegemony in the not too distant future.
A New Frame in Which to View World History.......2001-05-18
I confess. I was Eurocentric. Despite a degree in International Economics from an east coast school known for its School of Foreign Service, I firmly believed Max Weber that the Protestant work-ethic was the source of western prosperity. I also believed in American exceptionalism. Frank's book cured me of both those false notions.
A couple points I'd like to add to Frank's thesis explained in other reviews.
1) I work for one of the major trans-Pacific ocean shipping companies. The company was founded in California in 1848 and sold to the Singapore government in 1997. (Shipping going East)
2) US-bound shipments are full of manufactured goods. Asia-bound ships are filled with wastepaper or are largely empty. The West continues to produce nothing that Asia really wants. Where in times past, most of the Asian-bound shipments from England and the Netherlands were boats filled with silver and gold, today we "ship silver" to Asia in the form of electronic fund transfers. Given the trade deficit the US alone has with China and the rest of Asia, it seems only a matter of time before the Chinese start buying Manhattan and US assets the way the Japanese did in the 1980s.
3) Frank's book adds an interesting background to the history of the Roman Empire. After subjugating Europe, Rome moved eastward under Constantine the Great. First, Constantinople provided a more defensible position for the New Rome (indeed where the western capital - Rome -- fell in the 5th century, the eastern capital - Constantinople -- continued until the 15th century, despite being "on the way" as it were for invading Huns and other invading armies). But perhaps more importantly, all the commercial action was centered in the East. Moving the capital eastward took it out of the backwater of Italy and moved it closer to the overland trade routes with the Asia).
4)That the East was far wealthier than the West can again be seen in microcosmic perspective during the 4th Crusade. Western soldiers had never imagined a city as wealthy as Constantinople. When they saw it they had to have it. The West, especially Venice, did to Constantinople in 1205 as the British did to Bengal in 1857 and the Americans have been doing to the Native Americans since they got here. They took by force, not by superior ethic, religion, tradition, or racial superiority.
The book itself, despite its "must read status" and historical importance, is very poorly written and highly repetitious. If you read the concluding few pages, you will have the main points of the argument. Read the rest of the book if you want the details. And Frank provides plenty of detail, footnotes, references, etc.
All in all, this book is important for understanding the world's past as well as the contours of the future. I wonder how long it will take for the pendulum to swing back to Asia. Chinese-US relations are getting interesting, aren't they?
A fundamental book for the 21st century.......2000-12-04
Since Kondratieff (1970s) discovered economy was affected by up and down cycles that could be traced back across centuries, historians studied the structure of economy at different stages of World history, the succession of hegemonic states in the West, why a certain state became the hegemon and why others failed, etc... Apparently innocent, those questions concerned preservation of US supremacy, how to maintain and prolonge it, who were the possible challengers and when and where could a clash emerge.
The revolution brought by Franck is to destroy Eurocentric views adopted since 1800 bit by bit to reveal how the economic system has been working since the last 2000 years and especially the last 500 years. What it shows is that the global economy was centered around China until 1800 AD, that the main economic players of those 2 millennia were China, India and Japan assisted by Russia, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. The West was only minor and it is only because we achieved the conquest of the Americas and the exploitation of its silver deposits that we obtained a ticket in the global economy and gradually rose to proeminence. Britain was global hegemon from 1800 until 1914, displaced by the United States from then until present. Some forecasts predict that Chinese economy could outpace the US between 2013 and 2049.
Author detailed and argumented study is confirmed by current reality. 4 of the 5 largest foreign currency deposits are already in East Asia: Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong. While US current account balance is at -$393 billion and EU current account balance is at -$14 billion, Japan current account balance is at $128 billion, Russia is at $30 billion and China is at $17 billion. Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia are all in positive waters. Most strategic technological monopolies are in Japan (Blindside from Eanmon Fingleton, 1995). 9 of the 10 largest harbours in the World are East Asian, leaving Rotterdam as the single exception. 70% of the World software production is in India. Most of the largest national GDP annual growth are in East, South-East and South Asia, making US robust growth of the last decade look pale and Europe's 2-3% definitly meaky.
The book is fundamental because it explains the basics of this Asian economic advantage, how post-1800 Westerners could delude themselves while their ancestors (Adam Smith being the most famous) dedicated pages of study to record and analyse why Asia was so superior to the West in almost everything and why the West has risen and is maybe falling beyond again (Only a blind could not notice that 1/3 of all US supermarket shelves are filled with Made in China or that the content of high-tech products is mostly Made in Japan, Taiwan or Korea and that Pokemon, Nintedno and Playstation are kids favorite).
An essential book for anyone to understand the global economy, to have an acurate look on current situation and evaluate the decisions made in the West to face Asian return to global power. A Chinese proverb says: There are no failures, only experiences. And another one: The 10.000 miles trip begins with one step. Make the first step of the next millennium and buy this book.
