Will the world economy be forever more market-oriented
and dominated by transnational corporations? This
short and trenchant history of the organizations
promoting economic globalization - the World Bank,
IMF, WTO, and Group of Seven - points to their
manifest failings. Recurrent financial crises,
a yawning gulf between developing and industrialized
countries, gross inequalities within all countries
and mass poverty. Bello reviews these institutions'
crisis of legitimacy and examines the major new
ideas for reform - the Commission on Global Governance's
suggestion of an Economic Security Council; the
US Congress's Meltzer Commission proposals; and
the ideas of financier, George Soros.
Walden Bello sees these ideas as mere tinkering
with marginal policy changes; the world requires
a radical shift towards a decentralised, pluralistic
system of economic governance allowing countries
to follow development strategies appropriate
to their needs and circumstances. This 'deglobalization'
means radically reducing the powers and roles
of the existing TNC-driven WTO and Bretton Woods
institutions. And requires the formation of
new institutions helping to devolve the greater
part of production, trade and economic decisionmaking
to national and local level.
- 'Clear analysis and impressive scholarship
have made Bello one of Asia's key progressive
thinkers. Insistence on people-centered development
grounded in ecological sustainability sets
him apart from the elite consensus on Asia'
- New Internationalist
- 'The most respected anti-globalization thinker
in Asia' - Le Soir (Belgium)
- 'Among the expanding constellation of activists,
academicians, and thinkers who believe that
mainstream economics... does not have an answer
to people's needs, Walden Bello is a prominent
star' - Bangkok Post
- 'Whatever subject he tackles, Walden Bello
is always thoughtful, trenchant and constructive.
He's also an authentic hero of the global
justice movement.' - Susan George
- Walden Bello is the worlds leading no-nonsense
revolutionary. With plainspoken history and
compelling evidence, he ruthlessly exposes
the opportunism, plunder, and backroom bullying
that passes for global capitalism. But this
is more than a critique: Bellos expert diagnosis
is that the patient is sicker than we think,
and the time to act is now - Naomi Klein,
author, No Logo
- 'De-Globalization is a superb dissection
of contemporary capitalism's multiple crises,
a powerful indictment of the US's brutal re-subordination
of the global South in the interest of its
MNCs and banks, an unanswerable demonstration
of the unreformability of the IMF and its
sister institutions, and a stirring call to
arms for the movement for economic justice
by one of its major theorists and organizers.'
- Robert Brenner
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