Book Description

When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends. It also reveals why and how millions of people are acting to reclaim their political and economic power from these elitist forces and presents a policy agenda for restoring democracy and rooting economic power in people and communities. This new edition is expanded with new information, including a new preface, a new introduction, a new chapter on The Global Democracy Movement, and a new epilogue. ... Read more

Reviews (49)

Thank you David Korten
No book or university course has provided me such a concise description with compelling examples, measures and details of the workings and history of the global economy.

The title could have been simply "Corporations Rule the World".

First and foremost, the book provides a foundation for thinking about sustainable business, ones' role in society, day-to-day habits and our collective need to create a future for our children.

Take note, however, that the book is worth a read in a very pragmatic and personal way, as a primer for investors.

I was given the book on Aug 17 '98 and finished it by the 22nd. In recent years, I had placed all of my hard earned cash, and some inheritence from hardworking grandparents -- for convenience sake -- in the hands of fund managers dealing in "blue chip" companies in the global equity markets. Understanding something from Kortens' book, and his apt description of the world now around us...I sold all of those equities and funds on the 24'th. The markets collapsed on the 25'th. I'll go back to directing my own investments with the cash I've saved -- thanks to a timely reading of Korten's informative book.

Kortens' work is as brilliant as a Hitchcock movie -- providing space for the reader to fill in the "gaps", to "get" his global picture in a personal way. Korten avoids confronting readers with the simple statement that WE ARE corporations. We ARE government and we ARE civil society -- however healthy or sick...

Having said that, Korten's book is entertaining and frightening because he is fact-based and truthful.

Unlike other Amazon.com book reviewers, I generally accept and enjoy pondering Korten's ideas.

I volunteer and commit to spend my rare time on this planet to forward Korten's kind of agenda for people-centered development. There's no point having kids and no way to sleep at night, without wisdom and change.

I'll invest in new forms of global business opportunity, based on Korten's wisdom and call for change. I'll start by changing myself, to make my actions consistent with my words, to make my words consistent with such wisdom as Korten's and to make my business work towards a healthy tomorrow.

Thank you, David Korten.

When Corporations Rule the World
Author David C. Korten addresses some of the main issues affecting the global environment today. In my opinion, anyone who considers him/herself an environmentally conscious person should read this book to broaden his or her sense of environmental thinking. Korten touches upon the issues and concerns that have driven the thoughts and arguments of many people in the past that are concerned with the future. These are such things as human population numbers increasing at such a high rate, which Paul Erlich has written about in the past, to a new line of thinking dominated by the notion that corporations, and more importantly money, is at the root of all environmental problems.
He mentions that only the rich countries can focus on economic growth. I think there is a lot of truth to that. If you can put yourself in a poor and developing country and see what they see and do, and do what they do to survive, there is no way that your main concern is going to be economic growth when it is difficult just to put food on the table. Korten gets at the root of the problem by blaming corporations that are just seeking money. Many of the big global corporations today make most of the pollution today, especially in developed nations like those of Europe and the U.S. These developed and commercialized corporations produce their excessive amount of waste and force underprivileged nations and environmentally concerned citizens to clean it up because it is more economically advantageous to do so.
The leaders of these corporations are also in a tight spot. The CEOs of these big companies are put there for only one reason and that is to further the company by making as much money as they can for the board members and stockholders. If these CEOs fail to come up with new and innovative ways to make money they get fired and are out of luck. In a way the positions of the CEOs and citizens of poorer countries show an unusual similarity. The CEOs are considered some of the wealthiest people in the world but in their civil society they are doing what they have to in order to keep their job and maintain a certain way of life. The citizens of developing countries care about the environment but, in their situations, it is one of the only expendable things they have access to. They are also doing what they have to in order to survive in their respective civil society.
So if environmental problems like deforestation and overpopulation are to be solved, these two very different, but somewhat similar, civil societies must come to each other's aid and work together. Right now the only thing that is really happening is that poor nations are using up their natural resources and destroying ecosystems in order to supply companies like Chiquita Bananas with enough product to make a profit. While doing this, the workers of the poor nations barely get enough money to live off of and often times are forced to make their children work at a young age in order to eat. The idea of globalization is often thought of as a bad thing because people say that the rich countries are forcing their way of life on to others. That is true, but if globalization can be changed to mean that the entire globe works together to solve the environmental drama facing this planet today, it is a step in the right direction towards a healthy Mother Earth.

The Long Road to Democracy
By far, the most comprehensive, well-researched, incisive documentation of systemic corporate abuse available. When Corporations Rule is not simply a litany of profligate corporate excess, though. Korten explains the dysfunctional logic of our system, outlines the horrendous consequences for community and environment, and provides clear, cogent plans of action to create real democracy and awaken culturally.

We always harangue socialism as an "extreme ideology," but as Korten makes clear capitalism is also an extreme ideology. Socialism concentrates power in a centralized government, creating unsupportable social and environmental costs. Capitalism concentrates power in huge private institutions (the modern multinational corporation), which also have enormous social and environmental costs. Both advance the concentration of rights of ownership without limit, to the exclusion of the needs and rights of the many who own virtually nothing. And as Korten shows, the impoverished many are growing.

As of 1992, the richest 20 percent of the global population received as much as 82.7 percent of the total world income. The poorest 20 percent received 1.4 percent. These figures indicate growing economic inequality, which is has become even more pronounced in the last decade. In 1998, the world's top three billionaires totaled more assets than the combined GNP of all the least developing countries and their 600 million people. Of the world's 6 billion people, 2.8 - that is, nearly half - were living on less than 2 dollars a day. Some 1.2 billion of that half lived on less than a dollar a day.

Inside America - the global economic trendsetter - this growing inequality that we see between nations is mirrored in microcosm. In fact, inequality and hardship is even more exaggerated in the Land of the Free. The wealthiest 10 percent now own almost 90 percent of all business equity, 88.5 percent of all bonds, and 89.3 percent of all stocks. In 1999, the total compensation of U.S. corporate CEOs was 475 times the average production worker's pay; and 29 percent of all U.S. workers were in jobs paying poverty level wages, defined as an hourly wage too low to meet the needs of a family of four. Moreover, with each new mega-merger and corporate takeover, more capital, power and control are concentrated in these already mammoth institutions. What ever happened to the anti-trust laws?

