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Title: The Case Against the Global Economy: And for a Turn Toward the Local by Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith ISBN: 0-87156-865-9 Publisher: Sierra Club Books Pub. Date: 23 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.61 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: IT'S A FAILURE OF OUR MEDIA THAT A BOOK SUCH AS THIS IS EVEN
Comment: I don't know where to begin in describing how terrifying this book is even from its first pages, and maybe even particularly in its first pages. The introduction paints a grim portrait of the future unless all people take responsibility to demand that their economic systems take a turn toward the local, not the global. We have all been told that globalisation is inevitable and above all beneficial and profitable to all of us. This books makes the case, with a series of well-documented and well-organized essays by scholars, intellectuals and individuals at the forefront of the anti-globalisation movement, that nothing could be further from the truth. Globalisation benefits corporations, not people. Most people believe that globalisation has nothing to do with them, and if it does, it only means that goods for those in the western world will probably become cheaper or jobs in the west will be lost to cheaper labour and production costs overseas. But in everyday American life, the problems inherent in all of this are not investigated or talked about at all. If you do ask questions about these problems, you are relegated to the dustbin of far-left environmentalists or far-right protectionists. Mander writes in his concise introduction, 'Economic globalisation involves arguably the most fundamental redesign of the planet's political and economic arrangements since at least the Industrial Revolution. Yet the profound implications of these fundamental changes have barely been exposed to serious public scrutiny or debate.' He continues, 'We are now being asked to believe that the development processes that have further impoverished people and devastated the planet will lead to diametrically different and highly beneficial outcomes, if only they can be accelerated and applied everywhere, freely, without restrictions'' Mander makes this point and questions HOW? How can this possibly benefit people when what is clearly happening is 'corporate colonialism'? Mander argues that the measures taken by a globalised economy will be tantamount to the 'global homogenisation of culture, lifestyle, level of technological immersion.' In other words, every place will be the same as every other place and there will be no reason to leave your home. Maybe for some people this will be an ideal world to live in. Who knows? Economists have created measures of economic well being that do not reflect anything about the way and quality of life. There will always be winners and losers in the competitive and capitalistic society, and on a globalised level we can only see, in the short term, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In the long term we will see, as Mander illustrates in his introduction and the following essays demonstrate with more evidence, that growth and prosperity can only be temporary and unsustainable because resources, both renewable and non-renewable, will be used so quickly and haphazardly that growth and progress cannot be sustained. Co-editor Goldsmith writes 'even for the biggest winners, it will be like winning at poker on the Titanic.'
Rating: 5
Summary: "Words to live by."
Comment: Jim Otterstrom's review below prompted me to read this book. "We
are caught in a terrible dilemma," contributor David Korten
writes in this collection of 43 essays. "We have reached a point
in history where we must rethink the very nature of and meaning of
human progress" (p. 29). Reading the newspaper on any day
reveals the ever-increasing problems caused by the expansion of our
global economy: worldwide unemployment and poverty; homelessness;
global warming; air, soil, and water pollution; violence; political
chaos; a global monoculture "which is leveling both cultural and
biological diversity" (p. 317); the destruction of natural
resources; sprawling superstores that destroy communities; and "a
global sense of despair about the future" (p. 94). However, as
this long-overdue book makes clear, these are not simply unrelated
problems as the media would have us believe.
This book first
identifies "the global economy" and examines the effects of
globalization, and then offers strategies "required to assist a
transition toward a more viable, more satisfying, and incomparably
more sustainable world" (p. 392). Co-edited by Jerry Mander and
Edward Goldsmith, this collection includes contributions from Ralph
Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, Wendell Berry, Satish Kumar, and Jeanette
Armstrong, among others. It offers compelling evidence that we are
living in a "global factory" (p. 302)--a corporate state,
"which not only disregards local tastes and cultural differences,
but threatens to serve as a form of social control over attitudes,
expectations, and behavior of people all over the world"
(p. 300), and which defines education as job training, and success as
a high-paying job (p. 416).
In his essay, Satish Kumar observes that
with economic globalization, people have lost their dignity; they have
"become cogs in the machine, standing at the conveyor belt,
living in shanty towns, and depending on the mercy of their
bosses" (p. 420). He writes, "global economy drives people
toward high performance, high achievement, and high ambition for
materialistic success. This results in stress, loss of meaning, loss
of inner peace, loss of space for personal and family relationships,
and loss of spiritual life" (p. 421).
We are pieces of the
living, dreaming earth (p. 465), Jeanette Armstrong writes in another
favorite essay, sharing the world with "people without
hearts," who have "lost the capacity to experience the deep
generational bond to other humans and to their surroundings,"
"blind to self destruction, whose emotion is narrowly focused on
their individual sense of well-being without regard to the well-being
of others" (p. 467).
Economic globalization may seem
overwhelming while reading this book, but there are also strategies
here for local production, local consumption, reducing global trade,
and ensuring strong environmental standards (p. 91). The solution
begins with each of us, individually. Eat vegan. Buy organic. Walk
to work. Appreciate what is local. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Value
life. You will find words to live by here.
And for those of you who
do not understand why hundreds were shot with rubber bullets, pepper
sprayed, and arrested for nonviolent protest in the streets of
Seattle, November 30 through December 3, 1999, while corporate elites
met in secret behind police barricades and a 25-block no-protest zone,
consider this book required reading.
G. Merritt
Rating: 4
Summary: A wake up message
Comment: This book is unlike most and was unexpected. Interesting that some who are considered left of center could be not socialist. This book will reveal that those who write here really do have the best of intentions for people and for nations.
Freedom and democracy. This book should be recommended to our corporate leaders before we export too many more jobs overseas.
What has the off shoring of manufacturing done for Mexico? Although we get things at a lower cost, the long run costs are greater. Most who produce the goods in Mexico cannot even remotely purchase what they make. They live or lived, depending on the product they made, in small, non-descript hovels, some in squalor. It is a long way from what JFK envisioned that economys could grow slowly yet purposely so people could increase wealth.
This book can be a warning if we take is as such. Wake up world and listen
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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: When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten ISBN: 1887208046 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: 10 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations by Jerry Mander ISBN: 0871565099 Publisher: Sierra Club Books Pub. Date: 11 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz ISBN: 0393324397 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander ISBN: 0688082742 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 01 March, 1978 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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