Free eBooks The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - And What It Will Take To Win It Back Available To Downloads
Acclaim for The Global Class War"You will never think about 'free trade' the same way after reading Jeff Faux's superb book. As Faux makes clear, the globalization debate is really about whose interests are served by global elites, and how we need to go about reclaiming a democracy that serves ordinary people. This book should transform public discourse in America."-Robert Kuttner, founding coeditor of the American Prospect and a contributing columnist to BusinessWeek"Jeff Faux's astonishing story of how class works will scandalize the best names in Wall Street and Washington-especially the much admired Robert Rubin, who along with other elites colluded behind the backs of ordinary citizens in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The most cynical Americans will be shocked by the sordid details. This really is an important book."-William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism and Secrets of the Temple"Globalization is a cover for American imperialism, but the beneficiaries are not the American people at the expense of foreigners but corporate executives at the expense of working-class and poor people wherever they may be. Jeff Faux offers a comprehensive and devastating analysis."-Chalmers Johnson, author of The Sorrows of Empire
File Size: 935 KB
Print Length: 308 pages
Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 21, 2008)
Publication Date: April 21, 2008
Sold by: Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00DNL1A2U
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #879,128 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #273 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Canadian #318 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Trades & Tariffs #450 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Globalization
According to Jeff Faux, erstwhile president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, with the enfeebled nation-state and the absence of world government, the 2,000 plus people who manage and own the worlds largest multinational corporations meet every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland to set the agenda for the global economy. Even though the event includes political leaders, academics, journalists, and an occasional movie star, they are mere window dressing accompanying the real movers and shakers. This elite is what Faux calls the "Party of Davos." There is no countervailing party other than the World Social Forum which celebrates the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but they are of no consequence in the real order of things.The Party of Davos is primarily the party of international global investors, who do their best to promote globalization and free trade. Elites around the world have bought into it, including the leadership of both the Democratic and Rebublican parties in the US, with the expectation that globalization would raise all economic boats, or so they would have us believe. However, this has not happened.Faux correctly points out that prior to the age of globalization the US economy was more or less self-contained, and capital and labor were forced to deal with each other, thereby creating a social contract from which all parties benefited. What was once good for GM was also good for America; now it is only good for GM. (This may not be a good example since even the global investor is not happy with GM.) The point being that GM can now find cheaper labor and lower environmental standards in other countries.
The title appears borrowed from Sam Marcy's original work in 1979 on "The Global Class War and the Destiny of American Labor," but then, no one wanted to listen in the 1970's, when I did my first master's degree, to the three major themes in the political science literature:1) Limits to Growth and need for Ecological Economics (Club of Rome, Herman Daly);2) Global Reach of Multinational Corporations and the Home-Host Country Issues and Threats to Domestic Labor and Social Welfare (Barnett)3) Need for World Government to address global issues (Falk).This book is valuable for its one main point reiterated and documented over and over again: the American elite has joined with other elites world-wide to reach accommodations that favor the investors and the ruling elites over the individuals that are employees.If I had not also read William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy as well as John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and (over two decades ago), Lionel Tiger, Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System I might have seen this book in a different light.
Ok, I admit it. I supported Ronald Reagan; the Democrats were devoid of ideas, he had some; his prescription of lower taxes and unbridled capitalism seemed at the time to have more pluses than minuses. And, maybe, just maybe, ol' Dutch would have had the good sense to know when enough was enough and reversed course.Not so the Bushes, Clinton, and the politicians of the 1990s and the 2000s. So now we've got this combine of rich people -- nationality and party affiliation unimportant -- running the United States and the world for their own benefit. They get richer every year; and most people get poorer. They duped naive youngsters like Thomas Friedman of The New York Times into thinking that "globalization" is going to have widespread benefits. It's having benefits all right, but they're all going to the rich, increasingly a heriditary class.Faux has writtten a warning about the way things are going in the world, focusing on NAFTA, free trade, and the relationships among Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Faux's thesis is that a global elite runs things for its own benefit. With every year that passes it's harder to argue against him. I won't give Faux's book my top rating, however, because his prescriptions for solving the problem are a bit wimpy. He looks to the EU as an example of a better way. Excuse me! The gnomes of Brussels as overlords are little, if any, better than Bill Gates. But he gets it right that we need a big step away from free trade -- which benefits the lowest wage countries, e.g. China, and the big corporations -- and a focus on the social/economic integration of North America with emphasis on people, not profits. I have little faith this will occur anytime soon, but at least people like Faux are thinking about it.
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