These are just a few of the statistics sited in the book, but When Corporations Rule offers more than statistical analysis. With laser precision, Korten essays economic and political history, uncovering the reasons for these global trends: including the illusion of growth, the loss of governmental oversight in the affairs of corporations, the rise of the Newtonian mechanical worldview and its subsequent devaluation of spiritual values, etc. His critique of globalization is absolutely stunning: including the effects of NAFTA, and the general policies of the WTO, the WB and the IMF. Finally, his call for localism, activism, spiritualism and an ecological awakening are inspiring and timely.

Not a stone goes uncovered. The failure of development strategies for the Third World (his stated specialty), critical discussion of traditional economic theory, the rise of PR, global poverty, currency speculation and corporate raiding, downsizing, contracting labor, automating, the loss of the small farm, the effects of Walmart and the like, ecological collapse, the coming Ecological Revolution, sustainability, socially responsible investment, systems theory, urban design, history of the current globalization protest movement, a detailed agenda for democratic change - these and so many other important issues are weaved together in a remarkable argument that will shock, sober and move you. I cannot think of a more important book for those who still have faith in the global economy. This troubled planet needs more Kortens. Bravo!

Pulling the props from under the propaganda
This very succinct and very clear account of global capitalism run wild does the job where most leftist accounts of their subject too often suffer addled brain syndrome due to Hegelian brain rot. All it takes is a few pokes. Gosh, I had no idea the limited liability joint stock corporation was a problem, like the now passe institution of monarchy. The regime of mass media is so constant in its effect that we are already filled with sound bite refutations of the obvious facts of the case. And conventional economists are usually in recovery from their neo-classical college degree. At first sight the treatment appears lightweight and the text doesn't seem to amount to much, but within a few pages the relatively loose argument does its job. Take as a vitamin supplement for couch potato syndrome, or the daily newsspeak. Nice.

It's not When, they do. Good overview of the concerns.
The fact that transnational corporations and their agendas have come to dominate cultural, political, and economic life on a global scale can hardly be disputed. These powerful corporations have used national governments and government-created international bodies to create a legislative and institutional regime that accedes to and actively promotes and implements a "free-market" ideology. This book is largely concerned with detailing the tremendous costs to the political, economic, and social fabric of the entire global community as corporations have become ever more capable under this ideological regime in extracting wealth and generating huge profits on a worldwide basis. The author sees poverty, social and political disintegration, and environmental degradation as the main consequences of this global corporate ascendance.

The ability of corporations to penetrate the political and cultural sectors of our society is hardly a late twentieth century phenomenon. Despite the founders' efforts to contain corporations by explicit and revocable state charters, emerging industrialists in the post-Civil War era became powerful enough to sway legislators and the judiciary to act in their behalf. Not only did corporations generally gain rights to perpetuity, but the Supreme Court declared corporations to be legal persons entitled to the same rights as ordinary citizens, in addition to limited liability. By the late 1920s capitalism had largely emerged triumphant over worker and community interests. Consumerism was instilled as the only legitimate avenue for realizing individualized "freedom."

According to the author, a form of democratic pluralism existed among the civil, governmental, and market sectors of society in the post-WWII era, but any such sectorial accommodation was mostly an aberration that came about only because of the necessity to solve the twin crises of the Great Depression (caused by corporate-led economic excess) and WWII. Any social accord that may have existed was shredded as corporations, backed by the Reagan administration, renewed their assault on the working class and relentlessly pursued self-interested global strategies. Over the last two decades, middle-class jobs have been lost, median pay has stagnated, and austerity has been imposed on the less fortunate as a profound upward redistribution of wealth and income has occurred.

Globally, the structural adjustment measures forced upon developing nations by the World Bank and the IMF to qualify for loans, ripped the fabric of those societies and have actually increased indebtedness to First World bankers. Trade agreements and administrative bodies, such as the NAFTA and the WTO, are designed to eliminate local restrictions on investments by international firms and barriers to the free movement of goods between nations. The freedom for capital to move freely among nations has also fueled rampant financial speculation unrelated to productive investment. Unconscionably, American taxpayers have been forced to bailout those engaged in extracting wealth from the developing world.

Free market ideology is used to justify the gutting of the social and legal structures of nations. But it is a disingenuous view. Free market activities posited by Adam Smith involve local, individual economic actors, none of whom have the power to control the marketplace. Unregulated market activities by huge economic entities can result in market coercion. For example, monopolistic firms can externalize costs, that is, they are powerful enough to force societies to pay for the social and environmental side-effects of their activities. For example, labor and environmental regulations are often ignored with impunity with society picking up the pieces.

The impact of corporations acting as legal persons cannot be overemphasized. Corporations overwhelm actual citizen political participation and free speech by the extent and intensity of their political lobbying and media controlling efforts. Corporations and the rich, in a form of legalized bribery, basically fund political campaigns. They also heavily sway public opinion through public relations front organizations, conservative think-tanks, and the control of the major media. The dependency of the media on advertising dollars virtually guarantees presentation of views that are compatible with corporate interests, not to mention the fact that the huge media empires are themselves transnational corporations with no interest in harming broader corporate interests.

As the author indicates, corporations have largely "colonized" the common culture. Television is the main media outlet for the inculcation of business-friendly values, which emphasizes the avid pursuit of consumption. Even political activity has become mostly the marketing of pleasing candidates. The message is incessantly and subtly delivered that a free market system is self running and stabilizing and needs little or no political interference. Of course, the reality is far different. Corporations have infiltrated government at all levels with the sole purpose of ensuring that governments take an active role in supporting the corporate agenda, or pro-business regulation. In addition, governments are left to deal with the unprofitable aspects of society or side-effects of corporate actions. The net effect is a democracy hardly worthy of the name.

