Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
At the beginning of the 21st century, the global economic system, Harry Shutt argues, is based on inherently anarchic and unstable markets and is dominated by unaccountable corporate interests. It is unable to assure a minimum degree of material security for all but a small minority of the world's population. Imperialist political control and the capitalist economic system are converging on a global scale; Shutt shows how political movements need to construct new alternative paths of global integration, methods of economic governance that are more responsive to the public's needs and more equitable, and democratic reform designed to make governments more representative.Editorials
Choice
Discerning readers will...benefit from Shutt's lucid presentation of an alternative view.Library Journal
Following the path set by his previous work, The Trouble with Capitalism: An Enquiry into the Causes of Global Economic Failure (LJ 6/15/98), British economist Schutt decries what he describes as the systemic collapse of the global financial system. Within this slim text he discusses a broad range of topics, including social responsibility, public accountability, environmental care, high unemployment, rising poverty, the power elite, national sovereignty, and the economic and social breakdown of nations. Seeking a link between politics and economics, Shutt proposes an alternative system in which the United Nations becomes the supranational entity that regulates world financial activity and governments own the means of production, regulate markets, restrict commerce, and redistribute wealth and income as part of a mandatory global welfare system. Unfortunately, the author lacks a means of quantifying his assertions and relies on discarded collectivist rhetoric. Readers will find Seymour Melman's After Capitalism (LJ 9/15/01) or Liah Greenfeld's The Spirit of Capitalism (LJ 10/15/01) more useful. Not recommended. Norm Hutcherson, California State Univ., Bakersfield Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Booknews
Independent economic consultant Shutt argues that there is currently unfolding a simultaneous breakdown of the capitalist economic system and the imperialist international political order dominated by the United States. He simultaneously explains the failures of the current system to provide for the needs or security of most of the world's populations and suggests alternative paths that would encourage democracy and an equitable economic order. Distributed by Palgrave. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Book Details
Published
January 1, 2002
Publisher
London ; Zed Books, 2001.
Pages
192
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781856499736