This book comes out just when needed. It explains the global economy and the globalized world we all now live in. Jacques B. Gelinas uncovers the facts behind the hype. Globalization is not a vehicle without a driver, or an irresistible and inevitable force of nature, as political leaders and pundits would have us believe. The author identifies the actual institutions and people controlling the system. He explains:
How the globalization machine really works:
- The hidden face of the unregulated global market -- its unequal trade treaties and domination by big money.
- Its masters -- the transnational corporations and speculators.
- The overseers putting its employees to work -- the supermanagers and subservient politicians.
- The ideologists who justify and defend the system -- the free market economists and media pundits who propagate the Seven Articles of Neoliberalism which is the Globalization Creed.
- The UN saying yes to juggernaut globalization.
Who pays the price:
- The Earth, the environment, and life itself, all under threat.
- The values of equity, sharing and solidarity displaced by inequalities everywhere.
- Democracy undermined by the abdication of our political leaders.
What we can do about it:
- Another world is possible -- a model to be invented from below.
- Millions of ordinary people are starting to do it.
- Reclaim the economy so that markets serve people, and not the other way round.
- Reclaim the commons so that we stop destroying Nature.
- Reclaim democracy so that we democratic citizens win back control over our own affairs.
- Resist McWorld.
- Build alternatives.
This wonderful book is what so many of us -- muddled, worried, wanting to make a difference -- have been waiting for.