Globalization and Its DiscontentsThis powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. While this book includes no simple formula on how to make globalization work, Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book. With a new foreword for this paperback edition. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 23 | |
Freedom to Choose? | 53 |
How IMF Policies Brought | 89 |
Who Lost Russia? | 133 |
Unfair Trade Laws and Other Mischief | 166 |
Better Roads to the Market | 180 |
The IMFs Other Agenda | 195 |
The Way Ahead | 214 |
Notes | 253 |
Index | 269 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
able American argued Asian believe benefits better billions borrowing brought called capital market central chapter China clear competition concerns costs created crisis critics debate demand developing countries discussions dollars East Asia economic economists effect evidence exchange rate facing fact failed failures firms followed forced foreign Fund given global growth IMF’s important imposed income increase industrial inflation instance institutions interest investment issues Korea lead least lending less liberalization living loans lower major managed market economy matters officials percent policies political poor poverty privatization problems production programs pushed reason reforms responsibility result risk role Russia seemed simply social South Korea stability strategy successful tion trade transition tries unemployment United Washington World Bank
Popular passages
Page 24 - It has become clear not to just ordinary citizens but to policymakers as well, and not just to those in the developing countries but those in developed countries as well, that globalization as it has been practiced has not lived up to what its advocates promised it would accomplish. ... In some cases it has not even resulted in growth, but when it has, it has not brought benefits to all ... the net effect of the policies set by the Washington Consensus has all too often been to benefit the few at...
Page 218 - Globalization today is not working for many of the world's poor. It is not working for much of the environment. It is not working for the stability of the global economy. The transition from communism to a market economy has been so badly managed that, with the exception of China, Vietnam and a few Eastern European countries, poverty has soared as income has plummeted The problem is not with globalization, but with how it has been managed.
Page xvii - Decisions were made on the basis of what seemed a curious blend of ideology and bad economics, dogma that sometimes seemed to be thinly veiling special interests.
Page 77 - Consensus policies - have shown that whenever information is imperfect and markets incomplete, which is to say always, and especially in developing countries, then the invisible hand works most imperfectly.
Page 218 - The problem is not with globalization, but with how it has been managed. Part of the problem lies with the international economic institutions, with the IMF, World Bank and WTO, which help set the rules of the game. They have done so in ways that, all too often, have served the interests of the most advanced industrialized countries — and particularly interests within those countries — rather than those of the developing world.
Page 45 - ... be worth a thousand words, and a single picture snapped in 1998, shown throughout the world, has engraved itself in the minds of millions, particularly those in the former colonies. The IMF's managing director, Michel Camdessus..., a short, neatly dressed former French Treasury bureaucrat..., is standing with a stern face and crossed arms over the seated and humiliated president of Indonesia. The hapless president was being forced, in effect, to turn over the economic sovereignty of his country...
Page 95 - Asia ... and then only after the Japanese had offered to pay for it. The reason was obvious: The countries had been successful not only in spite of the fact that they had not followed most of the dictates of the Washington Consensus, but because they had not. Though the experts...
Page 9 - A growing divide between the haves and have-nots has left increasing numbers in the Third World in dire poverty, living on less than a dollar a day.
Page 26 - WTO — and a few players — the finance, commerce, and trade ministries, closely linked to certain financial and commercial interests — dominate the scene, but in which many of those affected by their decisions are left almost voiceless. It's time to change some of the rules governing the international economic order, to think once again about how decisions get made at the international level — and in whose interests — and to place less emphasis on ideology and to look more at what works.
Page 11 - But even when not guilty of hypocrisy, the West has driven the globalization agenda, ensuring that it garners a disproportionate share of the benefits, at the expense of the developing world.