The author's principal approach to this regime of corporate hegemony is to call for a rollback to self-sustaining local communities. Such recommended measures as land reform (breaking up corporate farms) and urban agriculture seem almost quaint. The author confuses his message of a return to pre-consumption-dominated life by calling for high tech solutions, such as video-phones, to link local communities. Where does he think high tech products come from other than corporate development labs? A hard-hitting analysis seems to be getting waylaid by some fuzzy spirituality.

But the most practical approach is contained in the book. Free market propaganda has to be countered and a regime of regulating big business through governmental controls must be instituted. Is there any hope for this? The Seattle protest and other citizen demonstrations show that the democracy-killing initiatives of the WTO have not gone unnoticed. In addition, it has been claimed that 25 percent of the population belongs to a cultural grouping called "Cultural Creatives," who can be expected to oppose insensitive corporate agendas. And the author takes no note of minority interests that are generally opposed to the conservative business agenda. The author wants to see a cultural transformation, but a heightened awareness of class will be needed to combat the class warfare being perpetrated on the non-elites of the world. ... Read more

Book Description

The business of credit ratings began in the United States in the early 1900s. Over time, credit ratings have gradually taken on an expanding role, both in the United States and abroad and in official financial market regulation as well as in private capital market decisions. However, in 1999 the Bank for International Settlements (through its Committee on Banking Supervision) proposed rule changes that would provide an explicit role for credit ratings in determining a bank's required regulatory risk capital. Once implemented, this BIS proposal (often referred to as Basel 2) would vastly elevate the importance of credit ratings by linking the required measure of bank capital to the credit rating of the bank's obligors. With these regulatory changes under active discussion, research into the role for ratings and rating agencies in the global financial system is particularly apropos. Ratings, Rating Agencies and the Global Financial System brings together the research of economists at New York University and the University of Maryland, along with those from the private sector, government bodies, and other universities. The first section of the volume focuses on the historical origins of the credit rating business and its present day industrial organization structure. The second section presents several empirical studies crafted largely around individual firm-level or bank-level data. These studies examine (a) the relationship between ratings and the default and recovery experience of corporate borrowers, (b) the comparability of credit ratings made by domestic and foreign rating agencies, and (c) the usefulness of financial market indicators for rating banks, among other topics. In the third section, the record of sovereign credit ratings in predicting financial crises and the reaction of financial markets to changes in credit ratings is examined. The final section of the volume emphasizes policy issues now facing regulators and credit rating agencies. ... Read more

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Reviews (1)

Covering economic, political, and technological forces
Now in a revised and expanded fourth edition, Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map In The 21st Century by Peter Dicken (Professor of Economic Geography, University of Manchester, United Kingdom) is a solid 640-page text on the phenomena of globalization in the modern age. Covering economic, political, and technological forces that affect local communities in uneven ways, Global Shift provides detailed case studies of crucial global industries, more than 200 updated figures and tables, and well serves to broaden and illustrate the critical points toward understanding the world's economic future. This is an ideal text for classroom instruction and recommended to the attention of non-specialist general readers with an interest in understanding the complexities of global economics. ... Read more

Book Description

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, now available in paperback, presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.

Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter’s theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a ‘New Economy’ and how these ‘opportunity explosions’, focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises. These findings are illustrated with examples from the past two centuries: the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel and electricity, the emergence of mass production and automobiles, and the current information revolution/knowledge society.

By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, this seminal book sheds new light on some of the most pressing economic problems of today. ... Read more

Book Description

The Great Divergence brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.

Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.

Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

A Joy to Read that Sets the Record Straight
"Why did the 'Industrial Revolution' occur in northwestern Europe but not in China? This simple question has proven to be nightmarishly difficult to resolve definitively, although many explanations have been advanced. Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence is one such effort and an exhaustively documented one. Does it resolve the question successfully? The answer is a qualified 'yes.'

"Pomeranz is chiefly concerned with the comparison between England and China, but he also devotes a fair amount of attention to the rest of the world. He shows that many of the characteristics often thought to be peculiar to Europe applied to China as well. Thus, many of the institutional features that were important for the breakout into dynamic growth were not uniquely European.

"Pomeranz argues that many of the elements of the conventional wisdom about why China did not experience the explosive growth that characterized Europe after 1800 are seriously in error. China was not in the throes of a 'Malthusian crisis,' heedlessly breeding itself into oblivion. The Chinese state was not the growth-choking anticapitalist machine that it has sometimes been portrayed as having been, and in fact it was probably less of a drag on private markets than were the states of mercantilist Europe....

"Another seemingly plausible hypothesis involves property rights and incentive effects, but Pomeranz minimizes the importance of the definition and enforcement of property rights in explaining the different development experiences of the two regions. He argues that China, too, had competitive markets and an elaborate legal system of property rights; in contrast, he also notes the plethora of institutions and laws antithetical to capitalist enterprise, ranging from apprenticeship laws to actual serfdom, that hampered economic development in Europe. Indeed, he suggests that China provided a freer marketplace than did mercantilist Europe....

"What, then, does account for the 'great divergence' of the book's title? Pomeranz argues for the importance of two factors, essentially exogenous 'shocks' outside the price system that had important effects on the economy: the distribution of energy-generating resources and the accident that Europe discovered the New World, whereas China did not.

"The first argument might be termed 'geology is destiny.' Coal was the chief energy-generating resource significant for the Industrial Revolution. The location of major coal deposits was a critical factor in determining the viability of industrialization. England's coal deposits were located almost exactly where manufacturers would have placed them if they had had a say in the matter; transportation costs therefore were low and were made still lower by the ready availability of efficient water transport. Compare this development-friendly geographic distribution in Europe with the geographic distribution in China. Although China was blessed with large coal reserves, they were located for the most part in the thinly populated northwest, hundreds of miles from the potential manufacturing centers in the south and east. Thus, China was at a relative disadvantage compared to Europe in terms of the luck of the geological draw. At the same time that coal in eighteenth-century Europe was cheap and readily available to fuel industry, in China that resource remained relatively expensive and in large part a curiosity relegated to the collections of rock hounds.

