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Making Globalization Work
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Making Globalization Work

Joseph E. Stiglitz
W.W. Norton, 2006
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Just about every major gathering of world leaders draws determined, often violent, protests against globalization. If you wonder why, Joseph E. Stiglitz’s book explains ample reasons. The Nobel Prize-winning economist follows up on his 2002 book, Globalization and Its Discontents, with further analysis of pressing economic, political and environmental concerns, and the conflicts they engender between developing and developed countries. He doesn’t just dwell on the dreadful problems he outlines in such knowledgeable detail. He also offers remedies and reforms, though some seem quite idealistic for a notable economist who sees so clearly what has gone wrong. His book is densely packed with data, case studies and facts, but Stiglitz intersperses the dry material with thoughtful asides on the questions of morality and equity that globalization must answer. getAbstract finds that his book will enlighten readers about the challenges and consequences of globalization on humankind’s one and only planet.

Summary

What’s Wrong with Globalization?

Finding fault with the concept of globalization isn’t hard. In broad terms, it connotes the free-flowing, cross-border exchange of information and technology, business and trade, and cultural and social traditions, a cavalcade of knowledge and resources that promises greater happiness and prosperity for everyone, particularly in the developing world. But many people now wonder if globalization, given its economic goal of facilitating trade and commerce, has really improved people’s lives or if it has reneged on its vows. In fact, the way globalization has rolled out so far has impelled many people to take to the streets, literally: Major protests in Seattle in 1999 coalesced into a growing resistance to globalization, its unintended consequences and the heavy-handed way the West has imposed its power on developing nations. At the core, “the problem is not with globalization itself, but in the way globalization has been managed.”

Many of those affected by globalization – American workers who’ve lost jobs to laborers in low-wage countries, developing world farmers who can’t compete against subsidized Western crops, health care advocates...

About the Author

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz chaired the Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton administration and was chief economist at the World Bank. He teaches at Columbia University.

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