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Title: Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism by Brink Lindsey ISBN: 0-471-44277-1 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 21 December, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Real Deal on Globalization
Comment: The popular perception of globalization portrays political leaders fighting against corporations and unfettered financial markets being manipulated by greedy speculators using lightening fast electrified capital. According to Brink Lindsey, author of "Against the Dead Hand - The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism", this formulation has the main direction of causation backwards.
The failures of central planning have led governments groping for market reforms as a pragmatic response to the failures of big government.
The trend toward what we now refer to as "globalization" was interrupted during the nineteenth century by what the author calls the "Industrial Counterrevolution". World leaders, impressed by the productivity and efficiency of big business, began to apply the same techniques as those used in business. Merged with these techniques were different theories of collectivism which arose as a result of the apparent chaos of the marketplace.
Though the U.S. never plunged headlong into state control, political leaders of both parties were swept up by its own version of the Industrial Counterrevolution, the Progressive movement.
We now have over a century of experimentation in various social and economic policies in several countries. The evidence shows free market principles produce better results, but market proponents should not confuse a change in trend with victory in the battle of ideas. Those general principles - competition, choice, limited government, private property, sound currency, free trade - are now seeping deeper into more areas of society that had been impervious to them. The change could be seen in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. recently when the Court took up the constitutionality of school vouchers. On one side were minority parents demanding educational choice who were pitted against public school teachers protecting the status quo.
Educational choice is one reminder that market proponents do not have a free ride. Laments Lindsey: "The defunct ideas of centralized control exert a waning but still-formidable influence on the shape of the world economy... The invisible hand of markets may be on the rise, but the dead hand of the old collectivist dream still exerts a powerful influence."
A belief in market economics is not simply the hope for the absence of government. Among government's most important responsibilities is maintenance of a legal order that protects property and enforces contracts to exchange that property.
Mr. Lindsey's entry is an easy reading but serious antidote to the double dose of hype from pro-globalization cheerleaders and anti-globalization protesters. I recommend it.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Worthwhile Read if You Are Interested in Globalization
Comment: So far, Lindsey's "Against the Dead Hand" may be the best book I have read about globalization. Lindsey does not beat around the bush--he is clearly a classical liberal who favors market forces. One would not expect anything less from a senior researcher at the Cato Institute. But the fact that he is a researcher clearly shows. The book has far more of a research base than any other text I have read on this subject. There is certainly more than mere anecdotal evidence in each chapter. But at the same, it is not a boring research text. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
Lindsey takes an extremely broad perspective and looks at globalization within a 150 year window. From this perspective, Lindsey argues that globalization is not a recent phenomenon. Instead, he claims that we are only beginning to approach the levels of global trade that existed prior to World War I. Achieving that same level of globalization is, however, quite a struggle. The "dead hand" of centralized, collectivist, and protectionist government/philosophy still exerts considerable force on the politics and policies of today. Lindsey is convinced that collectivist government, in multiple forms, has failed and that a return to market-oriented practices is really the only viable choice remaining. Overall, I find Lindsey's arguments persuasive, researched, and sensical. He makes a strong case.
On the other hand, I had great difficulty with the final two chapters of this book. In these chapters Lindsey discusses the social safety net and labor. I was both disappointed and troubled by Lindsey's discussion. His notion of a social safety net, based on Chapter Ten, seems to be providing retirement funds for those who work all their life. While I agree that retirment is important (I work too), Lindsey simply ignores and avoids the many people and issues that a social safety net should address. I was left asking about children who are ignored by their parents. What about the homeless? What about our vets? I could not help think of my recent experiences with poverty in Argentina or war-torn cities like Sarajevo. It is impossible to say what Lindsey would think about these concerns because he simply ignores them. I was left with the impression that he "simply does not get it." He risks presenting market-forces as a cure-all, which it clearly is not.
This book would have been five stars, in my view, had Lindsey eliminated Chapters Ten and Eleven. The rest of the book is superb, well thought out, and well written. I highly recommend this book. I find that it makes a nice complement to Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." The contrasts are many and at times explicit. Lindsey takes a clear stance and, regardless of whether or not you agree, I think most reasonable readers will have to admit he has made his case well.
I am glad I read this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Economics & history that is plainspoken and factual
Comment: 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.
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Title: Alternatives to Economic Globalization by John Cavanagh, Jerry Mander, Sarah Anderson, Debi Barker, Maude Barlow, Walden Bello, Robin Broad, Tony Clarke, Edward Goldsmith, Randy Hayes ISBN: 1576752046 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: 15 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Mirage of Global Markets: How Globalizing Companies Can Succeed as Markets Localize by David Arnold ISBN: 013047066X Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 16 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School by Gene Callahan ISBN: 0945466358 Publisher: Ludwig Von Mises Inst Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Building an Import/Export Business, 3rd Edition by Kenneth D. Weiss ISBN: 0471202495 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando Desoto, Hernando de Soto ISBN: 0465016154 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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