"The second argument is another variation on the 'good luck versus bad luck' theme. The fortuitous (for Europe) circumstance of the discovery of the Americas and the subsequent availability of resources for the Industrial Revolution that this discovery entailed were the exogenous factors. The flow of cotton, sugar, timber, and tobacco to Europe from the New World gave economic development there a significant boost at a critical time; China enjoyed no advantage even remotely comparable.

"The Great Divergence is a synthesis created from a rich array of secondary sources. In style and scholarship, it is reminiscent of E. L. Jones's European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1971] 2003), which is ironic given that the thrust of Pomeranz's argument is exactly the opposite of Jones's. Pomeranz's book is a joy to read, and though it demands the reader's close attention, it is accessible to those who are not economic history specialists. It is a very useful corrective to the overenthusiasm of writers who claim a unique status for Europe in terms of the preconditions for sustained economic growth."

--
Adapted from a review by Gary M. Anderson in "The Independent Review," Winter 2004

Trying to Explain It All
The Great Divergence is a multi-causal explanation for the economic rise of Western Europe. The book draws upon diverse existing accounts, including those that see the root causes within Europe itself, and those that see the causes as being related to overseas enterprises by the European powers. However, the book goes beyond these existing accounts by offering a synthetic, multi-stage story, showing how each factor mattered at a certain point in time, but was not alone sufficient to trigger the rise of the West. Thus, one comes away with a belief that the story of the West's ascendency cannot satisfactorily be told by Marx's focus on "primitive accumulation" in the New World, nor by North's focus on institutions of property rights in Europe, nor by Braudel's focus on intra-Europe trade and accumulation.

What is the structure of Pomeranz's argument? Again, it sees different factors as mattering at different times. Thus, the argument is causally sequential, going from technology, to war, to colonization, to markets, with supplies of natural resources a constant bonus and an important final step to industrialization (coal). All of these causes are necessary, for Pomeranz, but none are sufficient, explaining why Asia, despite having many of these same variables (some in even more favorable combinations than Europe), was not able to match Europe's rise.

Part 1 begins with the puzzle of "why Europe and not Asia?", going back to pre-1800 times. Against those who would see crucial pre-industrial differences between the two regions, with Europe having some kind of proto-industrial edge, Pomeranz demonstrates with statistical and secondary evidence that Europe possessed no edge over Asia in either life expectancy, fertility, or supply of capital. While he does find a slight technological edge in Europe, as other scholars have posited, he argues that this edge would not have alone been sufficient to cause Europe's rise, without the later use of favorable stocks of natural resources, and overseas conquest and exploitation. Thus, the sequential nature of the argument comes in here, showing how an earlier technological edge, combined with later colonialism and accidents of natural resource endowment (e.g. coal), allowed Europe to escape the Malthusian trap of population growth under constrained resources.

Indeed, Pomeranz demonstrates that the "silverization" of the Chinese economy, coupled with slavery, plantations and precious metals extraction in the New World, were the only factors differentiating markets in Europe from those in Asia - otherwise, the relationship between consumers and goods was relatively similar in both regions. Against Braudel and North, who emphasize economic institutions, Pomeranz shows that nonmarket factors like colonization and wars between European states, coupled with lending institutions that had lower interest rates than in Asia, laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution. This groundwork wouldn't have mattered, however, if continued New World settlement didn't ease the growing scarcity of land, since more plentiful labor and capital would have been bottlenecked in the absence of a new land supply.

The focus on nonmarket factors like war is important, because it ties in with later developments that impacted market forms. Because states projected interstate rivalries overseas, according to Pomeranz, organizational forms like joint-stock companies and licensed monopolies arose. This is because armed long-distance trade and export-oriented colonies required "exceptional amounts of capital willing to wait a relatively long time for returns" (20), which could only be provided by these new organizational forms.

However, the book is not a simplistic account that sees colonization as the sole solution, since Pomeranz spends an entire chapter showing how overseas colonies alone could not provide a market impetus for the Industrial Revolution, due mainly to the initially high costs of transport and low demand for manufactured goods in the colonies. Instead, Pomeranz sees the growing use of coal as a key factor in spurring industrialization in Europe, and combining with increasing use of slavery (since slaves produced less subsistence products and thus lived more off imported, manufactured goods) to begin the construction of a world market that traded manufactured goods for raw materials and land-intensive products, while further easing Europe's ecological burden through continued settlement.

The New World had another advantage over Asia. In Asia cash-cropping was through free labor, meaning that exporters and manufacturers were free to shift away from activities with diminishing returns. This efficiency was a double-edged sword, however, since it allowed rising incomes and population growth, which Pomeranz claims diminished Asians' need to both import manufactured goods and to export surplus products. In the case of China, well-functioning regional markets, because of growing population, scarce land, and proto-industrialization, precluded empire-wide markets that could take advantage of more scale and specialization. In the New World, however, production was much more specialized (again, because of slave-based colonies), meaning that larger surpluses of people, raw materials and products were exchanged between the New World and Europe. This dynamic of increasing returns continued even after independence and emancipation, leading eventually (with coal) to the Industrial Revolution.

Again, Pomeranz's argument is about timing as a key factor. Since his Malthusian trap and balance between factors is delicate and fragile, if variables appear at the wrong historical time in this balance, their impact can go awry. An example is the timing of coal and colonization, which, had they appeared later, might have come too late to rescue Europe from Malthusian crisis. Methodologically, Pomeranz acheives much of his arguments about timing through counterfactuals, which generally do a good job of showing how Asia originally had much of the potentiality that Europe did, thus illuminating the large amount of sheer luck that factored into Europe's rise.

