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Globalization summer reading series
Posts
In defense of globalization - Jagdish Bhagwati
Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility - Daniel Litvin
Why Globalization Works - Martin Wolf
Confessions of an economic hitman - John Perkins
The coming anarchy - Robert Kaplan
Globalization and its discontents - Joseph Stiglitz
I mean that each book is going to discuss certain aspects and consequences of globalization -- it's doubtful that if you read any random pro book, and any random anti book, that they'll actually be flipsides of the same topic.
err, yes, so I mean what you thought i meant.
Pro:
In Defence of globalization - Jagdish Bhagwati - 5
Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility - Daniel Litvin - 4
Why Globalisation Works - Martin Wolf -2
Con:
Globalisation and its Discontents - Joseph Stiglitz - 5
Confessions of an economic hitman - John Perkins - 3
The coming anarchy - Robert Kaplan - 2
If this is generally agreeable I'd put them in this order:
1. Globalisation and its Discontents - Joseph Stiglitz
2. In Defence of globalization - Jagdish Bhagwati
3. Confessions of an economic hitman - John Perkins
4. Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility - Daniel Litvin
5. The coming anarchy - Robert Kaplan
6. Why Globalisation Works - Martin Wolf
So Globalization and its Discontents is first. Pick it up and read it by, say the end of May. That's three weeks and a half weeks from now.
Everybody still in?
The world is flat - Friedman
The lexus and the olive tree - Friedman
As to that caveat, correct me if I'm wrong (or maybe this is the point) but isn't the general consensus Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is complete and utter bullshit? I'm not just talking about bias, but outright con man, pathological liar type problems? I'm game either way, but I'd imagine there are more relevant works on the anti side we could spend our time on.
I got hosed once on a video game, but they refunded my money hella fast, no questions asked.
About the reading list though, I just got back from the bookstore there, and actually ran into someone who taught political science, and I showed him the list I had (the one here) and he had a few things to say. He told me that 'The World is Flat' should defiantly be on there, its a great into to globalization. He also said that 'In defense of Globalization' was terribly boring, and was mainly just Bhagwati bragging or name dropping. He also said 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree' was very good.
So, I don't know if that would change anything about the list, but I picked up 'The World is Flat'. I forgot how many votes there were for the Bhagwati book, but he said it was really really boring to read. I'll order the rest online tomorrow.
Why doesn't anyone here like Friedman?
I stand by my votes for The world is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The first is as near a widely accepted primer on globalization as exists (so any comprehensive reading would do well to know it and it's flaws inside out) and the second is as good a test of whether we've all learned the actual information at hand and can apply it to a universally acknowledge weak argument as we're likely to find.
Like Friedman or not, he is a major player in globalization and ignoring him simply because we don't like him isn't much of an argument.
Also, Globalization and its Discontents isn't available anywhere in my town... I guess I'll just get a lateish start on it.
Nope, it's true, with one caveat. That he was in fact working at the behest of the NSA is completely un-verifiable, and his former boss claims this isn't true. The boss also said everything else was true.
The world is flat is accepted as a primer, I think, by laymen who aren't qualified to make good judgments of Friedman's analysis.
I havent read "Globalization and its dicontents" but the author of Confessions says that they are about basically the same thing.[if i recall correctly]
So we will find out soon enough.
I agree. Friedman seems great at first until you get into more specific, in-depth material that blows his arguments out of the water.
That begs the questions, though, of what we're aiming for here. A mix of lay material and harder stuff or just harder stuff? Cuz that changes what we're reading and how we're going to be reading it.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Yeah, definitely. Are we going to have intermediate discussions at any point so we can talk about, say the first 1/3rd of each book? Cuz 2 intermediate sized discussions might be more fruitful than one huge chaotic one at the end since we can focus on side-points as well.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
This thread will just be here for people to talk in. There will be suggested dates for completing each book so we can all be going through the books in the same order at roughly the same time. People should be shooting to have Globalization and Its Discontents, the first book, done by June 1st for instance.
But ultimately this isn't some stern disciplined thing. There are no rules. There is no list of people who have signed up. If you only read half the book, but still have some things you want to talk about that is fine. If you don't read every book on the list, that is fine. Everything is pretty much fine.
Sounds good.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Your Johnson.
Do you believe in nuhsing?
Nah, it's the same way on Amazon.com's used stuff...there's a lot of people with a lot of books who are happy to sell them cheap.
I usually get my college textbooks for 20% of what the college bookstore charges for used.
It's awesome.
Just a reminder.
Case in point, early on (pg 8 in my copy) where he's doing a quick summary of the pros and cons of globalization, he raises some legitimate issues with the trade agreements that came out of the Uruguay Round of negotiations that created the WTO, and after raising a valid point about the hypocracy of asking poorer countries to remove tarriffs while keeping our own he segways into a horrible complaint about IP provisions. Namely how the big evil pharmaceutical companies are demanding companies in poor countries stop "stealing" their medicines and producing them for a fraction of the cost. There shouldn't be any damn quotes around steal there, for christ's sake it's a textbook definition of theft. And the companies doing the stealing aren't selling the drugs more cheaply out of the goodness of their hearts, they're doing it because they have to support 0 R&D to get the drugs in the first place.
