Manifesto for a New World Order - Softcover

Monbiot, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1595580395 ISBN 13: 9781595580399

Publisher: The New Press, 2006

Synopsis

George Monbiot is known to millions for his newspaper commentaries, which are widely circulated on the Internet. Now in paperback, Monbiot’s Manifesto for a New World Order offers a plan for transforming the world into a decent place for all. All over the planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run by a handful of executives who make the most important of decisions, concerning war, peace, debt, development, and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left in the dark. George Monbiot shows us how to turn on the light.

Emphasizing not only that things ought to change but also revealing how to change them, Monbiot develops an interlocking set of proposals that mark him as the most realistic utopian of our time. With detailed discussions of what a world parliament might look like, how trade can be organized fairly, and how underdeveloped nations can leverage their debt to obtain real change, Manifesto for a New World Order offers a truly global perspective, a defense of democracy, and an understanding of power and how it might be captured from those unfit to retain it.

About this title

About the Author:

George Monbiot has been persona non grata in seven countries, was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Indonesia, has been shot at, beaten up by military police, shipwrecked, and stung into a coma during seven years of investigative journeys across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He is the author of five books, including, most recently, Captive State and Amazon Watershed.

From Publishers Weekly:

The anti-globalization movement may have a reputation for traffic-blocking obstructionism devoid of a positive program, but this smart and stimulating manifesto aims to change that. Monbiot (Amazon Watershed; Captive State) is uncompromising in his attack on what he says is an international order run by and for wealthy elites and powerful corporations. But he is equally critical of what he sees as the left’s infatuation with localism and anarchism, its knee-jerk opposition to trade and its preoccupation with feel-good palliatives like "mindful consumption." What he offers instead is a utopian vision of a global democratic order that transcends the obsolete nation-state, based on a real world program for concrete institutions to supplant the undemocratic power centers of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. His most substantive ideas concern world trade, which he feels should be restructured to open advanced countries to Third World exports while allowing backward economies to develop behind protectionist barriers. He calls for a Fair Trade Organization to set mandatory standards for international corporations, and resurrects Keynes’s proposal for an International Clearing Union that would automatically rectify trade imbalances and prevent poor countries from getting trapped in debt. Less thought out are proposals for a revitalized United Nations General Assembly that would abolish the Security Council, and a directly elected World Parliament, initially vested only with "moral authority." Monbiot’s ideas will find their critics, but his often scintillating analyses of the inequities of the world economy and his preference for constructive action over dogma make the book a good place to start for readers in search of solutions.
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About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1595580395
• ISBN 13: 9781595580399
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 274