Product Description

Free enterprise is off the leash and chasing new opportunities for profit making across the globe. After a turbulent century of unprecedented social and technological change, Capitalism has emerged as the dominant ideology and model for economic growth in the richest, most developed countries. But only thirty years ago economic growth was faltering, inflation rising and the Left were arguing for greater state intervention in industry. How did this remarkable transformation happen? And what price have we paid in the process? This accessible and persuasive book challenges the notion of our capitalist destiny. It provides a clear and concise history of the problems facing the economies of Europe, Japan and the US during the latter half of the twentieth century and questions whether capitalism has really brought the levels of economic growth and prosperity that were hoped for. Andrew Glyn then looks at the impact the rapidly developing economies of China and the South are likely to have on the older economies of the North. As the race is on to maintain growth and protect competitive advantage, Glyn asks: is the 'race-to-the bottom' inevitable as the anti-globalisers predict, with welfare states being dismantled to meet competitive demands? Or is there an alternative model which sees a strong commitment to welfare provision as essential to economic growth? Can we afford not to tackle inequality at home as well as abroad?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #150307 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Tribune, 2 June 2006
a powerful critique

Review
Capitalism Unleashed is a brilliant book that should be read by everyone with a serious interest in the economic history of the past three decades and who wants to understand better the economic issues and dilemmas that will face us in the years ahead. (Tim Lankester World Economics )

About the Author
Andrew Glyn teaches economics at Oxford University. He was an economic advisor to the National Union of Mineworkers, has been a consultant to the International Labour Organization and H.M. Treasury, and is an associate editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. He co-authored several books on post-war capitalism, edited Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times (OUP 2001) and has written on unemployment, profitability and the history of economic thought in economics journals and on
current economic problems and policies in magazines and newspapers.

Customer Reviews

Excellent grown-up guide to globalisation in practice
"Capitalism Unleashed" is a sober, meticulously-researched and ultimately quite convincing analysis of what has happened to the global economy over the last 50 years.

Author Andrew Glyn's rhetorical starting point is the cosy days of the 1950s: the so-called "Golden Age" of western capitalism when there was plenty of work to go around and the economic cake was shared out relatively equally thanks to generous welfare states.

Somewhere between then and now we ended up with deregulated labour markets, welfare state retrenchment, workplace insecurity and - worst of all in Glyn's view - an enormous ratcheting up of social inequalities. Most economists agree that the culprit in all this is globalisation (defined as the growing internationalisation of capital with the threat of exit). What this book tries to do - and succeeds, in my view - is show how the results of this process were conditioned by specific government responses to globalisation in terms of the economic policies they chose to pursue.

In other words, Glyn's point is that, while globalisation is probably inevitable, governments don't have to respond to them by slashing welfare safety nets or allowing multinationals carte blanch to do as they like. This, unfortunately, is how a number of countries have responded, to a greater or lesser degree, and Glyn shows how this is as much a result of governments and multilateral institutions' willingness to swallow neo-liberal economic dogma as any reasoned analysis of the situation.

The book is divided into topical chapters dealing with, among other things, growth policies, labour markets, welfare states, the emerging Asian economies and financial regulation. Each chapter is laced with statistics and, while the jargon is kept to a minimum, readers will find some acquaintance with economics concepts useful.

Glyn is an Oxford economics don, and former advisor to the National Union of Mineworkers - so he is plainly not without an agenda. Fortunately, he makes he case through rigorous analysis and careful marshalling of the facts rather than the vacuous posturing and childish conspiracy theories which characterise much of the rest of the Left's critique of globalisation.

An excellent book. Informative and stimulating
I found Capitalism Unleashed very stimulating and interesting and would recomend anyone interested in recent economic history. Well written and clearly explained this was truly every bit as good as the reviews made it out to be.