Pomeranz's other methodological tool is statistical data. The book has exhaustive appendices with detailed data on soil, timber, grain acreage, etc. Further, the breadth of his historical scholarship is impressive, showing an ability to cite widely from area experts in both Asia and Europe; no mean feat. In short, the high quality of the data, coupled with the reassuring, causally multidimensional sophistication of the argument, make the book a formidable target for any potential criticisms.

Heavy reading
Beware- this is really "heavy" reading. This is one book that could be enjoyed far more with better print quality. Does however,make very good and convincing arguements and points which are well supported. The print however is hard on the eyes and makes it a chore to read through it. If not for the really ineteresting content, I do not believe I would recomend it.

How the West Won!
This is a classical work of economic history. It seeks to answer the question of why Europe, rather than Asia, gained dominance after 1750. Pomeranz spends much of the book demonstrating that Europe and Asia were developing in parallel until the nineteenth century, when Europe surged ahead. Pomeranz credits Europe's fortunate possession of coal and proximity to the Americas for the West's advance. The Great Divergence is good for Westerners to read because it helps us recognize that there was nothing preordained about our present preeminence.

Winner of 2001 World History Association Book Award
The Book Award Committee of the World History Association is pleased to announce that this book is co-winner of its 2001 prize, along with John McNeill's Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World. Jurors praised both books using words like "brilliant," "superb," tour de force, and "a classic." Pomeranz shows that China had more economic constraints than Europe, which profited from windfalls of land and silver in the American colonies, and available coal which fueled England's industrialization. Congratulations for an outstanding contribution to "history from a global perspective" in the field of economics. The prize will be presented at the June 2001 meeting of the WHA in Salt Lake City. ... Read more

Book Description

This book will become an important tool for those who wish to understand China's new role in the global trading system, to take advantage of the new opportunities for investment in China, or simply to gain a better understanding of what former President Clinton called a "once in a generation event." ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A useful guide
China surpassed Japan in 2003 to become America's 3rd largest trade partner, after Canada and Mexico. Indeed, it won't be long - a couple of years at most - before China overtakes Mexico's position. In addition, China is already the world's 4th largest merchandise trader after the US, EU and Japan, and one of the top leading overall (merchandise plus services) trading nations of the world. By the end of this decade, perhaps before then, China will take over Japan's place as the world's 3rd largest overall trader in both merchandise and services - an astonishing performance for a country which practically did zero trade with the rest of the world only 25 years ago.

Policy-makers and businesspeople everywhere, and in America especially, need to sit up and listen to the sound, balanced, non-partisan, and cool-headed analysis by one of the world's leading experts on China and its role in the global trading system. And his name is Nicholas Lardy of the Brookings Institution.

A difficult read
The content is great, and I enjoyed the book. But something is really wrong with the writing style. I often had to pause and think about what the writer was trying to say. It would be nice if the writer could rephrase those paragraph-long sentences.

How to integrate China into the Global Economy ?
Globalization is the hot topic and major concerns for every government and enterprises in 2002.

How China can integrate into the Global ecomony ?
And How Hong Kong can still alive when facing the competition with China in 2003?

Mr. Zhu Rongji (Prime Minister of China) has spoken to all elite people and officials when trip to Hong Kong in November, 2002.

Hong Kong is facing the highest un-empolyment percentage in 2002 and it is over 8% of the total population now.

How to make Hong Kong can be rapid changing in the next decade? There are no industrial development as before due the higher costs than other provinces in China. So China will give them more pressure when getting the orders from Oversea's markets.

Reckon you can see the speeches of " Zhu Rongji " in his last trip to Hong Kong.

China and Hong Kong are the Business Partners since 1983.
But now they are the competitor in every business development.
So how Hong Kong can stay alive when facing the Global economy?

Hong Kong can only run their own way and don't let China copy their old ways.

Although it is not easy to go the new way, it is their own choice.
Don't think too late and must run from this minute.

E-commerce and E-business development is the only way to go and reckon it can work more faster than China's doer.

Hong Kong should be forgotten your doer's way and think to re-enginnering in your business structures and models.

Hard work is the old fashion for Hong Kong now.
New Fashion is the new ideas and new models when stepping into the E-business.

Hope Hong Kong's government can bring up all the elite people to come across the crisis of economy and deflation in the next decade. ... Read more

Book Description

This introduction for practitioners offers a balanced view of project financing, integrating legal, contractual, scheduling, and other areas that participate in large multiparty projects, large single-asset purchases, and broad-based financing programs for fleets of assets. It mixes theories and case studies but avoids becoming too oriented toward applications in any one particular industry. It focuses on the concepts and techniques required by project finance people without being overly academic or beset by case studies. The author, who has a legal background, recognizes that some legal information is necessary, but he doesn't attempt to write a law book.

Project Finance refers to the techniques of financing projects which are dependent on cash flows for repayment, as defined by the contractual relationships within each project. By their very nature, these types of projects rely on a large number of integrated contractual arrangements for successful completion and operation. Project finance is an element within the larger field of project management. Many organizations around the world utilize project management to enable innovative processes, to plan, organize, and control strategic initiatives, to monitor enterprise performance, to analyze significant deviations, and to forecast their impact on the organization and project(s). Project management can be found in many industries today, from construction and information systems to healthcare, financial services, education, and training.

Key Features:
-A comprehensive and authoritative guide to the theory and practice of project finance.
-An international scope, covering projects in both the developed and developing worlds.
-The book describes and explains:
-Sources of project finance.
-Typical commercial contracts (such as those for construction of the project and sale of its product or services) and their impact on the project finance structure.
-Project finance risk assessment from the points of view of lenders, investors, and other project parties.
-Structuring the project finance debt.
-The key issues in negotiating a project finance debt facility.
-Extensive glossary and cross-referencing.
-No prior knowledge of project finance or financing techniques is assumed. ... Read more

Book Description

Growing world trade has helped lift living standards around the world, and yet free trade is always under attack by opponents. Critics complain that trade forces painful economic adjustments, such as plant closings and layoffs of workers, and charge that the World Trade Organization serves the interests of corporations, undercuts domestic environmental regulations, and erodes America's sovereignty. Why has global trade become so controversial? Does free trade deserve its bad reputation? In Free Trade under Fire, Douglas Irwin sweeps aside the misconceptions that litter the debate over trade and gives the reader a clear understanding of the issues involved. This second edition includes a new chapter on trade and developing countries and updates the entire text to deal with new issues such as outsourcing and steel tariffs.