One of the best books of this century.......2000-11-19
Gunder Frank have really helped to open up the eyes of people, who have long gotten used to reading books and literary works written with Eurocentric bias. He conclusively proves that Europe's success was nothing unique, and that Europe was the lesser of the many players in world economics, technology, and industry until about 1800 AD. China, India, Central Asia, South-East Asia, and the Middle East were those main players of the global trade, spanning from 1500 BC to 1800 AD. These above five regions also had the world's highest standards of living, most advanced technology, greatest industrial and commercial enterprises, best art forms, literature, philosophy, and musical styles, and also the most sophisticated government and best infrastructure in roads, bridges, canals, river and seaborne transportation from 5000 BC to 1800 AD. Special note must also be made, about the vast contributions of the Native Americans of the New World to world agriculture, medicine, metallurgy. Also the role that Native American gold and silver played in helping Europe to become a player in the global trade, by giving Europe with the purchasing power to purchase Chinese silks, tea, porcelain, and other goods, Indian cotton textiles, and South-East spices and gems, should be noted. Gunder Frank provides ample proof in his arguments and successfully disproves long held Eurocentric ideas about the origins of the modern economics, commerce, and industry. Gunder Frank's work is an eye-opener to all. This book should be read by every person, willing to learn about world history. I must also say that in the 1800's and 1900's however, it was Europe which played the most significant role in moving the science, technology, industry, trade, and commerce of the world forward and to greater new heights, just as the other six regions of the world have done in the past.
Book Description
"Your well-paying computer job has been outsourced to India; you are unable to pay your health insurance premiums; you discover that 80 percent of the food you eat is genetically modified, that all of your elected politicians are millionaires, and that corporate advertising is inundating your kids' schools. As an American you might have experienced one or all of these negative effects of economic globalization. The situation is considerably worse for two-thirds of the people in the world. . . . [They] lack basic necessities such as suitable housing, clean water, food, health care, and education. Although poverty is an age-old problem, in many places economic globalization has exacerbated, not alleviated, it."
—from the introduction
Today's complex social and economic problems leave many people in the affluent world feeling either overwhelmed or ambivalent. Even the small percentage of us who have examined the ethics behind our financial decisions and overcome the often-deterring factors of self-interest rarely know what to do to make any difference. By providing tools for examination and concrete actions for individuals, communities, and society at large, Justice in a Global Economy guides its readers through many of today's complex societal issues, including land use, immigration, corporate accountability, and environmental and economic justice. Beginning with a basic introduction to the impact of economic globalization, these ethicists and theologians provide both critical assessments of the current political-economic structures and examples of people and communities who are actively working to transform society. Each chapter concludes with questions for discussion and reflection.
Book Description
A refreshing, insightful look into the political and economic dynamics driving globalization today
Globalization: it's earlier than you think. That's the provocative message of Against the Dead Hand, which traces the rise and fall of the century-long dream of central planning and top-down control and its impact on globalization-revealing the extent to which the "dead hand" of the old collectivist dream still shapes the contours of today's world economy. Mixing historical narrative, thought-provoking arguments, and on-the-scene reporting and interviews, Brink Lindsey shows how the economy has grown up amidst the wreckage of the old regime-detailing how that wreckage constrains the present and obscures the future. He conveys a clearer picture of globalization's current state than the current conventional wisdom, providing a framework for anticipating the future direction of the world economy.
Customer Reviews:
what you never learned in Poli Sci 101.......2005-10-11
I bought this book to help in my research on a masters thesis...I think it is excellent. The book moves between (overly) scholarly erudition at times to almost poetic prose at others. You will defiantly feel where the action picks up and where it drops off...but it is understandable when you are trying to build a scholarly case on this subject.
Essentially he argues that liberalism (free markets, limited government, and individual rights) lost the battle in the 20th century, but had been on a decline since the late 1800s in some areas. The result was a century of warfare, massacres, and sustained poverty.
The scholarly work and assumptions made in this book are not the work of childish or child like intelligence. It is quite the opposite. Have you ever heard a free market advocate arguing "Look even a child understands it, it must be true!" Never, such are the arguments of communists and socialists. The real childish assumptions come overwhelmingly from the global left. The belief that poverty can be solved simply be re-distributing wealth shows painful ignorance of the economics involved. (though Lindsey is not hostile to "saftey nets"...I don't believe in the free market long run saftey nets will be needed at all...politically I recognize they would be necessary to get anything accomplished, but only if they are made more effecient like a negative tax proposed by Milton Friedman) Further ignorance is demonstrated through their assumptions that free markets exploit. Free markets are based on voluntary transactions, and as a voluntary transaction IT CANNOT BE EXPLOITIVE.
