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Title: The Silent Takeover : Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy by Noreena Hertz ISBN: 0743234782 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: June, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.58
Rating: 5
Summary: Hello Capital, Goodbye Democracy!
Comment: Most of Ms. Hertz's book is a brisk trip through material which has been covered elsewhere before. But Ms. Hertz does us the immense favor of providing us with a clean structure that suggests that we view the interconnectedness of the free market ideology, the consolidation of the media, the attacks on unions and the social welfare as working together to form a new non-public consensus in which governments do not govern (instead they act as shills and prostitutes for business interests) and businesses have come to govern (think of the Body Shop, or Ben and Jerry's who maintain very narrow political platforms as a means to demonstrate their liberal "caring."). She moves through this material at a good speed, with intellectual rigor, and with plenty of examples and facts to back up her assertions.
Two things are original to Ms. Hertz's work: the story of how the penetration of business into government and vice versa means that the public is no longer even taken into consideration by those in power (except perhaps as potential rioters). She suggests that governments have so weakened themselves through policies of deregulation and privatization (in keeping with the dicta of the free market priests at the WTO and the IMF and the Fed), they are no longer conduits for the needs of citizens they once represented. Paradoxically, having supped full on tax breaks and corporate welfare, corporations now find they have to take over functions once supplied by the state: well-educated workforces for one. They do this sporadically, she notes, and almost always with an eye toward the accrual of PR benefits. It is doubtful they will fund common public goods such as the infrastructures that once ameliorated the dark side of capitalism -- welfare and unemployment programs to take just two examples. Incidentally, she doesn't blame them for their activities. She understands businesses are driven by only one imperative finally: creating wealth for shareholders. Which is why the free market can never fully deliver public goods, despite what the free marketeers say.
Citing as a precursor protests in the Progressive era that went outside the usual course of democratic institutions, she believes that it is time for people to make themselves heard - and not just through their purchases or the stocks they choose to buy (although that can be a powerful check on the corporation) - but also through putting their bodies in the street. For now, in the absence of government, she sees it as perhaps the only check on the private international structures of financial domination - the WTO, IMF.
Although Ms. Hertz's make you believe that the global hypercapitalism is going to be nearly impossible to stop, her personal story gives one some hope. An economist trained at Wharton (she was there to help "jump start" the Soviet economy in the early 90s), she has switched her allegiance to those people on the other side of the barricades. A powerful conversion story.
Rating: 3
Summary: Critique Light, but useful
Comment: Whether done silently or not, the author makes the case for the fact that huge transnational corporations (TNCs) have taken on the societal role that formerly fell to governments and that governments largely accede to and support the agenda and maneuverings of those corporations. As a result, perhaps as many as one half of voting-age citizens in democracies do not find their political processes viable, worth participating in. The author examines alternatives to democratic participation, to pressuring corporations.
Beginning with the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, neo-liberalism has become the dominant economic and political philosophy worldwide with deregulation and privatization being core elements of that thinking. It is a very sparse view of the obligations of leading institutions to look out for the general good of society. However, for the book supposedly being a critique of laissez-faire capitalism, the author seems to have somewhat mixed feelings concerning the desirability of free-running capitalism. Her biggest concern seems to be the maldistribution of the wealth gains of the 1990s. But she also seems to be dazzled by the huge increases in wealth experienced by many and the overall benefits of free trade.
What is missing from the analysis is any real understanding of the true powerlessness of the working class to withstand this business assault. With the mass media and politicians firmly supporting the business agenda, workers have nowhere to turn as they are downsized, benefits are cut, jobs are shipped overseas, and workers' rights on the job are toothless or nonexistent. As a substitute for actual worker power on the job, the author would suggest shareholder activism: forcing ethical behavior and investment through pressuring boards of directors and fund managers. Of course, any significant shareholding is already skewed towards the rich whose concerns are not those of the working class.
The author makes much of the ability of consumer activism to curtail corporate excesses, instead of using the political process. She cites the examples of Kathy Lee Gifford and Nike, where consumers supposedly forced companies to not use sweatshop labor. Of course, that is the sort of thing that is unverifiable as contractors move about globally, not to mention such protests cannot possibly be more than a drop in the proverbial bucket. While noting the several protests surrounding meetings of world trade bodies, again, the net effect of those protests has amounted to little. Much of these actions perpetuate an illusion that the system is modifiable by citizens, despite the absence of political participation.
Of course, corporations are forever concerned with image, that is, their brands. In the interest of name promotion and co-opting protest movements, the author cites several examples of corporations providing such social services as education and health care in various countries where their factories are located. The author does not note that under IMF structural adjustments, governments have been forced to cut social services to the bone. So corporations can step into that vacuum when they wish, but when cheaper labor can be found elsewhere, those facilities are closed just as quickly as the factories. The same sort of thing can be said for the codes of conduct adopted by most TNCs: when those vaguely worded declarations affect the bottom line, they can be dispensed with in a heartbeat. A particularly pernicious development in the U.S. is the penetration of primary and secondary schools by large corporations under the guise of supplying needed technology. Of course, corporate logos and advertising are part of the package.
This review is not to say that the author is pleased with this state of affairs. She does not regard ad hoc protests as a good substitute for democratic participation. But there seems to be little appreciation or emphasis on the class nature of the domination of corporations. Although large parts of the citizenry are turned off by politics, no assessment is made as to the depth of their disaffection or understanding. Are citizens alarmed with consumerism as the dominant mode of life? Is there really much in the way of an untapped potential to transform the economic and political system? Is there a noticeable path for citizens to recapture the political process and minimize reliance on largely ineffectual, random protests that are easily shunted aside by TNCs? Those answers are crucial if neoliberalism is to be countered.
Rating: 4
Summary: A good introduction to an important subject
Comment: I liked this book; it was amazingly easy to read, without being trite or condescending. Many of the stories and anecdotes I knew from other readings, but there was new material, and all of it was well done in the telling.
This was not heavy going, nor was it an ill-structured string of disjointed stories.
I recommend it as an excellent introduction to the issues.
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Title: Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz ISBN: 0393051242 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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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): $15.95 |
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Title: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua ISBN: 0385503024 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 24 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann ISBN: 1579546277 Publisher: Rodale Press Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin Phillips ISBN: 0767905334 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 14 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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