Book Description

A large measure of consensus exists about the substantive content of successful economic policy reform—macroeconomic discipline, microeconomic liberalization, and participation in the global economy—that is needed for an economy to enter the modern world. There is much less consensus on the political conditions necessary to sustain meaningful economic reform. Editor John Williamson commissioned 13 case studies for countries as diverse as Australia, Chile, and Poland from "technopols" who played leading roles in implementing the policy reforms. Each author focuses on the political and institutional factors that shaped policy choices and outcomes. This volume contains the case studies and a synthesis of findings and other policy implications by Williamson and University of California at San Diego political scientist Stephan Haggard. Other distinguished experts, including Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique Iglesias and Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, contribute independent appraisals of the political economy of reform in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. ... Read more

Book Description

Doing Business in China is essential reading for the manager or firm setting up a business for the first time in a complex market. The book provides vital knowledge about business practices, market conditions, negotiations, business organization and more. It emphasizes the importance of guanxi (relationships) as the underpinning of virtually all businesses in China. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

How to do the business in China ?
Doing business in China!
Relation, Relation And Relation....

If you are using your American or European style to work and even partner with China's firms, you must be failure in the end.

Relationship with the Government and officials are the major concerns when you stepping into the door of China.

Think Global and hire Local Chinese people is the only way to have the final success with your partner in China.

China means: " Always in the historical culture "
So don't think about China with your American Standard !

Try to learn with your local Chinese people (doer)

Anyway, China is opened now and also needed to face the ways for WTO ! Reckon, China can learn from their European and American business partners from today.

This book is essential to appreciating the Chinese psyche...
Particularly impressive is the author's approach at presenting the Chinese thought process in such a manner that Westerners can not only understand the Chinese psyche, but respect and learn from it as well. This book was perhaps one of the most enlightening books I have read in a while. There is a a concerted effort to show business protocol and potential avenues of entry, but more importantly this book addresses the fundamental social concepts that need to be FULLY understood before attempting to grow in China.

authorative and insightful
Of the vast number of books about China, this one is a very useful account of how successfully doing business in China. Western Managers at the forefront in China should read this book which brings together a lifetime of research and practice on China. ... Read more

Book Description

In the past decade of rapid change in the world economy, Randy Charles Epping's Beginner’s Guide to the World Economy has been the most reliable tool for keeping track of what's happening. The third edition updates the information in previous editions and explains many new concepts.

What is the new economy? What is globalization? Is the euro the final seal on European Union? How is e-commerce transforming our world beyond economics? What is virtual money, and does it have real value? How do social concerns and societal ills (drugs, poverty, AIDS, endangered natural resources) play a part in the rapidly changing world economy. What are multinationals, and do they signal the end of nationalism? These and many other pertinent issues are concisely addressed in the most accessible primer for those who want to be economically literate (and who doesn't?). ... Read more

Reviews (9)

A book for beginners that beginners can understand!
As I am taking my first class ever on Economics, which is focused on Microeconomics, this book comes in handy as a reference book where I can find a down-to-earth discussion of basic concepts that relate to Macroeconomics. It pretty much did for me in Economics what "The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money & Investing" did for investing. It is broken down in a chapter-like fashion, much in the style of the dummies guides and written in layman's tems by Mr. Epping, an American who holds a degree in International Finance from Yale, who has held management positions all over Europe and who is fluent in six languages.

Easy to understand economics
I used this book with my children preparing for a debate on foreign trade. Easy to understand. Broken down nicely to find just the information you are looking for. Highly recommended!

Great for liberal Arts folks to learn about econ/finance!
A Beginners's Guide to the World Economy is a good introduction into financial and economic terms. The book is segmented into 81 basic economic concepts, which the authors state, "will change the way you see the world." I believe their phrase is definitely hyperbole because I didn't find any "earth shattering" commentary.

The book is a compilation of information/tidbits you would learn in economics, finance and international finance/business classes. The concepts, in many cases, are common sense and the average person, who has no formal education in the subject, probably would know 10-15 of them minimum.

If you don't know anything about finance or economics it might be worth a good read over 7-8 nights, covering 10-15 subjects a night. The book is easy reading but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a business or finance degree wanting to see if this is a "refresher" book because it is very light but a great introduction to economics/finance for those with liberal arts backgrounds. If any liberal arts folks seek a bible of finance it is called "Valuation" and is a mckinsey book. It is used in just about every top MBA program. Tough stuff but if you want to learn about financial analysis and crunching #'s that is the book to get.

A Great Starting Point
I have been reading "The Economist" for over a year and really felt like I needed to gain a deeper understanding about Economics. This was the first book I read and I was not disappointed at all. My only real nitpick is that he does not explain the concept of the "core" of an ecnonomy for example "core inflation" which is something mentioned regularly when I read Economic news.

This book helps you think for yourself
This book helps you understand the basics of economics so you can develop your own views on the national and international economic issues of the day. There's no set view he wants you to endorse, he just wants readers to understand economics so that they can more intelligently form their own opinions. He explains economic concepts in an interesting, easy to understand way that makes for good reading. ... Read more

Book Description

From Seattle to Genoa to Johannesburg, people march in the streets protesting global capitalism. They denounce Nike and McDonald’s, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

Who would defend global capitalism?

A young writer from Sweden, who started on the anarchist left and then came to understand the world better. Johan Norberg has traveled to Vietnam, Africa, and other hot spots in the battle over globalization. And he has become a passionate defender of the globalization that is lifting poor countries out of poverty.

In Defense of Global Capitalism is the first book to rebut, systematically and thoroughly, the claims of the anti-globalization movement. With facts, statistics, and graphs, Norberg shows why capitalism is in the process of creating a better world. The book is written in a conversational style with an emphasis on liberal values and the opportunities and freedom that globalization brings to the world’s poor.