I agree with Lindsey that the leftist assumptions are the results of years of fallacious reasoning...intentionally or unintentionally; they are wrong on almost all accounts. I however find their love for their fellow human and desire to increase the welfare of society to be admirable, their solutions however are the causes to the problems they address. They don't understand history, politics, or economics. And they always blame the market for problems that the market often did not cause by conveniently forgetting or ignoring the government involvement in the creation of said problem (example, the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s...always blamed on free market capitalism when in fact fixed exchange rates, policies of the government not free trade, were a major cause of the crisis).
Current empirical evidence suggests, as Lindsey agrees, that economic freedom is strongly connected to civil and political freedom. That is, the more economically free a country is the more civil and political freedom the citizens enjoy...what we now call democracy is realized.
It is no coincidence that the forces who tried the hardest to suppress economic freedom also killed off vast portions of their populations...these are the Fascist and Communist governments that the Left have confused as polar opposites...they are not, both hate economic freedom and as a result both hate civil and political freedom.
Lindsey goes through great detail to list the conditions in the rise of liberalism and its decline. With the help of Hayek and Friedman he shows how government intervention and anti liberal policies helped bring about WWI, the great depression and WWII. The results of all of these were a belief that markets don't work and governments do. In the end, we live in a world that still fears globalization and free markets...a world that conflates free markets with mercantilism and continues to argue that free markets don't work in fact its their very own policy preferences that continue to cause global problems.
Example: protectionism (tariffs and quotas) protect the wealth of the first world capital owners at the expense of the first world consumers (who pay higher prices) and third world laborers (who have more difficulty finding employment) and third world capital owners (who find difficulty in creating and maintaining an export industry). PROTECTIONISM IS A WEALTH TRANSFER FROM POOR TO RICH, that ironically most leftists seem to accept ignorantly unaware that in no way are workers actually protected. Free trade is the opposite of this. Barriers are removed, jobs are created between both first and third world countries, trade ensues, both sides are lifted up through increasing prosperity and wealth creation.
Free markets are not the end all for the debate in this book. Lindsey recognizes that the forces that destroyed liberalism once before are still at work. Their arguments, assumptions, and ignorance still lives and has the potential to again mobilize a mass movement against liberalism...and ironically for totalitarianism. That being said, the summary of his book is that globalization and free markets are not inevitable nor invinsible.
No hard core leftist will read this book and suddenly be converted. They will likely throw confused fits of frustration and show little ability to counter the arguments found inside. Classic Liberals and those more favorable to the free market will find themselves with a highly compelling argument in this book that will strengthen their own understanding of globalization. Those who find themselves in the center will find a book that challenges many of the major assumptions that most of society accepts...it may leave you wondering exactly how you went through your entire education and were never presented with any of these arguments or facts.
But the sad state of public education is another book altogether... :P
Economics & history that is plainspoken and factual.......2003-12-04
I'm not surprised that preceding customer reviews are love-or-hate. Lindsey is a free-market advocate, trying to zap anything that remotely resembles marxist, top-down central planning. He clearly advocates a strong and responsible role for government, for important duties such as: protecting individual rights (including orderly transfers of property), centralized functions that cannot compete with market driven processes (e.g. defense), and providing economically sustainable safety nets for those who need help and care and have no resources.
It might be hard to see if Lindsey's heart is a youthful 16 or 20--he definitely doesn't come across as a socialist. But his principles have anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative truths from more than a century of history, so his brain is certainly working just fine. For example, Lindsey presents a compelling case on protectionism leading to trade wars and world war. His equating pay-as-you-go entitlement systems (legislated by leaders such as Bismarck, chiefly concerned with opiating the masses) with Ponzi or pyramid schemes (deemed illegal by the same governments) is unassailable.
If you care about shaping the socioeconomic world that our children and grandchildren will be inheriting, and if you are concerned about what fiction will be taught to them in most universities (e.g. liberally spun Keynesian economics, without contrasting neoclassical or monetarist economics, or even historical resultants of collectivist policies), this is a great book.
If you want to revisit the Dark Ages, then disparage this book and its commendable author.
Painfully ignorant and simplistic--an embarrasment to Cato.......2003-11-29
Brink Lindsey is a fundamentalist. He believes that "free trade" will cure every problem in the world. And he believes that a lack of "free trade" is to blame for wars, poverty, and all other ills of humankind. Unfortunately, Lindsey seems to possess a childish understanding of "free trade," of world history, and of economics.
To take just one flaw, in a book filled with flaws... Rather than carefully examine the wholesale gutting of Russia, when free trade fanatics took over (in the early 1990s), and when the Russian economic nearly collapsed, industrial output plunged, corruption and crime roared, prostitution exploded, AIDS and drug epidemics devoured the nation, poverty is up exponentially--and Lindsey can only say that they didn't go far enough!
