Globalization Wealth And Power In The Twenty First Century

This book offers an in-depth exploration of all dimensions of geoeconomics, including the internal and international forces which explain why most countries remain mired in poverty; the conflicts between the poor on the rich countries; and the global environmental crises threatening the future of humanity.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

This book links theoretical discussions about globalization and the distribution of wealth with a rich empirical analysis of Latin America.

For most people except the world’s very richest, globalization is failing–catastrophically. If we don’t act, its failure will lead to a global upheaval worse than any in human history. But there’s another, better path. Isaak shows how a new globalization can give the poor a powerful stake, both here and abroad. Isaak's ideas can lead toward a more stable, peaceful world, in which we can all build our futures–rich and poor alike.

Given the powerfully negative and ongoing impact of the Great Recession on western economies, the question of whether historically wealthy nations-the US, Western European countries, Japan-can stay wealthy has become an overriding concern for virtually every interested observer. In The Third Globalization, eminent political economists Dan Breznitz and John Zysman gather some of the discipline's leading scholars to assess the prospects for growth and prosperity among advanced industrial nations.

This book offers an in-depth exploration of all dimensions of geoeconomics, including the internal and international forces which explain why most countries remain mired in poverty; the conflicts between the poor on the rich countries; and the global environmental crises threatening the future of humanity.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

This collection of essays introduces the thriving illicit industries and activities within the global economy whose growth challenges traditional notions of wealth, power, and progress. >