Norberg shows that the diffusion of capitalism in the past few decades has lowered poverty rates and created opportunities for individuals all over the world. Living standards and life expectancy have risen substantially. There is more food, more education, and more democratization, less inequality and less oppression of women.

Norberg takes on the tough issues-economic growth, freedom vs. equality, free trade and fair trade, international debt, child labor, cultural imperialism--and concludes that free-market capitalism is the best route out of global poverty. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Steam for Global Capitalism
"When I say that I mean to defend capitalism," proclaims Norberg, "what I have in mind is the capitalistic freedom to proceed by trial and error, without having to ask rulers and border officials for permission first."

He erects a barrage of facts and figures to make the case that trade is good. For example, real incomes among the top quintile of income earners have risen 75% over the past three decades and real incomes among the bottom quintile have increased 106%. Life expectancy in developing economies has increased, infant fatalities have fallen, and people living in developing economies are eating better and obtaining more education. Read the book to learn why the widening "gap" between rich and poor is a falsehood. Although most of the world is still poor compared to the West, their hardship is not because of the West. According to Norberg, "The uneven distribution of wealth in the world is due to the uneven distribution of capitalism."

Protectionists predict that capitalists will locate plants in countries where wages or environmental standards are lowest. Capitalists are not only intent on paying lower wages. "If they were," points out Norberg, "the world's aggregate production would be concentrated in Nigeria." Multinational corporations also seek "social and political stability, the rule of law, secure property rights, free markets, good infrastructure, and skilled manpower." There is evidence that the quality of the environment worsens in the early stages of development. However prosperous people can afford cleaner air and water. Norberg reports that "the turning point generally comes before a country's per capita GDP has reached $8,000." When people earn more than that, their governments adopt environmental regulations. The point is that trade and growth are the means to a cleaner environment.

In addition to trade issues and capitalism, one may also learn a lot about developmental economics and international finance. Norberg observes that people fail to appreciate global capitalism during the good times and then blame the process when the going gets tough. "Globalization will not keep moving under its own steam if no one stands up for it," he asserts. In Defense of Global Capitalism is perhaps worth a ton of coal in the engine of global capitalism.

The Good News
In this illuminating and accessible book, Norberg offers a systematic, detailed and complete rebuttal of the claims of the enemies of capitalism and globalization. Backed up by verifiable facts from a huge variety of reputable sources, he demolishes every lie of the leftists and environmentalists. He also investigates the other side of certain half-truths and gives an optimistic assessment of how capitalism, freedom and globalization are improving human lives around the globe.

Norberg looks at certain deceptive ideas, for example the one that claims the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, giving us the good news of rapidly diminishing poverty and pointing out that the measure should be how well one is doing, not how well situated one is in relation to others. He explores the facts concerning issues like hunger, education, freedom and equality. Improvements have been particularly spectacular in China and India since these countries started reforming their economic systems.

He shows how the walls against ideas, people and goods are collapsing with dictatorships and how women benefit from the spread of capitalism. The best cure for poverty is growth; prices and profits serve as a signalling system in the market economy whereby the worker, the entrepreneur and the investor all benefit. The importance of property rights are pointed out, with reference to the work of De Soto, and the author compares the success of the Asian Tigers with the sorry state of Africa, although even here the open societies like South Africa, Mauritius and Botswana are doing well.

Norberg dismisses the hoary old argument that western countries are rich because they stole the resources of Third World countries in colonial times. The affluent world has grown faster since shedding its colonies, many rich countries (like Sweden and Switzerland) never had any colonies, whilst some of the world's least developed countries (Nepal, Liberia) have never been colonies. Nor have countries with natural resources as a rule grown as fast as those without, for example Singapore. A brilliant example of free trade success is Estonia, which soon after independence in 1992 abolished all tariffs.

The 20 economically most liberal countries have a per capita GDP of approximately 29 times that of the economically least liberal. The uneven distribution of wealth in the world is due to the uneven distribution of capitalism and the losers of the world are those that have been left out of globalisation.

Norberg attacks agricultural subsidies in the affluent countries, showing that this ridiculous practice harms those countries themselves and the developing world. He demonstrates the absurdity of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy, a bureaucratic nightmare that channels nearly 40% of the entire EU budget to less than 1% of the population. Latin America still suffers from decades of privilege and protectionism, but Chile is a good example of how quickly a country can transform itself with the right policies, to create a high standard of living.

Norberg investigates a vast range of issues, from development assistance (It is wasteful in that it normally involves the transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries), child labour and working conditions. He argues convincingly that free trade and capitalism alleviate social problems. He also proves that prosperity is beneficial for the environment, refuting the spurious claims of environmentalists and quoting from Bjorn Lomborg's remarkable book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Norberg considers every angle, including issues like "cultural imperialism" and the risible notion of the "dictatorship of the market", showing how capitalism and democracy go hand in hand in creating a better world. The book includes an index and 14 pages of notes. The text is enhanced by graphs demonstrating the facts and arguments. He concludes the book on an optimistic note, i.e. that people are beginning to wake up to the fact that they aren't just the tools of society but ends in themselves and that freedom and democracy will spread and continue to improve the lives of everyone on the planet.

Economics from a firehose
When a guest of my wife's saw this book on a table in our living room, he sneered "who needs to defend capitalism? It's *everywhere*!"

I start this review with that anecdote because apparently the title of this tome mustn't be terribly successful. Mr. Norberg spends 300 pages telling us in crushing detail why it isn't 'everywhere'--and more importantly, why not.

And a solid defense it is. The book is well researched and simply relentless. Page after page buries us with statistics telling us why capitalism is (in Churchhill's paraphrased words) "the worst system of government, except for all the others." Mr. Norberg tackles globalization late in the book to fill out the picture but never strays far from his main thesis: that freedom, free enterprise, democracy and the free movement of capital are mutually reinforcing.