Three billion humans live on less than a dollar a day--and while 45 million human beings face death from AIDS, Lindsey offers them only the market. Most of them will die, while free marketeers talk of future salvation.
One need only read Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and its Discontents for a far more intelligent overview of capitalism today. Stiglitz, who is an ardent fan of capitalism, carefully disects the ways in which "free trade" is often anything but.
The problem with free market lunatics like Lindsey is that they fail to see the ways in which powerful nations and corporations bully the marketplace, control politics, and stack the deck in their favor. Just look at the cartels which control oil, fruit, cocoa, diamonds, automobiles, etc. They control prices, laws, wages, and politics around the globe. They profit from wars and from child labor. It takes either a fool or a free market fantasy to miss these basic problems with unregulated "free trade." Like all fundamentalists, Lindsey needs less faith and fervor and more critical analysis.
Wide-ranging but one-eyed........2003-10-05
Lindsey is a neo-conservative and this book represents a wide-ranging but finally unsatisfactory addition to the non-debate about globalisation. It divides the world into two groups - the free marketers, who are good, and the collectivists, who are anti-modern and the cause of most if not all the failings of the current highly imperfect free markets. Anyone who can lump George Soros' concept of the Open Society with collectivism, really has a bad dose of the current tendency to declare 'if you are not with us, you are against us'.
Read the book for a sometimes fascinating excursion into history, politics, the informal economy, the failings of collectivism and state control (but not the failings of the market), but do not expect to have much light cast on the underlying issues of wealth and poverty, sustainability and the proper place of money in judging the progress of society. Equally, do not expect to see useful engagement with the issue of the role of great international economic agencies (WTO, IMF, World Bank) and the processes by which nations, corporates and the common people influence their decisions.
A Fresh and Well-Argued Discussion of Globalization.......2003-09-04
Challenging the new consensus on globalization in this book, Brink Lindsey "portrays globalization as a kind of wholesome vacuum filler, the vacuum having been created by the loss of credibility and authority of statism and collectivism, the regnant economic and political doctrines in the world for most of the twentieth century. Near-universal statism, he maintains, choked off the naturally expansive impulses of capital, the precedent for which was the explosion of the world economy in the half-century or so before World War I. He claims that blame for the interwar implosion of the world economy lies with statism and collectivism. He sees the future as a struggle between forces of globalization -- a liberal world order, that is -- and the remnants of statism, giving the nod to liberalism in this contest because of its successful record in promoting economic welfare, in contrast to the proven failure of statism and collectivism."
"This book is a qualified success because of its fresh and carefully argued perspective on economic globalization," yet "certain aspects of Lindsey's economic history may not stand up to scrutiny."
"A methodological point of considerable significance is Lindsey's use of qualitative evidence to show that statism refuses to die and is defended everywhere by vested interests and laws that are difficult to change, making the struggle between the dead hand and the invisible one a momentous issue of our time. Although Lindsey is correct to assert that the dead hand remains with us, it is nonetheless difficult to form a clear picture of the extent, strength, or influence of the past from his discussion."
Thus, it would be helpful if Lindsey showed "more carefully than he does that free-market forces have the stronger hand to play. His argument in one brief -- indeed, cursory -- chapter is merely that no viable alternative to markets exists as a macroeconomic organizing principle, so that the triumph of liberalism sooner or later must arrive despite stubborn and effective resistance from the forces of the dead hand. This conclusion assumes a certain degree of rationality and pragmatism on the part of the world body politic that some...might not yet be willing to grant."
-From "The Independent Review," Spring 2003
Book Description
Hannes Lacher seeks to rescue the study of globalization from globalists and sceptics alike by putting the globalization debate on a new foundation and offering a re-interpretation of the international relations of modernity.
In an age when so many of the myths of globalization have been shattered, and imperial power projection has eclipsed the anticipated multilateral system of global governance, it is necessary to reconceptualize world order politics, and the relationship between territorial states and global markets more generally. In this important book, Hannes Lacher traces the modern disjuncture of the spaces of economic organization and political governance to the territorial prefiguration of capitalism, and analyzes the distinctive strategies through which states and social forces sought to overcome this gap in historically changing socio-spatial regimes.
This essential new volume leads us towards a critical social theory of international relations that questions, more fundamentally thanever before, the prevailing conceptions of the modern international political economy as a collection of nationally bounded spaces.
This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of international relations, political science, historical materialism, political geography, and sociology.
Average customer rating:
- Informative and optimistic perspective on the direction of the world
- Short Course in Common Sense
- A must-read if you want to understand why the world is getting better
- A libertarian view of free trade and economic freedom
- Some corrections
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In Defense of Global Capitalism
Johan Norberg
Manufacturer: Cato Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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