Joseph Stiglitz's (former Word Bank Chief Economist) sequel to "Globalization and its Discontents"

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Product Description

Four years after his global best-seller, Joseph Stiglitz now brings the story up to the present, examining how change has occurred even more rapidly since then, proposing solutions and looking into the future. Here he puts forward radical new ways of dealing with the crippling indebtedness of developing countries, a new system of global reserves to overcome international financial instability, and an economically incentivised framework for dealing with energy pollutions which create global warming and which threaten us on a planetary scale. He argues convincingly for the reform of global institutions such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank to make them truly capable of responding to the problems of our age and shows why treating developing countries more fairly is not only morally right, but because it increases global public goods, is ultimately to the advantage of the developed world too. Above all, Stiglitz argues we need to change the way we think. Now more than ever before, globalization is bringing the countries and the peoples of the world into one interdependent community, bringing with it a need to think and act globally. This trenchant, intellectually powerful and inspiring book is a step in the process.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #302749 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

About the Author
Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. Before that he was Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. He is currently Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the author of the best-selling Globalization and Its Discontents and The Roaring Nineties, both published by Penguin.

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Customer Reviews

ALL men are created equal, and FAIR trade instead of free trade
For J. Stiglitz, it is a compelling moral case to make globalization work, especially for the poor and the developing countries.
The actual rules of the globalization game have been set by the developed countries in order to protect special individual, corporate and financial interests.

The author sees 6 areas where dramatic changes (with a huge potential of dramatic results) are necessary for the global well-being of our planet.

Poverty relief: it is a shame that billions of human beings are still living in abject conditions. Speaking of intellectual property rights in their face is a deadly joke.
Debt relief and legal help: diminish or eliminate the debt burden of the poorest countries and help the developing countries in creating environmental, judicial, anti-bribery and anti- bank secrecy laws in order to fight corruption.
Fair trade: a fair trade regime is one without subsidies and trade restrictions.
Limitation of liberalization: Markets are not perfect. Therefore, governments must have an active economic role (infrastructure, education, a sound financial and judicial system, a social safety net).
Environmental protection: measures to stop and reduce global warming
A global governance system: a new global social contract, an International Trade Tribunal, an International Bankruptcy Court, a new Global Monetary Reserve System.
The democratic deficit should be compensated by giving the developing countries more voice in the running of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The draconic anti-Keynesian policies of the IMF should be stopped.

Overall, more transparency, less arms sales and certification of origin are needed.

All those measures should hugely benefit the developing AND the developed countries, although special interests would be hit. Hereafter, a few examples.
Elimination of agricultural subsidies would greatly benefit producers in developing countries and consumers in developed countries. Immigration would dramatically slow. There would be more legal than real fighting. And, last but not least, our planet could be saved.

J. Stiglitz stresses rightly that economic globalization outpaces the political one.
He is especially hard for his home country, `the deficit of last resort'.

This book, written by a superb free mind, should have a long lasting effect on world matters.
It is a must read for all those interested in the future of our planet.

Agenda for a better world
After three decades of market fundamentalism, during which the rich have grown richer and the poor have in many countries grown poorer, Professor Stiglitz suggests practical ways of undoing the damage and creating a just and stable world economy. With chapters on fair trade, intellectual property, natural resources, climate change, multinational corporations, indebtedness, the world monetary system and democratization, this is a comprehensive prescription for reform. It is presented with a wealth of examples and backed by 46 pages of detailed notes and references. My only quibble is that the author does not face the question of how much more the world economy can grow without becoming unsustainable, but perhaps that can only be addressed once the present gross inequalities have been dealt with.

Fine analysis, but he knows the rulers won't accept his proposed reforms


In this book, Stiglitz examines the failures of globalisation and of free trade, the intellectual property rights regime that puts profit before people, the pillage of resources, climate change, the multinational corporations' impact, the debt burden, the reserve system, and the attacks on democracy and sovereignty. He claims the problem is not globalisation but the way it has been managed.

He notes of globalisation post-1990, "unchecked by competition to `win the hearts and minds' of those in the Third World, the advanced industrial countries actually created a global trade regime that helped their special corporate and financial interests, and hurt the poorest countries of the world."

He points out, "the pursuit of self-interest by CEOs, accountants, and investment banks did not lead to economic efficiency, but rather to a bubble accompanied by massive misallocation of resources. And the bubble, when it burst, led, as they almost always do, to recession." This contradicts his later, curiously formal, argument, for capitalism: "Markets are essential; markets help allocate resources, ensuring that they are well deployed." No, profitably, not well.

Third World countries have got deeper into debt. Apart from China, poverty in the developing world has increased since 1980: 40% of the world, 2.6 billion people, are poor. The number of Africans in extreme poverty has doubled. In 2001 the USA and the EU agreed to focus on developing countries' needs. But, as Stiglitz points out, they reneged. He needs to ask, why don't proposed reforms ever work?

He observes, "the European Central Bank pursues a monetary policy that, while it may do wonders for bond markets by keeping inflation low and bond prices high, has left Europe's growth and employment in shambles."

He points out that current economic policy serves the interests of the ruling class. "Wealth generates power, the power that enables the ruling class to maintain that wealth."

He exposes the class conflict at the centre of economic life. He asks, "Where will the people of the developed countries and their governments stand? In support of the few in those countries who own and run the rich corporations, or in support of the billions in the developing countries whose well-being, in some cases, whose very survival, is at stake?"

His analysis is brilliant, but his proposals amount to calling on the ruling classes of the world to act against their own interests: he is proposing reforms he knows won't be accepted.