Globalization and Its Enemies (Mit Press) - Hardcover

Cohen, Professor Of Economics Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 026203350X ISBN 13: 9780262033503

Publisher: MIT Press, 2006

Synopsis

A provocative argument that the frustrations of globalization stem from the gap between the expectations created and the lagging economic reality in poor countries.

The enemies of globalization―whether they denounce the exploitation of poor countries by rich ones or the imposition of Western values on traditional cultures―see the new world economy as forcing a system on people who do not want it. But the truth of the matter, writes Daniel Cohen in this provocative account, may be the reverse. Globalization, thanks to the speed of twenty-first-century communications, shows people a world of material prosperity that they do want―a vivid world of promises that have yet to be fulfilled. For the most impoverished developing nations, globalization remains only an elusive image, a fleeting mirage. Never before, Cohen says, have the means of communication―the media―created such a global consciousness, and never have economic forces lagged so far behind expectations. Today's globalization, Cohen argues, is the third act in a history that began with the Spanish Conquistadors in the sixteenth century and continued with Great Britain's nineteenth-century empire of free trade. In the nineteenth century, as in the twenty-first, a revolution in transportation and communication did not promote widespread wealth but favored polarization. India, a part of the British empire, was just as poor in 1913 as it was in 1820. Will today's information economy do better in disseminating wealth than the telegraph did two centuries ago? Presumably yes, if one gauges the outcome from China's perspective; surely not, if Africa's experience is a guide. At any rate, poor countries require much effort and investment to become players in the global game. The view that technologies and world trade bring wealth by themselves is no more true today than it was two centuries ago. We should not, Cohen writes, consider globalization as an accomplished fact. It is because of what has yet to happen―the unfulfilled promises of prosperity―that globalization has so many enemies in the contemporary world. For the poorest countries of the world, the problem is not so much that they are exploited by globalization as that they are forgotten and excluded.

About this title

About the Author:

Daniel Cohen is Professor of Economics at the École Normale Supérieure and the Université de Paris-I. A member of the Council of Economic Analysis of the French Prime Minister, he is the author of The Wealth of the World and the Poverty of Nations, Our Modern Times: The Nature of Capitalism in the Information Age, Globalization and Its Enemies, and Three Lectures on Post-Industrial Society, all published by the MIT Press.

From Publishers Weekly:

Cohen's new work debunks the commonly held wisdom on both sides of the globalization debate: that it's a new phenomenon, that it thrives on the exploitation of poor countries by rich ones, and that it raises all boats-rich and poor. Globalization is no novelty, Cohen argues, but began with Spanish Conquistadors, was adopted by Great Britain, and is now entering a new stage based on radical advances in transportation and communication. Cohen divides globalization's enemies into two camps united by a single assumption: "that globalization imposes a model that people do not want." Cohen asserts that "the truth ... is probably the reverse." Globalization increasingly involves interactions among rich countries, excluding rather than exploiting undeveloped nations. This gives impoverished countries a powerful image of progress but not the means to achieve it; the gap between the promise and its realization is where the real drama and frustration of globalization comes from. Cohen's practical expertise (he's a professor and economic adviser to the French prime minister), broad theoretical knowledge and straightforward style make this a succinct yet comprehensive work that will engage both specialists and the general public.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 026203350X
• ISBN 13: 9780262033503
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192