| |
BOOK
REVIEW
Globalization's rabid
defender
Why Globalization
Works by Martin Wolf
Reviewed by
Gary LaMoshi
Critics of globalization are a
bewildering lot. French cheese makers, 
Brazilian coffee
growers, Korean rice farmers, Indian industrialists,
Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners, united world dreamers
and pastoralists preaching communal self-sufficiency are
all herded under the same anti-globalization umbrella.
But to Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator
and assistant editor of London's Financial Times,
critics of globalization are easy to figure. They're the
heirs to Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Anyone against the
spread of free-market liberalism endorses mass murder,
opposes individual freedom and would doom the world's
poor to an endless cycle of deepening destitution.
Why Globalization Works echoes recent
books defending greater international economic
integration on free-market terms. These books stake out
absolutist positions and cast the opposition in
unrealistic starkness, not to mention unity. While
milking every nuance of the pro case, they ignore
subtleties in the anti-globalization side in favor of
simply dismissing it. You're either with us or against
us.
In Wolf's case, he treats readers to a
pompous, historical tour de farce tracing the march of
free-market liberalism. Going far beyond Ronald Reagan's
1980 presidential campaign challenge, he proves
decisively that, no matter who you are, you're better
off than you were four centuries ago. For anyone living
in a cave, or North Korea since the fall of the Berlin
Wall, Wolf's case is fresh and exciting, if greatly
overstated. Using the classical definition of liberalism
- minimalist government, open markets and personal
freedom - Wolf contends that free markets promote the
rule of law, democracy and equality. Therefore,
questioning free markets means rejecting those values in
favor of enslavement and poverty.
The great
irony is that when Wolf moves beyond platitudes and
name-calling, his analysis suggests an alternative title
for the book: Why Globalization Doesn't Work.
Moreover, he and others on the pro side refuse to face
the key issue of how globalization can work better.
The main economic argument for globalization in
polite society is that, even if it makes the rich
richer, it remains the best tool for eliminating
poverty. Indeed, Wolf contends the problem for the
world's poorest isn't that they're exploited, but that
they're not exploited enough. He's right, to the extent
that a subsistence farmer in a remote Ethiopian or
Bolivian village could benefit from greater integration
with the world economy that Marxists would call
exploitation; indeed, such people could hardly be worse
off. But greater globalization doesn't come with
guarantees, despite Wolf's valiant, often virulent,
arguments to the contrary.
According to the
United Nations figures Wolf quotes, the number of people
living on less than US$1.08 per day fell during the
1990s. But it fell by only 1.2% of the world population,
from 1,183 million to 1,169 million - 14 million people.
A good thing, but not the revolutionary change that
proponents suggest globalization has wrought.
But wait. First Wolf softens up readers with
rosier figures, then calls the dollar-a-day boundary
arbitrary and "bound to mean different things in
different countries", as if it doesn't mean extreme
poverty in all of them. Most important, Wolf paraphrases
president Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign theme: "It is the
growth, stupid."
To explain away the widening
spread between the world's haves and have-nots, Wolf
cites income growth. If the rich grow fractionally and
the poor grow in double digits, the gap may still widen,
at least for a time. It's a viable argument with some
intellectual and statistical validity, but it doesn't
erase the unpleasant fact of growing inequality. In the
case of poverty, Wolf asks us to focus on population
growth. Even armed with Wolf's cynicism and wearing his
growth blinders, during the 1990s, dollar-a-day poverty
declined from 23.7% of the world population to 19.5%.
That's a more respectable fall. But in his discussion of
corporations' share of global gross national product,
Wolf waves aside a 23% increase as "a little". So
globalization has managed to reduce poverty, in Wolf's
own terms, by less than a little.
Faced with
such unpleasant facts, it's little wonder then that Wolf
prefers to take refuge in intellectual trickery and
mockery. Moreover, in the sweep of Wolf's historic
generalizations - supported by renowned and obscure
political philosophers across the ages - that occupy the
book in the guise of analytical rigor, we are left to
wonder what makes archetypal anti-liberals such as
Singapore's patriarch Lee Kuan Yew or China's Deng
Xiaoping heroes of globalization.
Wolf fails to
honestly tackle the criticisms of free trade,
particularly multinational corporations. His chapter on
global companies obtusely focuses on neo-Marxist
condemnations of capitalism and pop economics' criticism
of brands. Real questions about the economic impact of
laying developing markets bare to mature competitors are
left unaddressed.
After wallowing in platitudes
about a world of black and white where there are no gray
areas for the first two-thirds of the book, Wolf finally
opens the door to doubts in the final 120 or so pages.
He concedes that the criticism of capital market
liberalization raised by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz
and arch capitalist George Soros has some validity. He
confesses that free trade and market economies are the
real keys to economic growth. The other issues he has so
arrogantly defended and whose critics he so rabidly
denounced are really not so important after all.
Wolf and other published champions of
globalization close their eyes to the biggest hole in
their argument for absolutely free markets. The two most
successful developing countries in this age of
globalization are India and China, neither of which
subscribes to the free market liberalism doctrines so
dear to Wolf and his brethren.
The explosive
growth of China and India, taking advantage of
globalization's opportunities within their own national
frameworks, is the real economic story of the millennium
so far. But even looking back to the last century,
supporters of globalization cite Japan, Singapore, Hong
Kong and Taiwan as star pupils, yet none of them
followed the free-market liberalism prescriptions of
globalization's cheerleaders.
These economies'
successes could point to how other poor countries can
make globalization work for them. This reality, clashing
so loudly with Wolf's pet theories, begs for intelligent
analysis and explanation, but defenders of globalization
just ignore these unpleasant realities. Even when they
find facts on their side, there's no reasonable excuse
for their conceit.
Why Globalization
Works by Martin Wolf. Yale University Press, New
Haven, June 2004. ISBN: 0-300-10252-6. Price: US$30. 398
pages.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
