Field Guide to the Global Economy

Rating:
Summary: To the point
Review: A group in our high school had been planning a symposium on the global economy when our advisor suggested that we take a look at this book. "Field Guide" offers a clear, concise description of many of the global issues that confront citizens of both the industrialized and unindustrialized nations. To its credit, it offers both the pros and cons of many of the issues it discusses and offers a resource list for others to get involved. I encourage anyone interested global politics or economics to read this book, share it with a friend, and get involved!

Rating:
Summary: Lot of information and easily written
Review: A group in our high school had been planning a symposium on the global economy when our advisor suggested that we take a look at this book. "Field Guide" offers a clear, concise description of many of the global issues that confront citizens of both the industrialized and unindustrialized nations. To its credit, it offers both the pros and cons of many of the issues it discusses and offers a resource list for others to get involved. I encourage anyone interested global politics or economics to read this book, share it with a friend, and get involved!

Rating:
Summary: Lot of information and easily written
Review: That is the first book on economics I read that does not necessarily employ a lot of incomprehensible terminology. Moreover, it is written for the average reader who wants to get a "first introduction" into the topic. It is definitely not written for people who search any detailed infomation. This book explains perfectly the basic correlations in today's global economy.

Rating:
Summary: Cranky Anticapitalists
Review: The title is catchy enough. I expected lots of facts and figures in tables and graphs that would illustrate international trade and finance. Was I surprised. There are facts and figures there, even pictures and cartoons. But the authors see the world differently. "The problem..." we are told, "...is not so much that the world is so tightly linked now...but that the links converge in such a small number of hands." The hands they're refering to belong to corporate executives and billionaires. An ongoing theme throughout the book is the old cliche' that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
One thing different about the current process of globalization, the authors claim, "is that a number of poorer countries, led by China and Mexico, now have the infrastructure to house practically any industrial or service operation...." What's wrong with that? They object that "...Ford, Boeing, and other global corporations are now setting up state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in countries where wages and other costs are kept extremely low through repression." We can all agree that repression is a bad thing. We may differ on where it's happening. For instance, according to the index of economic freedom constructed by the Heritage Foundation (what the authors call a "corporate think tank") and the Wall Street Journal, China is "mostly unfree" (but not "repressed") and Mexico is "mostly free." "Repressed" countries include Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba, Iraq, and North Korea. Corporate capitalism does not appear to be causing problems in those countries by any stretch of the imagination. Vietnam is among the repressed, but it's difficult to see how workers who produce sneakers for the Nike company would be better off if Nike weren't there.
Much of the book is devoted to criticizing "globalization claims." Although some free traders will justifiably dismiss this criticism, in my view the authors' attacks will work to strenghthen the case for free trade. Put differently, any economist who wants practice defending free trade can find it reading this book. Warning: the bile may rise in you.
To their credit the authors provide an abundance of endnotes to support their case. They offer some criticism a free trader would appreciate. For example they object to export subsidies and IMF bailouts of banks with troubled loans to developing countries. They even profess to reject protectionism. However the alternative they recommend, "fair trade," is better described as "managed trade."
The authors minimize the role of consumers in the process of globalization. Corporations would not achieve their goals if consumers weren't buying their products. The authors also fail to recognize the importance of property rights in economic development. If the governments of poor countries established and protected property rights, the people would get wealthier. Given that these authors reject international trade and investment as a cause of our prosperity and cannot tolerate disparities of wealth, they'll always remain idealists with axes to grind.