Real World Economic Outlook: The Legacy of Globalization: Debt and Deflation [Paperback]

Kari Polanyi-Levitt Emeritus Professor of Economics, McGill University: "This first Real World Economic Outlook could not be more timely, as the world economy lurches from crisis to crisis toward a general debt deflation reminiscent of the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the opening chapter, Ann Pettifor, moving spirit and principal editor of this excellent initiative, explains that ‘globalization’ is driven by an instituted process of deregulation of financial capital from national and international control.
The contributors to this volume from North and South include eminent economists Joseph Stiglitz, Dani Rodrik, Robert Wade, and Herman Daly. The authors combine professional excellence with lucid styles of writing accessible to the general public. In the context of the gross imbalance of resources available to critics of economic globalization, Real World Economic Outlook is an essential and welcome corrective to the annual publications of the World Bank and the IMF."

Larry Elliott, The Guardian, London: "Too much of what passes as economic analysis is used to justify the status quo. This book provides absolutely the right diagnosis of globalisation. It tells it as it really is."

Vandana Shiva, Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi: "In the unreal world of corporate spin and wars fought for fictitious reasons, Real World Economic Outlook, brought out by a group of engaged and rooted economists, gives a much-needed reality check about the mess we're in and ways for getting out of it."

Ed Mayo, ex-chair of Jubilee 2000 and new Director of the National Consumer Council, in the foreword to RWEO: "The publication of the first Real World Economic Outlook is a sign of the fast-growing maturity of the global justice movement. It exposes the reality that debt is as systemic a by-product as pollution or global warming of a global political economy locked into inequality and unsustainability. The emergence of a new era of geopolitical insecurity means that any such ideas, emerging from the alternative legitimacy of civil society rather than the captured institutions of the rich, may come to define our future."

+ NJONGONKULU, Archbishop of Capetown: "Many churchgoers read the gospel as it if it has no economics. Economics, they argue, is for specialists, not for them. But money, economics and inequality are at the heart of the scriptures. Africans, particularly those in the new South Africa, are often blinded, and intimidated by the "science" of economics, and in particular by the economics of globalisation. This annual report on the global economy – the Real World Economic Outlook – lifts the veil of complexity behind which many economists hide, makes economics easy to understand and explains the mechanisms which have led to historically unprecedented inequalities between the many who are poor, and the few who are now incredibly rich. If we are to challenge this injustice, and the politicians and economists that perpetuate it, then it is vital that we educate ourselves, move beyond mere rhetoric, and begin to challenge the so-called "science" of economics. This book does just that!
, which is why it is essential reading for Africans – in particular those in the churches, in universities and in finance ministries.

Colin Hines, author of Localisation - a global manifesto, former head of Greenpeace International's Economics Unit and is an Associate of the International Forum on Globalization: "The strength and originality of ‘the real world economic outlook’ is that it doesn’t take the usual line that the only option available to tackle global decline is to tinker with globalisation. Instead it substantiates in detail the case for its unequivocal and courageous conclusion that ‘the great transformation’ lies in REVERSING this process. Their final conclusion that the coming US economic crisis could result in that country leading the world towards ‘localization’ tantalisingly rounds off this valuable, innovative and hope inducing report."

Tony Thirlwall, University of Kent: "For anyone wanting to understand the anti-globalization movement, Real World Economic Outlook should be their first port of call."