- Hardcover: 170 pages
- Publisher: Zed Books Ltd; illustrated edition edition (25 July 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1842779419
- ISBN-13: 978-1842779415
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'A timely, clearly-written book that shows how and why commodity markets fail, how they undermine food security and how poverty is made not fated. Lines unpicks the public policies, private standards and buyer power that impoverish but also discusses solutions; from prioritising food security not foreign trade, development of domestic and regional markets, reform of commodity markets and development of global competition policy to tackle the concentration of corporate power.' --Geoff Tansey, writer and consultant, Joseph Rowntree Visionary for a Just and Peaceful World and author of 'The Food System' and 'The Future Control of Food'
'Tom Lines combines a lifelong commitment to development with a thorough knowledge of the complexities of global markets. Cutting expertly through economic jargon and myth, he explains why markets, far from being neutral, reflect the power and politics of those who govern them, determining who wins and who loses from globalization. You don't have to agree with every detail of his analysis to learn from this salutary reminder that the current boom in commodity prices is not the end of a history of commodity dependence which has left deep scars on the developing world.' --Duncan Green, head of research, Oxfam GB
'Thomas Lines explains with science and erudite, committed scholarship why it is necessary to understand the History of Poverty in order to make poverty history. Historically embedded structures of production and international trade make peasant farmers of the South hostage to a value chain from which they pick up crumbs, whilst traders and financiers accumulate wealth. The answer is not to find a place in the existing value chain, but to break it. This book must form part of an obligatory learning discipline by all who care to make poverty history.' --Yash Tandon, Executive Director, South Centre
'Tom Lines combines a lifelong commitment to development with a thorough knowledge of the complexities of global markets. Cutting expertly through economic jargon and myth, he explains why markets, far from being neutral, reflect the power and politics of those who govern them, determining who wins and who loses from globalization. You don't have to agree with every detail of his analysis to learn from this salutary reminder that the current boom in commodity prices is not the end of a history of commodity dependence which has left deep scars on the developing world.' --Duncan Green, head of research, Oxfam GB
'Thomas Lines explains with science and erudite, committed scholarship why it is necessary to understand the History of Poverty in order to make poverty history. Historically embedded structures of production and international trade make peasant farmers of the South hostage to a value chain from which they pick up crumbs, whilst traders and financiers accumulate wealth. The answer is not to find a place in the existing value chain, but to break it. This book must form part of an obligatory learning discipline by all who care to make poverty history.' --Yash Tandon, Executive Director, South Centre
Product Description
As prices collapse and farming becomes commercialized, swallowed up by the global supply chains of giant food corporations and supermarkets, a desperate situation is emerging in which there could soon be little place left for the hundreds of millions of smallholders across the world. The situation is only set to deteriorate further if global policies do not change. The author argues that recent debates about world trade negotiations have only highlighted part of the problem: we must turn our attention instead to wider economic policies, the workings of the markets themselves and the division of power along the supply chains, to establish a practical set of solutions. Combining analytical rigour with a clearly accessible examination of the key factors, the author deftly points to the forms that these solutions could take.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Thomas Lines, a freelance consultant in international agricultural markets, has written a most persuasive book on how to end poverty. He points out that poor countries have small populations, are remote, depend on exporting primary commodities to the global market, and import more food than they export. Three quarters of the world's 1.2 billion poorest people live in rural areas.
Lines writes that the IMF and World Bank `promote and protect the interests of global capital'. They claim that the market lifts food prices, benefiting the poor. Instead, world food prices have halved since 1960. Twelve of the world's poorest countries are poorer than in 1985. In Britain, since 1988, the prices that farmers got for their produce have risen by just 3.4%: retail food prices rose by more than 50%.
Global free markets have benefited speculators and supermarkets, not producers or consumers, producing `unfathomable wealth for those who have worked in finance'. Investors speculate in primary commodities, turning 2007's food price problem into 2008's world food crisis. The supermarkets have become the masters, the price makers, controlling global supplies.
Lines proposes that national governments, not the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation, should decide their own policies. Governments should stop relying on exports to volatile commodity markets: rural policy should start from national food security, not foreign trade. Governments should support domestic agriculture and the production of staple foods, feeding their own people first. Governments should cut corporate power and raise agricultural workers' wages. Governments should raise and stabilise agricultural products' international prices. Governments should promote domestic and regional trade, especially in staple foods.
Lines finishes by writing, "this approach is the only humane one and it has to be pursued, in the face of the powerful vested interest that will inevitably oppose it."
Lines writes that the IMF and World Bank `promote and protect the interests of global capital'. They claim that the market lifts food prices, benefiting the poor. Instead, world food prices have halved since 1960. Twelve of the world's poorest countries are poorer than in 1985. In Britain, since 1988, the prices that farmers got for their produce have risen by just 3.4%: retail food prices rose by more than 50%.