For an American to read a vigorous defense of capitalism coming from a European was almost as exciting for me as discovering some of Mr. Norberg's references: the French economist Patrick Messerlin, for example, who points out that the $180 billion a year in EU subsidies of agriculture and basic industrial manufacturing goes to "save" 3 percent of jobs in these sectors. That comes out to a cool $200,000 per worker--a pretty fine price to keep out competition. Given these (and many, many more) eye-popping numbers, Norberg often strays from simply reporting statistics to morally defending his subject. As an answer to the "yes, but ..." critics, this was wholly welcome.

Still, the book is far from perfect. The statistical emphasis, while impressive, is occasionally numbing and I could almost hear the left wing counter-arguments ("statistics are necessarily selective" ... " you can use them to prove anything") in my head while reading. The section and chapter organization appears haphazard and the chapter titles give little or no information ("... and it's no coincidence," "Race to the top"). To be fair, these semantics could be from translation--as could an occasionally defensive tone.

Overall, however, these defects don't tarnish the overall case. Mr. Norberg has done his homework and anyone interested in a thorough--if a bit actuarial--defense of economic liberty will enjoy this read. As a bonus--if tackling this cover-to-cover becomes a bit much--a superb index lists almost every economic issue imaginable (from 'Absolute Poverty' to 'Zimbabwe') and serves as an excellent reference.

Globalization as capitalism without borders
Having lived and come over from the left, Norberg makes a compelling case for globalization as a model for success. Contrary to the negative review from the Swedish "assassin", globalization works. The assassin's list of dysfunctional democracies is, even at its worst, a list of democracies and, contrary to his opinion, examples of good progress towards economic and political freedom.

Globalization has become capitalism without borders. Capitalism means the right to own and the right to trade -- freely. The problems have more to do with what can and can not cross borders in a world economy where geopolitics and terrorism limit the rights or possibilities of people to move freely. There is still a strong urge to maintain national integrity and the natural defense of one's borders and culture. And, given the choice, people head for countries with greater economic and political freedom, not just where the natural wealth and resources exist. People are now the world's greatest resource and they are more mobile than ever.

Norberg pulls together multiple, massive statistical studies of real progress in the world resulting from greater political and economic freedom. They go hand in hand. They serve the liberation not only of countries and cultures, but also women who, one hundred years ago left any country short on its claim of true democracy by prohibiting them the ballot and/or the right to economic freedom and ownership.

David Landes' "Wealth and poverty of nations" made this case from an historic perspective. Countries and their people and institutions need to be able to produce things of value, educate their young, innovate in their methods, emulate success, discriminate based on merit, and allow people the right to retain (some or much of) the fruit of their labor. Globalization and capitalism, like democracy, are the worst of all possible forms of economics, except, as Churchill advised, for all other forms of economics that have been tried from time to time.

All these data and global views can be a bit dry at times and it should be safe to assume that English is not Norberg's first language (although he writes better than most American university students with English as their first language!) yet it is well worth the detail. He questions conventional (i.e., casual) wisdom. Anecdotes are illustrative and global.

Nothing new...
First of all, is this book really necessary? Doesn't global capitalism rule the world right now? Anyway, it's an interesting read for all right-wingers that want to hear safe and familiar stuff without too many unpleasant surprises. Also left-wingers and liberals can have some use of this book. Because it's a good chance to get to know your enemy. And all you treacherous liberals can relax now; there isn't much to be afraid of. The book is very much the usual mix of right-wing economic theories described as absolute universal truths and a bunch of disconnected diagrams that could prove whatever you want. Many of his statements are, to say the least, dubious. For example - Norberg states that capitalism is the main reason workers has it better nowadays than before. I think that that statement will make many workers from the last century start laughing in their graves. That's a bit too easy & bias. I can admit that to a lesser extent there is some truth to that statement, but without labor unions workers would still be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week with lousy wages and without any social benefits. Just ask many workers in the third world about that. In those parts of the world many companies still harass and kill organized workers.
Johan Norberg also tends to purposely use the word capitalism instead of the word democracy. But I know several capitalistic countries/regions that are at the very best dysfunctional democracies. Places like Singapore, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. You can also argue that people like Murdoch and Berlusconi are using capitalism to suppress democracy. I think it would be interesting with a discussion why it would be better with huge corporations like Microsoft and Monsanto monitoring and controlling us than governments. Johan Norberg doesn't like the term corporate dictatorship. But many corporations strive towards bigger unities with a monopoly as an ideal finishing point. I think that monopoly is dictatorship and it is also a very real part of capitalism. Norberg is only talking about capitalism in a very utopian way. If it doesn't work, then it's not capitalistic enough. That's a very easy way out of every problem that turns up in his argumentation. If you're a communist you can use the same argument by saying that the Soviet Union failed because it wasn't communistic enough!!
It is a very ideological text and Johan Norberg seems to have a complete trust in all corporations and companies desire to do good deeds for humanity. I don't share that trust. But some of Norbergs views are very important even for a liberal as myself - like peoples right to free movement and noticing the huge problems that the industrialized countries protectionism and subsidies creates for third world countries. I recommend that you read it together with Joseph Stiglitz "Globalization & its discontents" for a really interesting experience. ... Read more

Book Description

In the wake of environmental disasters such as the mercury poisonings in Minamata in the 1950s, a culturalist view of Japan as being in the thrall of weak legal consciousness and consumerism has persisted. This volume contests that view by reassessing Japanese product liability law and practice in a global context, comparing it with law in the European Union, United States and Australia. The still-birth of product liability in the 1970s is contrasted with its rebirth in the late 1980s, and its pervasive impact throughout the 1990s is gauged at various levels, concluding that new processes are emerging in Japan, as in other complex industrialized democracies, which render product safety regulation more private and product liability more public. ... Read more

Book Description

John B. Cobb, Jr., challenges economists' zealous faith in the great god of growth and proposes that policies engender sustainable development--where the economy serves the community, and not the other way around. ... Read more