Why Globalization Works
Books / Hardcover
Books › Political Science › Globalization
ISBN: 0300102526 / Publisher: Yale University Press, July 2004
Wolf (associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times of London) provides a defense of capitalist globalization or "a liberal international economic order" to a general audience. He first offers an argument for a liberal market economy, utilizing fairly standard references to the "mutually reinforcing and interdependent relationship between the market and the democratic state," and sketches a positive portrait of the history of globalization. While conceding the accuracy of some (very few) criticisms of market globalization, he devotes much of the work to rebutting critics arguments about globalization being a cause of global impoverishment, corporate domination, threats to the sovereignty of the democratic state, and the race to the bottom in environmental and social regulation. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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The debate on globalization has reached a level of intensity that inhibits comprehension and obscures the issues. In this book a highly distinguished international economist scrupulously explains how globalization works as a concept and how it operates in reality. Martin Wolf confronts the charges against globalization, delivers a devastating critique of each, and offers a realistic scenario for economic internationalism in the future. Wolf begins by outlining the history of the global economy in the twentieth century and explaining the mechanics of world trade. He dissects the agenda of globalization’s critics, and rebuts the arguments that it undermines sovereignty, weakens democracy, intensifies inequality, privileges the multinational corporation, and devastates the environment. The author persuasively defends the principles of international economic integration, arguing that the biggest obstacle to global economic progress has been the failure not of the market but of politics and government, in rich countries as well as poor. He examines the threat that terrorism poses and maps the way to a global market economy that can work for everyone. Martin Wolf is associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times in London. Formerly senior economist at the World Bank’s division for international trade, he has worked in Kenya, Zambia, and India. He has been visiting professor at Oxford, Nottingham, and Rotterdam Universities and fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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