There's certainly a case to be made for improving or subsidizing health care costs in the developing world, but tieing it up in an asinine attempt to make protesting theft some sort of unconscionable act just reduces the validity of everything else he has to say. I had exactly the same issue with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, when I skipped to the afterward about modern times and saw he bitched out Clinton for refusing to denounce Nixon at his own funeral. There is such a thing as caring about the "little guy" so much you shove your head up your ass.
edit: My impressions after reading the first couple chapters - as knowledgeable, accomplished, and brilliant as Stiglitz may be, none of that has come through in the book so far. His issue is entirely with the ideology behind the IMF and he hasn't offered anything more that his opinion that they're wrong and he's right. Especially given so far he's cited (without any analysis to back it up) one success for the IMF philosophy, one for his, and one he claims would have gone his way if the IMF hadn't cocked it up.
Maybe he's seen so much he CAN'T be dispassionate, or maybe I'm expecting too much logical structure from a book with a wider aim, but the word of one genius with a clearly biased view (merited or not it hasn't been backed up so far) versus that of others with an opposing view isn't much of a compelling case. Maybe he's absolutely right but I can't tell at all from anything he's given so far, though I'm quietly optimistic that'll come later on.
It doesn't help at all that if a quick skim and the table of content are to be believed the best case scenario for him is he proves the IMF needs to be overhauled as opposed to any fundamental or specific flaw in the idea of globalization itself.
Given the thread has been pretty dead for the last couple weeks, I'll keep dumping thoughts in as I go until I hit on something someone else feels like discussing and/or debating
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
I had a busy night so I only ready a chunk of chap 3, but I did spend some time thinking about the book yesterday and I think I finally put my finger on why I really feel the book is lacking. Besides the obvious intense bias (I'm really having a hard time taking any criticisms he levels seriously given how overwhelmingly clear his stacking the argument is) he's arguing that his view of economics should have been taken over the "market-centric" view of the IMF (his word and I can't think of a better one at the moment) despite the fact it represented the overwhelming majority of high level economic thinking at the time.
While it's nice he's better than everyone else, right when they're wrong, and so on if he can't convince anyone (and he's doing a weak job here even after the fact) then what good is he? One expert contradicting all the other experts is only as good as their arguments, and he isn't making it clear at all where the line between blind devotion to a failed ideology and sincere disagreement is. Add to that he's muddying the waters with an clear bias that disagreement with his view is obviously driven by serving special interests and hating citizens of developing nations and this is a less satisfying read.
While it's neither here nor there I'd kill for a good book on how the consensus in a field changes, one that really looks at the line between debate and inertia.
Except that its not really a textbook definition of theft. They havent deprived the IP owning company of anything. And as well, in those nations there are no provisions for such IP ownership. Its like saying "John is tresspassing in this public park! We dont have any public parcks where I live, and so John is tresspassing!"
If Stiglitz were biased, and not simply understanding that states have no obligation to conform to treaties they have not signed as well as no obligation to make laws protecting any property, especialy the property of non-citizens, but have the obligation to enact legislation that is beneficial to the people who actualy live in the state. He would have said something to the tune of "Since these companies can be providing the drugs at much lower prices in the third world and still making profit, albiet less profit than they would in a monopoly situation, any company that does not do so and such actions result in the death of a person would be liable under provisions for negligent homocide. Any employee of the company traveling to the area, since the companies are corporate and as such treated as people would be liable for the full crime of negligent homocide"
Truthfully, the position that companies that arent using price discrimation to extract the best amount of consumer surplus, while providing nessesary medication to millions of people who need said medication when the production price is lower than the sale price[as evidenced by the knockoffs which reverse engineer a drug and then take it to market], are commiting negligent homocide[defined as actions or non-actions that result in the death of an invididual when the person taking the action or non-action knew or should have known that they would have resulted in the death of the individual], has stronger backing than the notion that patent infringment[especialy in a nation with no patent laws for international companies] is theft.
So far, my only complaint in the book is that Stiglitz uses so many god-damn exclamation points, and his editor(s) didnt seem to notice that holy shit Stiglitz uses a lot of god-damn exlcamation poitns
Stuff like a long, fairly coherent complaint about conditionalities in IMF loans, followed up with "the IMF claims these are to help stabilize the country and ensure growth, but some people think this was just the IMF showing client countries who's boss." The only thing I can do is bang my head into a wall and wonder what the hell happened to objectivity, or even basic decency. Who the hell is some people? Is there any validity to there claims, or is it the case (as it increasingly seems to be) that Stiglitz is just dumping all over the IMF?
I don't think there can be any argument the IMF was wrong on any number of things, but I need something more than this foaming at the mouth to be convinced that it wasn't well intentioned mistakes and lack of knowledge and experience (especially given how snidely he slips in that research contradicting their theories was being done at the time, as if the IMF is responsible for the fact they didn't have the knowledge before it existed or didn't adopt it at the first hint of it).
He's going about his writing as if the only possible explanation is anyone and everyone in the IMF or who agreed with them at the time was a 50s caricature of a capitalist, and I happen to like a bit of proof and logical discussion in my character assassinations. We'll leave aside Stiglitz love of the cheap dig and italics (god, the half dozen italics per page is killing me).
edit: Hey, a reply! I guess someone else IS reading.