Global free markets have benefited speculators and supermarkets, not producers or consumers, producing `unfathomable wealth for those who have worked in finance'. Investors speculate in primary commodities, turning 2007's food price problem into 2008's world food crisis. The supermarkets have become the masters, the price makers, controlling global supplies.
Lines proposes that national governments, not the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation, should decide their own policies. Governments should stop relying on exports to volatile commodity markets: rural policy should start from national food security, not foreign trade. Governments should support domestic agriculture and the production of staple foods, feeding their own people first. Governments should cut corporate power and raise agricultural workers' wages. Governments should raise and stabilise agricultural products' international prices. Governments should promote domestic and regional trade, especially in staple foods.
Lines finishes by writing, "this approach is the only humane one and it has to be pursued, in the face of the powerful vested interest that will inevitably oppose it."
Format:Paperback
I have no issue with financial instruments that, e.g., guarantee a farmer a price for his crop at the end of the season. He toils hard at the land and deserves to get the highest reward he can achieve. Similarly, the buyer benefits by eliminating untimely peaks and troughs just when they need to take physical delivery of a raw material to then add value in creating their product.
What riles me are the suits who speculate on these instruments and ratchet what is intended to be a stabiliser into nothing short of a casino that perpetuates the plight of the world's poorest people and widens the obscene gap between them and the soft-handed, champagne-swilling greed merchants.
Tom Lines talks good sense. This is a thought-provoking walk through financial history and concludes with some credible recommendations to restore order - I commend it to you as essential reading in the current economic climate.
What riles me are the suits who speculate on these instruments and ratchet what is intended to be a stabiliser into nothing short of a casino that perpetuates the plight of the world's poorest people and widens the obscene gap between them and the soft-handed, champagne-swilling greed merchants.
Tom Lines talks good sense. This is a thought-provoking walk through financial history and concludes with some credible recommendations to restore order - I commend it to you as essential reading in the current economic climate.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Good proposals for ending poverty
1 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback
Thomas Lines, a freelance consultant in international agricultural markets, has written a most persuasive book on how to end poverty. He points out that poor countries have small populations, are remote, depend on exporting primary commodities to the global market, and import more food than they export. Three quarters of the world's 1.2 billion poorest people live in rural areas.
Lines writes that the IMF and World Bank `promote and protect the interests of global capital'. They claim that the market lifts food prices, benefiting the poor. Instead, world food prices have halved since 1960. Twelve of the world's poorest countries are poorer than in 1985. In Britain, since 1988, the prices that farmers got for their produce have risen by just 3.4%: retail food prices rose by more than 50%.
Global free markets have benefited speculators and supermarkets, not producers or consumers, producing `unfathomable wealth for those who have worked in finance'. Investors speculate in primary commodities, turning 2007's food price problem into 2008's world food crisis. The supermarkets have become the masters, the price makers, controlling global supplies.
Lines proposes that national governments, not the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation, should decide their own policies. Governments should stop relying on exports to volatile commodity markets: rural policy should start from national food security, not foreign trade. Governments should support domestic agriculture and the production of staple foods, feeding their own people first. Governments should cut corporate power and raise agricultural workers' wages. Governments should raise and stabilise agricultural products' international prices. Governments should promote domestic and regional trade, especially in staple foods.
Lines finishes by writing, "this approach is the only humane one and it has to be pursued, in the face of the powerful vested interest that will inevitably oppose it."
Lines writes that the IMF and World Bank `promote and protect the interests of global capital'. They claim that the market lifts food prices, benefiting the poor. Instead, world food prices have halved since 1960. Twelve of the world's poorest countries are poorer than in 1985. In Britain, since 1988, the prices that farmers got for their produce have risen by just 3.4%: retail food prices rose by more than 50%.
Global free markets have benefited speculators and supermarkets, not producers or consumers, producing `unfathomable wealth for those who have worked in finance'. Investors speculate in primary commodities, turning 2007's food price problem into 2008's world food crisis. The supermarkets have become the masters, the price makers, controlling global supplies.
Lines proposes that national governments, not the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation, should decide their own policies. Governments should stop relying on exports to volatile commodity markets: rural policy should start from national food security, not foreign trade. Governments should support domestic agriculture and the production of staple foods, feeding their own people first. Governments should cut corporate power and raise agricultural workers' wages. Governments should raise and stabilise agricultural products' international prices. Governments should promote domestic and regional trade, especially in staple foods.
Lines finishes by writing, "this approach is the only humane one and it has to be pursued, in the face of the powerful vested interest that will inevitably oppose it."
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